There is a HUGE spider just outside the door to the MCR computer lab. AAAH! I'm really not terribly afraid of spiders (I rather like them, actually, since they eat bugs I don't like), but this one is really big and rather menacing looking.
On with the news.
We've gotten our heater fixed in our flat. There were a few problems with it, mostly stemming from the fact that it hadn't been maintenanced like it should have. So the electrician came out today and fixed it up. Actually, we got a different one. Anyway, no more wearing layers to bed!
An even more amazing occurrence. My husband updated his web site!
Also, we have lots of pictures on the computer which I hope to get on one or both or our sites soon. These include pictures of our flat, the college, Simpkins, Andrew's matriculation, the first black tie dinner, and other 'bits and bobs'.
We have gotten bus passes. Although we both prefer to walk (my preference) or cycle (his), when it gets really cold or rainy that's just not realistic. So we have invested in 91-day passes for our bus zone which allow us unlimited use of the busses in all the areas we normally go. We figure at the end of January we can either buy another, shorter pass, or resume riding more regularly, but it had been so rainy and/or cold that we were having to bus more. This will at least get us through most of the coldest months.
I'm making a list of places I want to visit (both in the UK and on the continent) while we're here. As I read the Shelley biography it, of course, grows. The Shelley-inspired UK sites include some in London, Bath, and a little town called Lechlade that's just west of Oxford on the Thames. This town is very small - only about 3000 people - but the Shelleys visited it on a rowing trip up the Thames around 1820. They rowed up the Thames to Oxford (where Percy Bysche Shelley had been expelled a few years earier for failing to deny his authorship of a pamphlet on the necessity of atheism). After that, they stopped at Lechlade where they enjoyed a walk in the churchyard. He wrote a lovely poem about it. They stayed at the hotel which is still there. I would like to take the bus over and stay in the hotel sometime. They even call the churchyard 'Shelley's walk' after their visit. Neat! In fact, I wonder if PBShelley was there more than once. While the Lechlade web site indicates his poem was written in 1815, this would be before he and Mary ran off together, or the year after (I always forget if it was 1814 or 1816). The trip up the Thames I think was after they were married. I could be mistaken. Either way, it would be a cool place to visit.