And it's the first day of school!

Again!

The first first day was back in August.

They went to school for three whole days, and then we left for England-Germany-England.

Here they are on their second first day. Don't they look so smart in their uniforms?

Kathryn is in Year Six, which is really 5th grade, and so I guess she's repeating a grade. If she were to go on to Year Seven, she would have to go to the high school in Grantham, and it's just easier to have her in the village school (less than a mile's walk away) with Rebecca.

Rebecca should really be in Year Two (1st grade), but that class was full so they placed her in Year One. They 'tested' her today and decided at she might be bored in Year One, and so she's going to Year Three, as long as it works out socially. They told her all this beforehand, and when John went to pick her up from school, she explained the whole situation and declared, "So I'm going to give it a go!"

Didn't take her long to pick up a little British!

We had some special guests at the manor today

A group from The Old Vic came and performed some scenes from Romeo and Juliet, using the Great Hall's balcony for the balcony scene. No pictures, unfortunately.

But afterwards, there was a question/answer session, and we WERE allowed to take pictures. It's not a great shot, but I think you can tell who came...

It was a brilliant evening.

Opening convocation and the High Table dinner

We processed down the Cedar Staircase behind the bagpiper, Billy James:

Here's a better picture of Billy:

Listening to the convocation speech in the Long Gallery:

That evening, we missed the principal's reception in the Great Hall, because our fancy academic robes were locked in a closet and there was a little trouble finding the key...

But we did make it to dinner in the Long Gallery

complete with more bagpipes.

Classes started today. Pictures of me teaching wouldn't be particularly interesting, so there aren't any.

August 14-15: Germany, day 1

Day one was loooooooooooooooong. In retrospect, we were a little nuts. Or I was, since I made the crazy decisions. It was a planes, trains and automobile day.

Automobile: Drove to Evansville airport.
Planes: Flew from Evansville to Detroit. Sat around for 3 hours. Flew from Detroit to London. Sat around for 6 hours. Flew from London to Frankfurt.
Trains: Caught the train from Frankfurt to Bingen, which is on the Rhine.

The stretch of the Rhine that we were interested in seeing doesn't have any bridges, so it can be slightly convoluted to get from a town on one side to a nearby town on the other. Since the train we were on goes on the 'wrong' side of the river, we needed to change to a train on the 'right' side. We got rather confused when we arrived in Bingen, and convinced ourselves that the train sitting RIGHT THERE couldn't possibly be the one we wanted. So we didn't get on. It was. The next train came an hour later. It was a long day - we arrived in Bacharach at 7:30 pm on 8/15. We had left Evansville at 1 pm on 8/14. The entire trip took 23.5 hours.

But worth it, because this is Bacharach.

Bacharach has a castle. Today it's a youth hostel. We didn't stay there; I couldn't imagine climbing to it laden with luggage.

Dinner was Döner and pizza. Not traditionally German, but yummy, and more importantly, still open.

I can't believe I'll be teaching in this room this semester

I think the students are going to be a little distracted. Heck, I think I'm going to be a little distracted. I mean, the view out the windows is something like this:

And the building looks like this:

Unfortunately (not really) I sleep in a different building.

Happy birthday to me!

I shopped for myself this year, and told everyone else not to bother.

With perfect timing, both packages showed up on the doorstep this morning.

That's one summer top for me (teal), one backpack for Kathryn (deep blue, from a pattern that's in the book), one summer top for Becca (the rest of the blues and the green), and one pretty dark red something - maybe a shawl - for me.

At least, that's what they'll be someday.

Trying again...

A little randomly for now, until I get caught up a little.

No, I haven't managed to take a picture every day. Either my life is rather routine, or I have little imagination. Probably some of both.

On April 6 or so I cast-on for a little shrug for Kathryn. She wanted it for Easter.
By late evening I had made good progress!

No other interim pictures, but I got done for Easter dinner! Didn't make it in time for church though.

It fits!

(Pictures were actually taken on Mon, Apr 25. Easter was a tad busy.)