Can you say "pie"? How many ways?

This will have to be brief because breakfast is at 8:30 tomorrow morning and we want to be on our way from Torquay to Tintagel tomorrow right afterward so that we can see as much as possible along the way. These comments are coming in no particular order as I have so little time on-line but did want to touch base tonight. We started our B&B tour last night at Amberley Castle near Arundel, just a little northeast of Brighton. That was one amazing experience which I will write about later. My thought had been that we would pop down to Brighton and stop on the way in Arundel to eat at the Black Rabbit, a pub recommended by my friend Scott who grew up nearby. We never made it to Brighton, as we were gob-smacked at our first sight of Arundel, a town of jaw-dropping beauty. There is a magnificent cathedral and other church buildings as Amberley Castle was for centuries a summer home to bishops. However, Arundel has its own huge castle where the current Earl still lives and where the touring company from the Globe will be presenting a couple of plays in August in its courtyard. We did not get to see inside the tall castle walls. Instead we drove around and about the narrow streets gawking at the incredible spectrum of historic architecture seemingly spanning every era of English history. Then off we went along the road to find the Black Rabbit pub, which sits beside the river Arun, with an uninterrupted view across a wide wetlands to a wooded hillside where Arundel Castle rises in all its glory. We sat at a table by the water and stuffed ourselves with the most delicious hot chicken and ham pie on mustard mashed potatoes with fresh veggies. We watched a grebe of merganzer catch and eat a little eel, we think. Jan had a local brew called Lemony Cricket and I had a double JD. I love the old buildings but they do not love me and my allergies required the JD for medicinal purposes as well as for pleasure. Back we went to the Castle at Amberley where I indulged in a deep bath and went to bed much restored. Today was our longest journey through beautiful countryside, above valleys, through the new forest and past small towns until we began to see a change in the foliage (palm trees here and there!) and pastel colours on large Victorian houses and hotels - we had arrived at Torquay on the English Riviera!

Melton Mowbray pie on July 6

On Tuesday July 6 we spent the morning on wifi (£5/2 hrs) & phone putting time on the UK cell that Jim & Lila lent us + trying to get into the UK apps store so we could download GPS for England onto this iPad. We booked a tour for Wednesday. I called and left a message for Jamie but of course couldn't remember our cell phone #! Maybe he'll text back. But I have the number now so can always call him later. Jamie is a close friend of Erin's who we are going to meet on the 8th &/or 9th, and we will see the play Money on the 9th at the Shunt theatre where he works. We finally set off on the tube to Leiscester Square where we got discount tix for 39 Steps for tonight at Piccadilly Circus and for Oliver! tomorrow night at Covent Garden. We walked around the square and stoped for lunch at the Moon Under Water pub, sitting at an outdoor table across from the green. I had a pint of cider and Melton Mowbray pie. Jan had a pint of ale with cheese and onion tart. Delish! After lunch we walked up through Soho - shocking! (ha,ha) - and were surprised at how many London streets are malled off. You know I have lots of notes and observations about this trip, pretty well all positive, but no time to share them. So I am very likely going to remain a day or two behind. Miss everyone, but delighted to be here.

St. Paul's cathedral

It's Wednesday afternoon, and I am sitting in the crypt at st. Paul's cathedral waiting for Jan to come back from climbing the 500+ stairs to the whisper gallery, the base of the dome and the top of the dome! and worrying a little bit that we will not have time for our tour of the tower of london as planned. Tickets bought o line for today are good for a week, so we can always go tomorrow. However, did plan for today. The tower closes at 5:30 and it is already after 3:00. Oh, well. I am enjoying the rest after the tube lead us through several long walks underground on our route to get here. We started at charring cross station, directly in front of the route 15 bus stop. I pointed out that the bus was direct to both st. Paul's and the tower, but Jan thought that the underground would be faster: the northern line to one stop and the central line to the cathedral. Hah! I say, Hah! 

Well, it was worth the trip. St. Paul's is magnificent and from certain vantage points the intersecting curving lines of the upper architecture is quite simply dizzying. Then there is the opulent iconography, and the carved and gilted woodwork and pillars, the wrought iron gateways, the marble statuary, and the memorials that stretch back beyond the great fire of 1666. Not only are nobles buried here, but also many of the great heroes and thinkers of various times. And a few of their wives. Funny how there are always so few women considered worthy of these memorials. But there are some and I will look them up the book I just bought. Well Jan is back. Time to go to the tower.

What I did on my English vacation

So here we are at last, waiting to board our flight to England. The attendant has just called the first group to board. We did't buy the Plus package so that would not be us. But I am content to wait my turn. After all, I have waited this long to go abroad to England. What's another few minutes?

Happy Spring!

This may be a bit of a repeat, but since I just sent this update summary to a friend, I thought I would share the gist of it on catscupboard:

Happy Spring! I am heading into a lovely stretch where I actually have spare time again. A bound copy of my M Ed thesis arrived this week, just in time for my grad photo tomorrow - convocation in June. I got into the VP pool but have nothing more to do there than await an appointment to a school sometime over the next 2 years (well, I will look at other options if nothing happens by the end of June). So I am beginning to go back to my own writing in my spare time, and will be doing a poetry/lyric reading along with a few other writers on April 18 at an event called Poetry in Motion, interspersed with Swing, Rumba, and Tango demonstrations and a group Swing Dance lesson at the end of the evening. Should be fun. And that is the ticket, isn't it? Gotta love what you do. Keep taking good care of yourself and each other. And enjoy this great weather.

With all my options open

Now why is it that some folks can blog like mad, and I trail off very quickly after every attempt to take this up on a weekly if not daily basis. Maybe they have more time in their daily lives. Or maybe...oh, well. Nevermind. The thing is, at the moment I do have more time than I have had for the past several years. Things on the big list are getting ticked off. And not only that, but the 5-year plan is rolling to a close and it is getting time to start a new one. The lovely bit is that all my options are open. On November 2, 2009, I successfully defended my M Ed thesis. I was reminded of that the other day when the bound copies arrived via Purolator. Brock U kept 3 for the libraries there, and I ordered an extra 3 for the kids, I guess. Anyway, I have 4 including the one with the original documents in it. But my point is that my birthday fell on Friday, October 30 last year, so that on November 2, the day I defended my thesis, I also became fully vested in my OT Pension Plan - I hit my 85 factor. There was a bit of discussion about future research (there are some folks who really like my M Ed thesis, and there is one who likes the research I had intended to do on the history of specialty arts education in Ontario before I got sidetracked into organizational studies and accountability in a non-profit educational organization). So, you know, one option that also opened up that day was the possibility of doing a dissertation and completing my doctorate. Don't think that is going to happen. As it turns out, I have become far more interested in administrative work than in taking more courses or doing more teaching, all of which would be part and parcel of completing a doctorate. Oh, and I am also not interested in doing any more part-time graduate work. So the only way that option could remain viable would be for an institution to fund me, nay, to pay me to work full-time at completing said doctorate. Still a possibility, but more and more a remote one. However, the interest in administration is where I turned my attention next. I had my application package for the Vice Principals' pool in on January 15, 2010. My interview was March 2, and I heard on March 4 that I had made it into the pool. At a meeting this past Monday, I learned that I remain in that pool for up to 2 years, and that while it is not attached to a score, or time, or seniority - I may not get a posting to a school as a Vice-Principal for up to 2 years. Or ever! Hmmmm. Well, in the meantime, I am going to complete the transformation of WexLibrary that I started in 2006. There are a number of fairly large loose ends to tie up. However, come the end of June, if I have not been appointed as a VP, I really will have to consider my other options. I didn't mention anything other than doctoral work? Oh, no. There are lots of other possibilities. I could do the research and writing for the history chapter of the book that will come out of that one professor's work. I could make the leap from education to direct a small non-profit. I could vie for a district or ministry level job. Or I could retire from education, and open the Cat's Cupboard, a consignment only gallery of fine crafts with a back room designed for showing art, rehearsing and presenting dance and drama, poetry readings on Sunday afternoons, Jazz on Thursday nights. Whatever. All of my options are open.

Once again, I am going to try to keep this blog current. However, somehow I have managed to have two versions of a Twitter update in the right side bar. Can't seem to reduce it to one. Not sure how many of these navel gazing things I actually want or need - twitter, blog, and facebook - and I think I have something on a couple of songwriting sites that I never update. Nevertheless, I am going to try blogging once again. Can't promise it will be very often, but certainly more often. I will look to see where it crops up on other parts of my very small web presence and see if I can't get them all coordinated somehow. As for tonight, it is after 11 and I really should be in bed by 10. The GO train leaves at 6:35 in the morning, which means the alarm will sound before 5:30. I was at an in-service for VP candidates tonight from 4:30-630 - interesting, on Implementing the School Effectiveness Framework (the SEF, not to be confused with the SIP), quite enjoyable in fact. It was on Lawrence close to the Allen Expressway. I took the southern route through TO rather than popping up to the 401, so with a stop at my bank and our bank, I didn't get home until 8:00. Too beat to talk about insurance transition that is necessary when one reaches the age of 65 as has my husband. Told him that conversation would have to wait for the weekend. Now he is sleeping soundly, and I am still buzzing around - time to pack it in! I am working with a few staff members and students from the Poetry subcommittee and we have to have the manuscript for the first Literary Arts Journal ready to submit on Friday. I know that the next three days are not going to be anywhere near as taxing as the first 2 months of this year, yet I am so on beyond zebra exhausted by it all that I can't quite see how we are going to do it. I just have faith that we will. 'Night all!