I've been packed since the 23rd and in a state of "well, now what" since then.

Dog has been given to a friend to dogsit whilst I am gone.

laid low by ennui

I'm waffling between bringing my (smaller, mostly just internet browser) work laptop, or my personal (larger, able to install my own programs) laptop or NO laptop.

I don't technically need one. And in theory I should be Going to London and Seeing and Doing Things while there.

But also I'm leading a class during the day and will be spending 4-8 hours a day out of the hotel and at various Places of Interest.

And I know that, mentally, I'm going to need some me time.

(I have tickets to the Globe for one night on my own already)

(Gonna see All's Well that Ends Well at the candlelit indoors theatre)

planning downtime is important uAu

PLACES I AM TAKING MY CLASS: Highgate Cemetery, the British Museum, the British Library, the Keats' House Museum, the Dickens House Museum, the Foundling Museum, the Tate Museum, the Tower of London

that is many places!

Bath (the city) and Oxford where we're getting a tour of St. John's and the surrounding area by my friend Matt and then meeting with Tamsyn to talk about her writing process.

We're going on a Bram Stoker walking tour (daytime), a Jack the Ripper walking tour (nighttime) and we're going to see Hadestown as a class in the West End.

ohoho

I think. I'm going to bring. My personal laptop.

nods deeply

It should still fit in my messenger bag.

I've required my students to join a Discord and post things for various museum visits.

And I cannot install Discord on my university laptop. :\

(I know, there's a browser version, but still)

We get back Jan 8th. THE FIRST DAY OF CLASS whoops.

Because I have to be at the airport at 7pm and I lose an hour driving there and I need to get dinner BEFORE the flight... I have to leave in like 40 minutes.

oops

HAVE A SAFE JOURNEY

THANK

Safe journey!

THANK

AN FAREWELL CATTE??

Safe journey! Let Catte bring good luck!

Catto!

And good luck!

they will guard the home

ate good Japanese dinner in Atlanta before getting to the airport.

:9

oishii

waiting for the student to arrive.

Safe journey!!! I do genuinely enjoy London!

If you're going to places dotted along the Thames - I suggest using the Thames Clipper, they're little catamarans that go along the river and have drop-off points all along it. The quickest way around the city as a whole though is always gonna be the Underground -might be a tick if you've got a gaggle of students to wrangle but absolutely cheaper than taxis

I've got 4500 tube station connections planned out

I've got a small group, only 6 students

The hotel is in Mayfair.

Buckingham Palace within a 15 minute walk.

have fun, have a wonderful trip! may the catte bring good tidings

soon 🛫

there you gooo

Good morning from the plane where inexplicably I have free wifi and no sleep.

Powerful

landed at 12:30. bus to hotel was supposed to arrive at 1. arrived at 2. hour to hotel.

no sleep in 24 hours.

it's now 2:30. last orientation is supported to be

at 2pm.

i.thunk we're not gonna make it

my spelling belies my sleepinesse

Oh you're READy

and oooh Mayfair, NICE

I'm SO TIRED

it's 8:00 p.m. I've made it as late as I planned to I'm going to bed

the absolute ninney who is in charge of orientation because we got in too late moved orientation just to at 3:45 and then we didn't have the students try riding the tube until 5pm. Rush hour on the Piccadilly line.

a bunch of people just decided to leave. they just left.

also when I checked into my hotel there was part of a chicken sandwich from Tesco in the refrigerator.

so when I told the front desk this they were mortified and insisted they never heard of anything so terrible ever happening in this hotel before and they would do everything in their power to rectify it and they got me some fruit and some wine

oh ew on the sandwich but glad they tried to make good on it!

also rush hour on Picadilly is absolute fucking hell, you have my sympathies

hotel restaurant Cocky

😐

cackles

WESTMINSTER ABBEY PHOTODUMP GO

TATE BRITAIN PHOTODUMP, GO:

Yes, that is the cool leaning guy funeral effigy pose.

ST. PANCRAS OLD, BRITISH LIBRARY, TOWER OF LONDON

woo!

the last image is Mary Wollstonecraft's grave, before she was dug up and moved somewhere else. The English love digging people up and sticking them in different churchyards.

they rob their own graves, so it's fine when they do it elsewhere.

When we got to the British Library we discovered that, haha, the special collections exhibits we're all closed. They had only announced this last week. After I was done with the schedule. 🙃

so I convened the class in the library's cafe, I had a slice of Victoria Sponge, and we talked about places we've gone the previous day. Also the towels in the Men's Room was a roll towel, an item I have not seen an over a decade.

it's me at the Roman wall

we love a bunch of engravings from prisoners trapped inside of a jail who evidently just carved things into stone in their free time beautifully and perfectly

Sir Walter Raleigh and also weaponry

Well, if you're in prison you got the time

Uh, King Henry VIII, you might want to take care of something there.

more armors

"It's not like I like you or anything."

he's just a little guy

spaghetti good enough for Keanu

now I can be a true Scotsman

LET'S GO TO BATH

you can tell it's bath because everything is just light yellow colored stone and also there is a large bath

abandon your Christian God, children!

"Baby, I'm going to take you down to..."

WALKIN BACK FROM WAGAMAMA'S

HIGHGATE CEMETERY AND HAMPSTEAD HEATH

fuckin poundland

6 years free of that hell next month and I still get full body shivers when I see one

Teeff: how do you live without the amazing value

amazing value every day!!!

George Michael's grave

Christina Rossetti's grave.

Radclyffe Hall's tomb

I had the veggie breakfast for lunch and it was fantastic.

Salad with raspberry vinaigrette, sauteed spinach, grilled portabello mushrooms, halloumi cheese, vegetable sausage, baked beans, eggs on whole grain toast.

oooh

we ended our tramp through Hampstead Heath at the Spaniards Inn where I had a old fashioned as I am an old man.

Nice

BRITISH MUSEUM

We went to the Hew Locke exhibit on colonialism in the museum archives

A fine collection of Stuart Monarchs going :-/ :-| :-V

Bram Stoker Walking Tour

it says FLICKER ALLEY

KEATS HOUSE and SURPRISE JIM HENSON CAMEO

CANDLELIT SHAKESPEARE THEATER

VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM HIGHLIGHTS (FOR CHILDREN)

the entrance: the excellence of every art must consist in the complete accomplishment of its purpose

hot guy miniature, possibly Satan

Henry VIII got hit by the face shrinking ray

17th century decorative porcelain figures that I'm sorry I love so much because they're not very good but I love them and the ones with strange bodies are called NOBODIES.

18th century dress silk wefeelgroove where are you

a profusion of copies of every statue

the only good paintings

tapestries somehow

Margaret Thatcher from that one Genesis music video

so I heard Jesus was ripped, I heard our lord had an 8-pack

lunch

kimono

ST PAUL'S CATHEDRAL CHORAL EVENSONG

I love V&A

anyway that candlelit Shakespeare looked cool as hell!!!

IT WAS SUPER GREAT.

he said much later

there was a little spot at the end of my bench that confused me because if anyone sat there they had no place to put one of their legs and there is a pillar blocking most of the stage

so anyway during the play one of the characters ran up and sat next to me and started crying

FOUNDLING HOSPITAL

some of our favourite orphans like Tom Riddle and Becky Sharp.

also, my coat of arms will also have the word help at the bottom but I think perhaps fewer than eight breasts on one person.

the last pictures are tokens left with infants meant to be able to identify them if their mothers ever came back to reclaim them. fewer than 2% did.

last one is a bust of a guy I could cosplay as

Handel left some of his music to the foundling hospital in his will and you can see two pages of his will; one early page where his signature is good and one page page near the end of his life where his signature is very bad.

cheeky Nandos for lunch

DICKENS MUSEUM

sanic and Dickens's wine prison

my student's hedgehog and the Peter panbulance

PUB DINNER AND HADESTOWN

OHHHH HADESTOWN I hope you enjoyed!!!

it was very good

Peter Panbulance....

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

one of my students is an artist and she has been drawing everyone in the class

STRAWBERRY HILL HOUSE

I love the wizard glass

ITS NOT WALLPAPER ITS WOOLEN FABRIC FROM SPECIAL, GLOSSY SHEEP

I should add that the complicated ceilings that look like stone work is paper mache

AFTERNOON TEA AT STRAWBERRY HILL

The sandwiches were stone ground mustard and ham, salmon and cream cheese, and rhubarb compote with rocket Cheddar.

The scone came with strawberry jam and clotted cream and then the cakes were lemon drizzle, raspberry jam, and carrot cake.

god I wanna go see Hadestown

ooooh nice a proper cream tea then

£24 a person but it was worth it.

yeee the big fancy ones on those circular pyramid plate displays are pricey but so good