Rain, rain go away...

Not much to update today. Its been raining on and off for the last couple days. Mostly yesterday and especially today it has been raining. Cold, damp rain as the temperatures are in the low 60s today so it feels a bit more bitter than it normally would. Not much you can do either outside so I have been spending my free time trying to get ahead of things for the fall. I have been reading a bunch too, just finishing Michael Palin's New Europe, which is the companion book to his latest travel series (available on BBC video and it shows up on the Travel Channel from time to time). I am about to start a new history book, The Plot against Pepys, which from the blurb on the back is about why Samuel Pepys was arrested in 1679 and imprisoned. Pepys is famous for writing an intimate diary throughout the 1660s, which gives us some of the best insights into the court of Charles II. However, he was also a government minister and he was imprisoned on rather spurious charges. So I am going to throw myself into this before I take up one of the fiction books I brought with me or finish book 3 of the late David Gemmel's Troy series.

Yesterday was back to classes, then off to dinner for two of the girls who had birthdays. We ate at the Noodle Bar which is a fairly inexpensive and filling new age Asian restaurant. A bunch of people headed back to the campus pub that was open last night for a pint or two before they called last call at 10:30 and I was in bed by 11:30. Nothing like waking up to pouring rain...cold, pouring rain, enough to consider putting the heat on. But I haven't resorted to that quite yet though all the windows are closed at the moment. Tomorrow it is off to do something I haven't done before in Oxford: get a haircut and beard trim. I am pretty sure I am for some serious sticker shock, but it is necessary if I am not to look like a bush man before I return home.

Friday is moving day, so we are headed off to Steven's Close for the last three weeks. It is also the day we head off to Blenheim Palace again and this time I think I am going to take the walk into the village of Woodstock before rejoining the group when we head off to Burford and then the Cotswold Wildlife Park.

Will write more soon...