Being Made Redundant. So that whole job thing didn’t last too long. What amuses me more than anything is the extraordinary linguistic convolutions employed to distance anyone from responsibility. There’s a world of difference between a nice crisp “you’re fired” and a mealymouthed “you’re being made redundant.” Some unknown actor has caused this to happen; it’s out of my hands!

Escorting My Mother-in-Law About. Another excellent trip that this time did NOT include fearing for our lives on top of a wee mountain that tried to kill us in the Lake District. Instead we went to places like Lincoln Castle (old stuff, Magna Carta), Whitby (Captain Cook Museum, fish and chips), Robin Hood’s Bay (fossils, ice cream) and, one of my favorites, Lud’s Church (a chasm tucked away in the hills where persecuted church people held church services in the olden days):

And finally…

Throwing Up and Sleeping A Lot. I’m just going to leave this here:

Oi \ˈȯi\ interjection. Used to attract attention or to express exasperation or dismay. Almost exactly like American hey.

Scarper \ˈskär-pər\ intransitive verb. Flee, run away.

Spice \ˈspīs\ noun. Derbyshire for sweets (British for candy).

Plashy \ˈpla-shē\ adjective. Like splashy, but different: “Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole…” (Evelyn Waugh, Scoop)

Faff \ˈfaf\ verb, noun. Ineffectual activity and/or its results: one who faffs around producing faff is known as a faffer. Similar to American futz.

Bonus Office Learnings:
Nottinghamshire’s three meals are breakfast, dinner, and tea.
The train was meant to arrive on time (rather than supposed to).
“Send it me sharpish” = “Send it to me quickly/soon”.

Kevin had a rough couple of weeks there, in which he mysteriously lost every single one of his tail feathers. But now they are growing back in at a remarkable rate.

We didn’t see Kevinita for an entire month before she returned with four chicks who wouldn’t listen to a thing she said. Teenagers!

The rock garden from afar. Huge piles of limestone, probably, brought in and artfully arranged.

The Emperor Fountain (named in honor of Czar Nicholas I and his promised but unfulfilled visit), at full power the highest gravity-fed fountain (296 feet) in the world. Usually run at half height.

Lupins at the entrance to the maze, on the former site of the the Great Conservatory.

Woven sculpture by Laura Ellen Bacon.

An “honesty patch,” left to show how things looked before they cleaned and restored the murals.

An urn of Derbyshire Blue John, a fluorite found only in the Peak District. It usually doesn’t come in pieces this big.

There, there, little dog.

Cast-iron stairs cantilevered from the wall.

Chandelier featuring stags, one of the symbols of the Duke of Devonshire.

Bourton-on-the-Water. This particular body of water is so shallow, the ducks are actually standing on the bottom. Lazy ducks.

Old and fancy pub in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Mosaic of some dude in Stratford.

Bits of Christ Church College.

The Meadow Building, Christ Church.

Alice’s Shop—the shop that inspired the Old Sheep Shop in Through the Looking- Glass. Now it sells ridiculously overpriced Alice memorabilia.

This is an image from a “save the world and all the baby bunnies!” exhibit they had scattered around the town centre. The subject is the greater mouse-eared bat, distinguished for being the very rarest of British bats; a single one lives all by himself in an undisclosed southern location. Stephan likes to tell me that he spends all his time hanging upside down in his cave crying little bat tears: “Why? Why?“

Of arguably more interest:

A view.

Bath station (our hotel on the left).

Bath Abbey door.

Theatre Royal, Bath.

Inside, waiting for The Pitmen Painters to begin.

A portion built by George IV. “G” for George, “R” for rex (Latin for king), “IIIJ” for The Fourth—the “J” is just an “I” with a tail acting as punctuation so no one could come along later and add another one.

St George’s Chapel, a fine example of English Perpendicular Gothic architecture.

Market Cross House, circa 1718, alongside Windsor’s Queen Charlotte Street, officially the shortest street in Britain (51 feet, 10 inches).

Fancy Victorian postbox in Windsor. No word on why this one is green instead of red, like normal.