The Breakfast Room

This is actually something new at Merton: the room where I'm having my class this year. In previous years, I've been in perfectly ordinary classrooms that might be found in any college setting anywhere in the world, but for some reason this year I'm in this beautiful sixteenth century room. (Since we're studying cosmology, maybe the scheduling office had a sense of humor and liked the contrast of viewing Powerpoint slides about black holes and quantum mechanics on a screen with drapes hanging on either side and a marble pedestal on top.)

The room next to this, where the group sitting at high table on a particular night assembles for drinks before dinner, is called the Queen's Room. Henrietta Marie, wife of Charles I, lived in these rooms for several months during the English civil wars in the 1640's.

St Michael graveyard

I always love old churchyards.

For your safety and comfort

I loved these upholstered cushions for kneeling in the church. So much more comfortable than the barely cushioned wooden kneelers I spent many uncomfortable hours of my childhood on.

Two windows at St Michael

St Michael and All Angels

Back to the Yorkshire Dales.

This 12th century church in the charmingly-named Hubberholme has an All Creatures Great and Small connection—the interior scenes for the wedding of the James Herriott character were filmed here—but it's a beautiful little church well worth a visit even if they'd never managed to squeeze a TV production crew inside it.

The author J.B. Priestley loved Hubberholme, and his ashes are buried in the churchyard.

I am actually back at Merton

The second week of the program started today, but this is the only picture I've taken at the college—the gates to the Fellows Garden on a perfect summer afternoon yesterday.

I have enough pictures from Yorkshire and more recent excursions to go through, and I think I've already photographed every square inch of Merton by now.

Sunday bird blogging

A rook perched on one of the sarsen stones at Stonehenge yesterday.

It's not a great picture, but at least I had a longer lens this year, so it's better than the tiny starlings I photographed there last year. At the time, I wrote, “I don't imagine I will ever get to post a picture of birds at Stonehenge again,” but I'll gladly make it a habit if I can.

Saturday reflections

It's surprising to me that it's only been two weeks since I took this picture—it feels like forever ago.

This is from the hot Sunday when I got lost in Oxford and at one point found myself in a tunnel underneath the Rewley swing bridge. It was kind of creepy actually, but the reflections were nice.

One more Yorkshire landscape

A last picture from the van as we drove through the Yorkshire Dales last weekend.

It's a little less "picturesque" maybe...

 ...but this is my favorite picture from Grassington: a side street off the main square, stone buildings, and a couple of bicycles.

More Grassington

I had a coffee and a scone at the Stripey Badger. Worth it just for the name, but the scone was also excellent.

Grassington

We took our midmorning break in this village in the Dales, which is now famous for starring as the fictional town of Darrowby in the latest TV version of All Creatures Great and Small, which has apparently done for the Yorkshire Dales what Outlander did for the Scottish Highlands. Apparently the producers picked Grassington because all they had to do was change the signs on the buildings and hide the cars and it would pass for the 1930's.