If you scroll down and look to the right, you’ll see that I’ve finally updated my Flickr account with a handful of pictures from my recent school trip to England and Scotland.  The trip was good, with an almost identical itinerary compared to our last trip, which was the fall before Covidtide.

I learned a lot logistically, particularly about the importance of group size and how packing out a day does an injustice to everywhere except the locations you visit in the morning.  Only one of our days was packed more than usual, but it felt like time to sit and relax was fleeting.  Part of that boils down to helping out those who get lost or who don’t feel well, which is understandable.  Part of it, maybe, was the group size.  And maybe familiarity has something to do with it?  Time will tell, I think.  I do look forward to looking back on the trip with fondness as time goes on.

One highlight of the trip was that we got to see a Shakespeare performance while in Stratford-on-Avon.  Last time, we also got to see a Shakespeare performance, but King John isn’t exactly considered “top tier Shakespeare.”  This time, we got to see Macbeth, which was quite good.  The play was set in a near-future dystopia, but you wouldn’t know it except for the costuming.  The acting was well-done; the staging was great.  You get the sense that they knew their audience would be tempted to nod off into sleep because of scenes with clanging pots and fire shooting up through the stage floor.  I will admit to almost nodding off a couple of times (though both times I caught myself).

There were other differences, of course.  One of our favorite hotels, which we have requested three times over the years, has not fully recovered from lockdowns and Covid.  For some reason (a seasonal thing, perhaps?) the actors that usually perform in the round at Shakespeare’s birthplace were not around (though they should be back by now).  Some consolation came for that loss with a reading of Robert Burns’s “To a Mouse” by a local in Edinburgh.  The other big difference was the location of our last-night ceilidh dinner show.  At first we thought it was completely different from the performers from our last two trips.  The venue was much smaller, but the haggis tasted much better.  And, it turned out, the performers were almost exactly the same.  They did work in a set of more recent pop songs into all of their traditional Scottish fare, but I didn’t mind.  It’s always good to hear a rendition of the energetic music of the Proclaimers.

I’m grateful for the trip, always thankful for the opportunity to visit a beautiful place far away.  I could do without running to the gate (twice) in the Frankfurt airport, but I’m grateful that I made it both times.   I’m glad the trip happened, just like I’m glad to be on this side of it.  As the wall above the entrance to Skipton Castle states: desormais.

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Other fun moments:

• As always, eating lunch at the Marks & Spencer cafe;
• Having afternoon tea in Ambleside by Lake Windermere;
• Getting a not-yet-released-in-America copy of Francis Spufford’s new book;
• Sitting down to fish and chips in Skipton after not getting to do so twice elsewhere.

Biggest surprise of the trip: Doctor Who merchandise was almost impossible to find.  Finally found some in Edinburgh on the very last day.  It was almost eery how little anyone seemed to know about the Doctor.