Mary and I converged at the Pret a Manger in Terminal 3 at Heathrow yesterday morning around 8:30am, which is perfect because it’s my usual breakfast haunt when I’m here. This time we’re staying at Alwyn Lodge, which is more like staying at someone’s house than a B&B. Yesterday was a Bank Holiday, and it was all anyone could talk about. Each and every person we encountered reminded us of this fact, and when we got to the University to register I was teasing our British colleagues—What, five weeks of vacation a year isn’t enough for you? Mary was asking what exactly it meant, Bank Holiday? Was there one for each bank? And I pointed out that if that were the case in the U.S., we’d only have three.
Departing from our usual habit of taking public transportation, we decided to take a taxi. The one we picked up at the airport was apparently a replica of the common taxi model of the 1920s and 30s.
Uxbridge is, as far as we can tell, a suburb, but it definitely has a country feel. As we were walking up Church Street to go to lunch, we noticed a funky old house with a sign in front of it that said “Surgery.” We were relieved to know that if anything went wrong during our stay, we could stop by to have an appendix or gallstone taken out. I’m reticent to post this only because it might provide more fuel for the “UK medicine sucks” argument, but on the other hand, it might be a good way to let people know they have choices here: See, at least you can go to a private doctor if you’re really desperate!
In less than 24 hours we’ve already been to two pubs. In the UK pubs are the most common eating establishment. In an earlier post I pointed out that they are often used as landmarks when giving directions, e.g., “turn left at the first pub and go down the road until you get to the second pub…”. They have evocative names usually involving some combination of royalty or pigs and body parts, such as “The King’s Head,” “The Queen’s Arms,” “The Pig’s Feet” or what have you. In Uxbridge apparently, grains of some sort are the thing. For lunch we went to “The Malt Shovel,” which was a charming riverside establishment. The weather, which started somewhat gloomy when we got here, cleared up and it got quite sunny and even warm, so sitting by the river and watching the boats go by. One was the “Ozzie,” and another one was parked by us, whose name I didn’t catch which had a Buddha on top and an eye on the side.
After lunch we decided to walk over to the University to register (which is where the conversation above transpired), and were invited to join those present for dinner at another pub, “The Load of Hay.” Needless to say we got a bit confused by the name when we were walking there later. Was it the Hay Load? The Bail of Hay? We had lovely evening catching up with our European colleagues; apparently our field is expanding, we now have people from warm-weather climes, such as Italy and Portugal. I encouraged our Portuguese friend to apply to host the next DiGRA: Really, all the Scandinavians would love it!
This morning is bright and sunny, in sharp contrast to the usual overcast and soggy weather here, and counter to the weather report I read before leaving. Apparently “70% chance of rain” is the default setting for the UK, but so far it’s actually been warm, nice and relatively dry. We’ll see how that pans out during the week. We’ve only been here one day after all!
About the Uxbridge you told,so this is a great and beautiful location,the pictures and the details are absolutely useful,this place is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan,and the town is near to the boundary with Buckinghamshire, which is locally the River Colne.
Posted by: Dissertation Writing | March 07, 2011 at 03:02 AM