Well no one can accuse me of not being busy in the last month. IN one way or another I don't seem to have stopped.
On the 9th July, I flew back to the UK to spend 2 weeks with family and attend my daughters Graduation Ceremony at the University of Warwick. The flights were uneventful, although it felt really peculiar to be leaving S and the boys behind, and it was a feeling I did not like much at all. I was excited to be seeing my daughter in the flesh again instead of via the ether and skype - but sad to be leaving home. It's a hard one to describe, so we'll just leave it there.
I arrived in the UK on time, and could not help the wealth of emotion that flooded over me when I saw my daughter and my Mum standing in the arrivals area of Birmingham airport. Dad being Dad had nipped to the loo, but I also had another wonderful surprise - the husband of a very good and old friend of mine (old as in known since school, not age - she's younger than me!) was there to welcome me back to the UK too. He was just about to catch a flight out but my friend had asked him to come and try and say 'hi' to me because she couldn't be there! I was thrilled - I've never been big on the friends scale, but with friends who do this kind of wonderful stuff, I don't need to have many of them, and this one (yes you know who you are!) is worth a million just in herself!
The trip back to my parents house - the house where I grew up, the house I have always referred to as home, was wet and full of chatter in my Dad's car, and I felt my time away from this part of my family slipping away, like it had never even existed. I had been away for 9 months - how could those 9 months just vanish like that?
I could probably wax lyrically about my time back in England for a whole novel, but I know that no one particularly wants to read all that, so I will just give you the main bits - the important bits, and I will give them in chronological order!
Firstly my baby sister (we are 3 in number and she is the youngest, although not a baby at 39!) made the trip down from Scotland with my 3 nieces to come and spend a week at Mum and Dad's so we could catch up and so she could be around for my daughters graduation. The important bit about this event was that my youngest niece, Miss E, actually spoke to me! OK that might not seem like much to all of you, but she will be 8 in a few weeks time, and this is the first time that she has spoken to me since she was teeny. It's not that I haven't seen her to talk to - it's just that for some unknown reason, she became very shy of me and just stopped speaking to me. So for her to arrive and not only give me a hug but actually talk to me from the outset, was a minor miracle in my eyes. Anyway with my sister joining in the party my poor Dad was grossly outnumbered 7 to 1 on the women to men scale - good job my other sister did not join the party as well because she has 2 daughters as well, the lovely Miss M and Miss S. It would seem I have the only boys in our family....lol
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| From lef to right - Me, Miss K, Mum, Miss E, My Sis, the beautiful A and Miss C |
And....just for the record, my baby sis is the tallest person in our family (gets it from my Grandad), but it is the lie of the land here that makes her seem to be a good foot taller than me!
OK, so the other thing that happened during my trip to the UK, the reason for the trip in the first place, was my daughters graduation. For the last 3 years the beautiful A has been studying for an Honors degree in Theatre & Performance Studies at the University of Warwick. Now I knew the uni had a fantastic reputation in the UK, but it was only at the graduation ceremony that I found out that in World rankings - The University of Warwick actually ranks higher than certain Ivy League schools people always talk about. One thing that is greatly different about studying for your degree in the UK and studying for one in the US is that in the UK, if you do a degree in a subject - you only study that subject. There is no general English and Math study in UK degrees like there is in the US where you only specialise in your chosen subject in the final year or however it works. In the UK, you cannot get onto a degree course without having already met the criteria for English, Math and other subjects. To get onto a degree course in the UK they set specific requirements which you must have achieved at GCSE and A level or you don't get on. In my daughters case, to study Theatre & Performance, she needed to attend interview, do an audition piece and then they required her to have A level passes in a minimum of 3 subjects, 2 at Grade A and one could be at Grade B and one subject must be Theatre. She also needed to have the base requirements of 5 GCSE's including English and Maths. Competition for places is tough - for my daughters course there were 40 places and over 3000 applicants. Once you get onto your course - you study your chosen subject and nothing else. In my daughters case this was Theatre and Performance, so she has spent the last 3 years studying various aspects of theatre including Dramaturgy, New European Theatre, Introduction to theatre & Performance, American Avant Garde, Performing Online, Mime, Writing for Performance, Performance & Text, Theatre Historiography and then of course her all important Dissertation. It has been a hard 3 years for her work wise, a fantastic 3 years for her experience wise, and no one was prouder than me during her graduation ceremony on the 17th July. She was allocated 2 tickets for the graduation ceremony, so my Dad got to join us on this truly momentous day. Here we are just before we set of on the drive from my parents home to the University.
And here is my baby in her cap and gown with her Grandad
All in all my time in the UK was great fun. Sadly I did not get to see everyone I wanted to see, because sadly I was unable to hire a car while I was there due to points on my UK licence and not having a US one, but I did get to pay a visit to the nursery where I used to work and to see all my old friends there which was wonderful, and I actually went on day trips to places I had never been to before eve though they were right on my doorstep the whole of my life in the UK, like 'The Roaches' and 'Dovedale' (pics to follow below).
All too soon it was time for me to return to my home here in Sierra Madre, it was sad to leave family again, but also wonderful to be coming home to my wonderful S and my two boys G & H and it was made all the better for the fact that the beautiful A, returned with me. She is only here for a holiday, a 5 week holiday, but she is here and that is all that matters to me now.
Remember my wonderful friend who sent her hubby to say hello at the airport when I arrived - well, because I hadn't been able to hire a car and go to visit her during my stay, she got up super early, dragged her gorgeous son out of bed and went to wait for me at the airport (she lives really close to Birmingham airport), so I got to have a wonderful big squeeze from her and a cuddle from her gorgeous boy before I had to come home. She really is a wonderful friend and I love her to bits.
Well now I am home, and trying to get myself back into the routine of blogging, because lets face it my appearance has been very sporadic over the last few months. I am loving having my daughter here with me, although for every day that the temps go over 100, my chances of persuading her to move her are rapidly diminishing, so hopefully I will find some time to blog about what we do during her stay. Right now we are off to the mall for a little retail therapy before the temps hit unbearable yet again.
Enjoy the photos and have a great day
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| Shadow photo of me and A |
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| The Shropshire Union Canal at Hassall Green |
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| My Mum thinking she can hide behind a rapidly diminishing ice cream |
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| Chester |
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| View from 'The Cloud' at Bosley over the Cheshire Plain |
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| Dovedale |
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| Rafting on the beach at Meols, West Kirby, The Wirral |
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| Watching the video we all made for A's graduation |
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| Sisters chatting over the BBQ |
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| Amazing Slava themed Graduation cake - Slava Polunin= Traditional Russian Clown (Google it) |
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| The Roaches |
