Chill in the Air...

The sun is shining, but there is a chill in the air. While it is still August (albeit for 15 more hours), Autumn has arrived in St Andrews. You can feel it in the crispness of the air. The tree across the way is beginning to fade. The bees are getting lethargic. I've had to wear knee-high socks three times already. And the University is beginning to come out of its Summer mood. The new term doesn't start until the very end of September, but emails were sent out weeks ago looking for postgrads to help with undergraduate matriculation. Departments are looking for teaching assistants for the sub-honours courses. Residence halls are shedding their holiday amenities, no longer run as large bed and breakfasts for vacationers, instead turning back into plain old dorms.

September will be a busy month. As I write this my housemates, Katherine and Ginger, are settling into new digs on South Street. The landlord is selling our house, so we have to move. I'm staying-put for another few days, and then I will be moving to a lovely flat a little further out.

But first I have to present a paper at a conference.

Fortunately, for my wallet and my sanity, the conference is being held here in St Andrews. The Reformation Studies Colloquium is a pretty big deal. And I'm pretty nervous. Most of the historians I will cite in my thesis will be in attendance at the conference. (Yikes!) At least I'm presenting in the first set of sessions on the first day. So I'll be able to get it out of the way and enjoy the rest of the three day conference!

The day after the conference ends, I'm moving house. I'll be renting my good friend Rebecca's flat. I will miss living in a quirky, old, wee house in the historic part of the city. But I'm looking forward to a gorgeous new kitchen with a proper fridge and a huge freezer (any of you who know my mom will know how important a big freezer is to us). And a bathroom without carpet on the floor and up the sides of the bathtub. And I'm looking forward to new, double-glazed windows when the cold, wet, winter wind kicks off the North Sea. The only downside to moving into the flat is that it means that Rebecca is moving away. She got a job down South and will be leaving soon. I'm going to miss her.

I'll have a week to settle in before my parents come for a 10 day visit! I'm so excited! I'm hoping that the sun will shine for at least a few days while they are here. The weather is so unpredictable. Any of you that watched the British Open will have seen that we can experience winter weather conditions in the middle of July. So September is a bit of a gamble. I think they'll be able to put up with wind and cold, just so long as it is sunny! (I realise now that I've posted this, I've probably spoiled any chances of sun that they might have!)

On top of all of this, I'm teaching again this semester. So when my folks leave, I'll be gearing up for that. They've added an extra 150 years to the syllabus, so I've got to brush up on my 17th and 18th-century European history!

September is shaping up to be a very busy, but very rewarding month!

Study Spaces

Monday morning I woke up rather excited about working on the latest challenge of my thesis: Questing after Dread Chapter Beast III and his gruesome sidekick, the Horrifying Conference Paper Minion. I was motivated and enthusiastic, ready to do battle! Until I got to my office. Where I found THIS outside my office building:

And THIS right outside my window:

I stayed in my office long enough to grab a few books (and take a few pictures) and fled.

Every year, for 5 days in August, the Lammas Fair comes to St Andrews. It is one of the oldest, continually running annual fairs in Britain. It started out as an agricultural fair, where local land owners would hire workers for the fall harvests. Over the years it has evolved (or devolved) into a carnival. A very loud carnival:

(Sorry this is sideways, I couldn't figure out how to flip it. But you get the idea...)

The Fair is gone now; it left in the wee small hours of Wednesday morning. But to make up for the ridiculous study conditions of Monday and Tuesday, I have quite happily ensconced myself in the King James Library in St Mary's College (aka The Divinity School)--where most of the University's collection of Reformation history and theology books are within beautifully easy and peaceful reach:

And now, back to the books, where I am searching for the tracks of Dread Chapter Beast III and Horrifying Conference Paper Minion somewhere between 1542 and 1558...

London Calling...

One of the (very few) perks about being a PhD student in the School of History at St Andrews is that you get £400 a year for research expenses (photocopies, travel to archives, conference fees, etc). I received an extra £100 this year for serving as hostess (or 'wine wench' as my friends called it) for the Scottish History Department's weekly seminar series. I made sure the wine and nibbles were ordered and served, and cleaned up, etc.

The one catch regarding the research stipend is that whatever you don't spend before the 31st of July, you just don't get. As of 7 July, I still had £350 that needed spending. So last week I decided to take a spur-of-the-moment research trip down to the British Library in London. I went down on the train on Wednesday and stayed with my lovely friend Paula for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings (Thank you, Paula!). Saturday and Sunday evening were spent in a four-star hotel close to the Library and Kings Cross Rail Station (from which I would leave on Monday morning), courtesy of the University stipend!

Thursday, Friday and Saturday were spent pouring over 460 year-old books in the British Library (which is heaven on earth, by the way). As it turns out, my friend Ros was at the Library that Sunday. After a couple of text messages, I found out she was sitting in the same reading room! So we grabbed lunch together. I also managed to get dinner with another friend from St Andrews, Marianne. Marianne is a pastry chef at Jamie Oliver's restaurant 'Fifteen'. She brought me a pistachio macroon... and it was divine! On Sunday I went to my friend Pete's church in the morning. It was one of the most worshipful Sunday mornings I have had in a long time! I spent the rest of the day strolling about London. I went to the Victoria & Albert Museum for an exhibit of some of Grace Kelly's dresses, and had a lovely dinner outside on the patio of a pub in Kensington Gardens. All in all--beautiful old books, spectacular old clothes, and seeing so many not-so-old friends--it was a wonderful trip!