And now the end is near ...

 

The temporary end of my working life I hope rather than anything else!

It's been another fantastic week of lunches & catching up with people.  Thank you so much to those of you who have taken me out or had a coffee with me.  I know it's not always easy to spend the time when it's not you about to disappear off into the sunset. 

This week I was lucky enough to have lovely lunches with someone I've worked with for about eleven years (yes, honestly!) - our conversation ran to honourable footballers and super injunctions withstanding there weren't many we could think of!  Wednesday, lunch with a friend and a discussion of why renaissance towns in Italy are so well preserved (how intellectual are we?), if you know the answer please let me know.  On Thursday it was another lovely if enormous lunch and on Friday lots more food and great conversation.  (By the way I promise not to record all my meals for the rest of the life of this blog - this is more about thanking the people I've shared them with).  In addition a lovely coffee with a friend who, I'm certain, will be publishing academic papers well before I do!

I've also had some beautiful presents: notebooks (which I absolutely love and will definitely use); a lovely pen (not sure when I'll need that LOL), beautiful candles and flowers, just some of which you can see at the top of this blog.  I'll treasure them and the messages which have come with them.  Thank you.

So Tuesday is my last day (tomorrow is a public holiday in the UK) and I'm not sure how I'll feel about it.  I'm definitely ready to start my new life but there are so many people I will miss so please do keep in touch.

Leaving definitely got a lot easier on Wednesday night when I went to the Opening Evening at King's for those holding post-graduate offers.  Wow, there were a lot of people there and some of them did look like they should just be starting secondary school but it was great.  We had a welcome from the Professor who's in charge of the graduate school and then went for a mini seminar/discussion with one of the English tutors who was just lovely.  After that the obligatory glass of wine, listening to the KCL jazz band and a quick discussion with one of the professors from the English department and finally the real deal-sealer.  We went on a tour of the college (obviously the pretty bits) including the college, the bar with a terrace over the Thames and the library.  I've attached a link to a 360 view of it - it used to be the Public Record Office & was then given to King's.   It's beautiful, absolutely stunning and whilst I appreciate if you were lucky (and clever) enough to have the real Gothic deal you might think it's nothing special, I really like it.   

Other than that it has of course been a week of more reading but I think I'll share that with you tomorrow.

Thanks for reading ...