RBOS: Random Bullets of Summer

• Hm. Random Bullets of Summer sounds like a gansta rap album title.

• Thanks to everyone who offered congratulations and huzzahs and woo-hoos in the last post. And Karl, that David Wallace as anonymous blogger joke never gets old with you, does it?

• I have made my summer UK travel plans. I will be at the NCS in Swansea -- I have trains and planes arranged -- then visiting a friend in Yorkshire for a few days, and perhaps catching up with a former student who will be completing her MA in Medieval Studies at York. And then I'll be in London from the evening of July 27 just through the 30th (I leave the morning of the 31st) to look at a couple of manuscripts at the BL, and maybe out at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, too.
  

• Get this: in order to get in to the library at St. George's Chapel, I have to pay for admission to Windsor Castle. Hm. I haven't been there since I was a kid -- maybe I'll do the touristy stuff, too, when I'm done with my manuscript.
  

• For those who want to know, you can book train tickets through TheTrainline.com only if you have a UK mailing address to post them to. They'll tell you you can't use a non-UK credit card, but I did. (They also claim you can't even register with a US address any more, and I seem to have done so. But then I remembered I already had an account from back in 2004, and logged in and purchased my tickets with that account.) The AmEx has been charged and my Yorkshire friend should be getting the tickets any day now.

• I decided to stay at The Euro Hotel in London, partly on Mike Drout's approval of it for what it is, and partly because it seemed to be the only cheap place available of the places really close to St. Pancras and the BL. I like the fact that it's on a little crescent street and it's relatively cheap for London -- 55 GBP for a single with shared shower and toilet (the online reviews say the showers are very close, clean, and never busy). I'll let you know what I think after I've stayed there -- or even *while* I'm there, as they have free wireless (another attraction).

• FYI, other hotels/B&Bs recommended by friends (but which either weren't available or didn't quite suit my desire to be able to drag my luggage myself from St. Pancras):
• The Ridgemount Hotel
• The Penn Club
• The Jesmond Hotel
• The Arran House Hotel
• The Goodenough Club (which is where I would stay if Bullock were coming with me and we were splitting the cost, since it's twice as much as the others).
  

• So I think I may fiddle with the blog design. It's summer -- I have time. JJC finds it too soothing after my old template's screaming orange. (Though was it really that screaming? I always thought of it as an autumnal '70s rust, and so went with a complementary color with the new design.) He also tsk-tsk'd the flowers at the bottom. OK, so it's a little genteel and froofy, but I love English gardens (the picture was taken in Cumbria). But he has a point. It's not very Virago-like. Any ideas?

• Pippi is also getting ready for summer. I took her to the groomer today. It's the first time since we've had her that I've handed her over to strangers and walked away. It was very traumatic for *me*. But for her? Nah. Her attitude was all "ooh! new people to love me! new scents! other doggies! let's go!" Sigh.

• So you know what I just realized now sucks about being tenured -- aside from more service work? Now I only do a dossier every five years, so I have to be super-organized and save all the proof of what I've been up to in research, teaching, and service for five long years. D'oh.