Overcoming geography
Jul. 12th, 2018 08:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livI've had a really good few months for seeing friends from distant parts!
Just after Pesach, I went to Whitby withangelofthenorth. I'd never been to Whitby and it is exactly what I expected, ruined abbey rising out of the mist, dramatic cliffs, goth tat mixed in with the usual seaside town tat, frighteningly good fish 'n' chips. Also it's in a fantastically pretty part of Yorkshire, and we got to explore some of the area by steam train and on foot. angelofthenorth is much better at walking than I am; her planned gentle walks were a bit steep for me. Next time I'll bring better shoes, which will help somewhat. Anyway it was a completely wonderful mini-holiday.
What made it even better was thatyalovetz happened to be in London just when I was travelling home. And we had a delightful evening meal in the City and did quite a lot of geeking about Judaism in ways I'm somewhat starved for.
In May I did the clichéd academic thing of dragging my partner to a conference location:ghoti_mhic_uait and her children came to Brighton to enjoy the seaside and the venerable aquarium while I was conferencing. And we met up with my brother and sister in the evening and had lots of fun conversations and slept over at P'tite Soeur's.
This time when I came back through London,![[twitter.com profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/e0caa790ec10/-/twitter.com/favicon.ico)
nogazivan was there! So I got to meet her husband, baby and brother, and have a proper catch-up. Plus ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
atreic showed up so that made it even better. Noga's kid is amazing: he's a bit under two, and has mastered every aspect of talking except using the same words as everybody else. I mean, like, he politely and appropriately got the attention of four volubly chatting adults, asked a question, set his dad up as his straight man, delivered his a punchline and giggled madly at his joke, all without using any consensus words at all.
Last week my dear dear friend MK showed up unexpectedly from Australia, and we spent a lovely afternoon walking along the river and talking about everything. And in a couple of weekshatam_soferet is going to visit and I get to meet her baby too, and I'm just over the moon.
At the weekend I had a little micro-holiday withcjwatson: Saturday morning we took our bikes on the train to Kings Lynn, and we had a day admiring the pretty Mediaeval town. We got tantalizingly close to the seaside but didn't quite make it all the way, because the path we picked along the Ouse was a very good footpath but not quite cyclable, and we didn't feel like walking five miles in a heatwave. And we visited a few tiny, adorable local museums in the old customs house, a converted church and the old guildhall, and found the Jewish cemetery where Mum thinks one of her ancestors is buried. Sunday after lunch we came back to Cambridge and went punting with jack and came home for food and board games. It was about 36 hours overall, but it absolutely felt like a holiday, especially with the unbelievably gorgeous weather.
Just after Pesach, I went to Whitby with
angelofthenorth. I'd never been to Whitby and it is exactly what I expected, ruined abbey rising out of the mist, dramatic cliffs, goth tat mixed in with the usual seaside town tat, frighteningly good fish 'n' chips. Also it's in a fantastically pretty part of Yorkshire, and we got to explore some of the area by steam train and on foot. angelofthenorth is much better at walking than I am; her planned gentle walks were a bit steep for me. Next time I'll bring better shoes, which will help somewhat. Anyway it was a completely wonderful mini-holiday.What made it even better was that
yalovetz happened to be in London just when I was travelling home. And we had a delightful evening meal in the City and did quite a lot of geeking about Judaism in ways I'm somewhat starved for. In May I did the clichéd academic thing of dragging my partner to a conference location:
ghoti_mhic_uait and her children came to Brighton to enjoy the seaside and the venerable aquarium while I was conferencing. And we met up with my brother and sister in the evening and had lots of fun conversations and slept over at P'tite Soeur's. This time when I came back through London,
atreic showed up so that made it even better. Noga's kid is amazing: he's a bit under two, and has mastered every aspect of talking except using the same words as everybody else. I mean, like, he politely and appropriately got the attention of four volubly chatting adults, asked a question, set his dad up as his straight man, delivered his a punchline and giggled madly at his joke, all without using any consensus words at all. Last week my dear dear friend MK showed up unexpectedly from Australia, and we spent a lovely afternoon walking along the river and talking about everything. And in a couple of weeks
hatam_soferet is going to visit and I get to meet her baby too, and I'm just over the moon. At the weekend I had a little micro-holiday with
cjwatson: Saturday morning we took our bikes on the train to Kings Lynn, and we had a day admiring the pretty Mediaeval town. We got tantalizingly close to the seaside but didn't quite make it all the way, because the path we picked along the Ouse was a very good footpath but not quite cyclable, and we didn't feel like walking five miles in a heatwave. And we visited a few tiny, adorable local museums in the old customs house, a converted church and the old guildhall, and found the Jewish cemetery where Mum thinks one of her ancestors is buried. Sunday after lunch we came back to Cambridge and went punting with jack and came home for food and board games. It was about 36 hours overall, but it absolutely felt like a holiday, especially with the unbelievably gorgeous weather.