Day 1: Arrival

I'm a bit behind on my plan to write something every day about the College Station/Texas experience, but settling in and jet lag are processes I had to get through before I could sit down and contemplate!

Friday 1st March

We flew from Norwich to Amsterdam and then to Houston and the long flight was made more pleasant by the extra leg room in front of us, for which of course we'd paid!   There was also enough space to get up, move around and do a few Pilates moves against the wall of the business class toilet...at my age, what do I care what people think!

Immigration took 50 minutes - it could have been worse and joy and rapture, all the luggage turned up.  

Peter and the luggage on arrival at Houston. 
Lets hope the sign above his head is not a portent! 

At the car rental office, they stung us for insurance that had not been in the original quote but after a bit of huffing and puffing on our part they gave us the corporate rate for insurance, waived the required tank of fuel on return and waived the additional cost for returning the car to the airport.  So after messing about there and crawling through the rush hour round the Houston beltway, we eventually arrived at our home for the next three months! 

213 Chimney Hill Circle

Behind the facade is a 3 bedroomed house   with lots of space and large walk in closets. There's a small back yard with somewhere to sit and a massive BBQ!

We ended the first day by unpacking, dashing to a supermarket for basic supplies and falling exhausted into bed! 

Counting down...

One week to go before we leave home at the crack of dawn and fly to Houston, via Amsterdam.  The suitcase is out, bits and pieces are piling up around it (including boxes of tea bags - sorry America but you just don't understand tea!)  The hire car is booked and the list of things to do before we go is getting longer.

Our tenant came round this week and we toured the house and she learnt how everything works.  Showing her around made me realise how much more clearing away there still is to do to give her drawer and wardrobe space.   Still it's a salutary process pulling out clothes that haven't been worn in a long while and wondering why I'm hanging on to them.  This applies to two categories of garments....those that were bought when smart working clothes were required and those that are now too small (sob!).

Whole drawers have been emptied already and their contents folded into plastic boxes.  When we come back in the summer for three months, how much of the contents will I find I need to retrieve?  My suspicion is that I will happily live without them.    In fact I have resolved that the unworn clothes are going to be packed separately and I'll have a washing/cleaning spree when I get back and on to eBay they will go!

We're doing a round of 'lasts'.  Last outing with Cinema Club, last walk with friend Miriam, last visit with grandsons.   Mustn't dramatise though, there's always Skype and we are back in three months!

Catfish

Our first taste of catfish! 

The Gala

Well!  What can I say?  We got dressed up and arrived at the university for a Gala dinner to celebrate the inauguration of the Texas Institute of Advanced Study and to welcome the first 6 distinguished scholars.  We crossed the red carpet and into a reception committee who whisked Peter away for an interview to camera, then a short rehearsal of the proceedings,   He emerged with a beautiful lilly button hole and we were then ushered to a formal photograph of the pair of us!  After drinks and conversation the group of distinguished scholars and their bemused significant others where marshalled into line in alphabetical order and we were then announced in our pairs and processed into the hall beneath the Governor of Texas's own honour guard with raised sabres!  Much applause!

The people on our table, indeed all the people we met, were very friendly and welcoming.  It's the Texan way, I guess!

At the end of the meal the distinguished schools went to the stage where they were introduced, photographed again with university dignitaries, signed a book and were presented with a bronze replica of Rodin's The Thinker on a granite base.   Fortunately, the university is going to send it to UK for us, it would constitute significant excess baggage!

It was a very formal affair and the presence of so many young people in their officer training corp uniforms who acted as waiters added some military stiffness to the occasion, but there was also much humour and laughter!   An interesting mix!

For a picture of our entry to the ball room click here!

College Station - the prequel

Well, here we are in College Station, Texas for 4 days at the Hilton Hotel.  A quick preliminary visit. Up at an unreasonable time every morning due to jet lag!   We flew business class courtesy of Texas A&M, for which we are very grateful, so we are in much better shape than we would normally be after a long flight.

On the first night here, Wednesday, we set off to find somewhere to eat.  Having spotted restaurants on the other side of the road (6 lanes) we were pleased to find a controlled crossing at the lights on the corner by the hotel.  Not so pleased to discover that you only just get enough time to step smartly across before the lights change again.  Good job we aren't really old!   The restaurant, Veritas, was a good find.  We both had excellent steaks.  Peter thought it looked familiar and wondered whether he had been taken there before.   Turned out he had, and it was where we were taken for lunch on the following day by people from the university!  Never mind, we had very good food again.  Shrimp flatbread and salad for Peter, crab cakes and salad for me with spicy carrot soup.

Thursday Peter went into the department for a photo shoot! And to do some paperwork and talk to new colleagues.   I visited the City of College Station keeper of historic documents in Central Park.  I've volunteered to assist in putting together stories from people about College Station for the 75th anniversary celebrations in October.  Should be an interesting way of meeting people and getting to know the city.  I've been invited to attend the next 75th Anniversary Committee meeting at City Hall in March...they are really being very welcoming to a complete unknown!

Getting to Central Park was interesting.  First time I've driven an automatic for years and only a very hard to read map.  But I made it and only went through one stop sign by mistake!

I negotiated my way back uptown to the book shop Barnes and Noble where I found a few hiking in Texas books and a better street map of College Station.  I was going to go to a drug store but I didn't have the nerve to turn left on to the highway at a junction with no lights!   After the lunch at Veritas with two very interesting men from the university, Peter and I went to look at the house we will be renting.    Delighted to say that it will suit us fine.  Spacious and comfortable with a proper fully equipped kitchen and massive gas BBQ on the deck.  Washing machine and dryer of industrial proportions, like-wise the refrigerator and a closet that could double as an extra bedroom!  Absolutely charming mother of owner showed us round - a mine of information.

Then more driving around to find a drug store and a supermarket for peanut butter for son no. 2 and maple syrup for son no. 3.  Back to the hotel and then a walk to see if we could find a way into a small park that appears to be nearby on the map but turns out to be only accessible after a very long walk round via main roads.   Back to the hotel again and then out for dinner at a rather dowdy Italian restaurant where the novice waiter tried to take the top off a screw top bottle with a butler's knife!!!! Poor boy, it was his first day!  Good spaghetti a la vongole though.

Tonight's the GALA dinner...the real purpose of the visit...to inaugurate the new Institute that Peter is joining.   Apparently it's mainly a fund raiser - to 'gouge' money out of very rich people! Not my words! We appear to be sitting at the top table so I will have fun trying to identify the VERY rich.

Thoughts so far?

• Very friendly, courteous and helpful people
• Forget Norwich and walking into the city and finding everything you need within a one mile radius
• Got to get used to driving everywhere...to this mall for this and to that mall for that
• Fantastic array of fruit and veg in the supermarkets, so shopping is going to be fun
• It's going to be HOT.  Today, in January, the temperature will reach 75F.  By May it will be in the 90s.

Things I might do in College Station...

As the hanger-on for our stay in College Station, I'm going to have to find myself things to do to keep busy, pass the time and have something to talk about when Peter gets home!  That's a joke based on a 1960s guide for married women, something about making yourself interesting for your work weary husband on his return home!  Ha!  That's after you've given him his pipe and slippers I assume!

But I digress!

Seriously...there's no chance of employment, no garden to do and a lady comes in to clean, so three months of leisure are in store starting next March.    So I'm beginning to make a list of possible diversions.  So far I've come up with:

• Visit all the museums and art galleries in Bryan/College Station
• Locate a craft shop, buy some yarn and do some knitting
• Hire a bike and get some exercise
• Go for walks (if I can find pavements!)
• Do slow shopping (i.e. shop little and frequently, European style)
• Investigate the public library
• Read
• Join a book club
• Write this travel blog
• Research and plan weekends away
• Make friends and visit
• Take a class (art? language?)
• Volunteer

The last idea has lots of possibilities.  I've spotted a request for volunteers to help collect people's stories about life in College Station for an anniversary of the city, and also to database their archive of stories and photographs.   Wonder if you need to be a local to do that?   Well, I shall make contact soon and find out more.   I've found a volunteering web site for Bryan but the activities look daunting and I can't quite get a handle on the expectations.  Could investigate though.

It's a start, but I hope the list will grow.  More online research needed! 

Ruth and Peter go west again...only this time not so far!

Last weekend, Peter had a birthday with a big zero, so to celebrate we took the family to a cottage near Malvern, Worcestershire for the weekend.   Malvern is west of Norwich, which is why it sneaks into this blog!   And strictly speaking we weren't in Malvern, but at a place called Acton Beauchamp even further west, although we never discovered Acton Beauchamp itself. We rented The Cider House which had plenty of room for all of us.   We arrived first with Rupert and bagged the room with the four poster bed and he took a quiet room, tucked away from the rest.   Then Eliot and Nancy arrived with the two boys and finally Tania and Simon were collected from the station in Great Malvern. 

The Cider House, Hidelow House Cottages

Peter and I met in Malvern an amazing 49 years ago, so the area has always had sentimental associations for us. The countryside is very attractive and there are wonderful views from the top of the Malvern Hills.   Peter is often tempted to quote A.E. Housman who frequented these parts and quote bits of poems we learnt at school...but never the whole poem!

The Cider House was interesting...lots of space, comfortable bedrooms, a huge kitchen and a log burner in the sitting room.  The hot tub which had started out as an attraction wasn't used at all.  It was pretty cold outside in the evenings and the long list of rules associated with using it were probably very wise, but a complete dampener.  The kitchen equipment was OK (if you ignored the mouse droppings in the frying pan - well we were deep in the countryside) but there were no basics of the kind you normally find in cottages describing themselves as 'luxury'.  No salt or pepper, no oil or vinegar and no shampoo in the bathrooms.  Tiny things, but you have to go out and shop for absolute basics if they aren't provided.  The sofas in the sitting room were brown leather (?) with brown slippery leather cushions - very easy to wipe down after guests, but hardly cosy.  There was a sponge cake waiting our arrival however, which was delicious and didn't last long and a bottle of milk.  So, a good place to stay, but some more thought could be put into little things that guests need.   The absolute masters at this are The Vivat Trust.  We've stayed in several of their properties and have never been disappointed. 

Waiting for Abe to catch up

The weather was just about OK, a  bit damp on some days, but we pottered about, talked, cooked and ate, bought cider, shopped for nappies and did a few short walks, played with Abe and passed Saul round from person to person!

Anticipating the lighting of the candles!

Breakfast en famille

On Saturday night Peter had Abe's assistance in blowing out the candles on his rather odd looking, but delicious cake and opened his presents!   On Sunday we all went into Worcester for lunch at The Old Rectifying House (renamed by Eliot, The Rectum Terrifying House) where our roasts were served as carve-it-yourself joints.  After lunch we dropped Simon, Tania and Rupert off at the train station (with the remains of the cake) as they had to get back to work.  The rest of us returned to the Cider House for another day.   The extra day was a boon as Abe had brought a stomach bug with him which passed round the family and had us keeling over in relays! Having en suite bathrooms for every bedroom was particularly welcome!   

Pumpkin adjustments in progress

Boy in search of a stick

We managed two short walks on our last day.  Abe tends to walk in circles or back the way he came and stops regularly to examine sticks, so eventually Nancy and Eliot sent us off to complete the walk on our own and we made a circuit along footpaths back to the house by way of a very wet and muddy sugar beet field.  In the evening the pumpkin lanterns were lit and Abe went out in the morning, in borrowed shoes to examine them carefully...

On Tuesday morning we loaded up the cars and drove off in different directions.  A good weekend!