The Beat Goes On

We are really in the swing of things now.  Time is flying by.  I led another trip into London last Saturday.  Again my group went to the V&A Museum, then down the road to Harrod's, but this time it was a gorgeous, sunny day!  Most of us spent our museum time outside in their beautiful courtyard.  They have a very shallow fountain/pool in the middle of the courtyard, and a lot of sweet little ones were enjoying wading around and splashing in the water.  

There are beautiful hydrangeas up and down the sides of the courtyard, and since I'm a sucker for hydrangeas, I had to get a few close-ups. 

Harrod's was the same as it always is...I spent a lot of time watching the puppies play.  There was an adorable French bulldog puppy for sale, but I couldn't bring myself to pay £2400 for it.  

Street view of Harrod's.  The store occupies a 5-acre site and has over a million square feet of selling space.

On Sunday, I took a group to Bicester Village, which is basically a nice outlet mall.  It was such a gorgeous, sunny day that I just sat at a table outside and read.  I actually ended up with a little bit of sunburn!  It was fantastic! 

Our company's main office has hired a new web development team to completely re-do the company branding and websites, and they stopped by for a visit on Monday.  Fortunately Mother Nature has been making up for all the rain we've had this month, so again we had a beautiful day.  I took the team to the Eagle and Child, a pub where writers like JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis used to meet regularly.  We had lunch and then walked around Oxford.  We met up with one of our groups of kids at the Botanic Garden, where I took a couple of pretty pictures.  You can see Magdalen College in the background of the first one:

We returned to Lady Margaret Hall and were able to go up to the roof of the bell tower, where I got to take some great pictures. 

The next few days will be pretty chaotic around here.  We are finalizing the kids' travel/transportation plans and getting ready to leave ourselves.  Our program director, Paul, has invited us to join he and his wife and daughter at their vacation home in France!  Right now Kellen, Emily, and I plan to stay with a friend for a couple of nights in London, then we will meet up with Paul here in Oxford, and we will be on our way.  Kellen and I were hoping to change our return flights so that we can stay in France a couple days longer, but it might not work out.  We'll see!  More updates soon.