Intersection Logs

There's been a fascinating culture-clash discussion going on lately, in certain newsgroups. It kicked off when a British poster mentioned having a tumble dryer in the kitchen, and an American poster expressed bogglement and incredulity at the very idea, whereas all the Brits think this is a perfectly normal and obvious arrangement. (I'm actually surprised that most of the Brits seem to have embraced tumble dryers or at least combination washer-dryers by now; they don't figure much in my experience of British homes, though my sister has one.)

( Musings, reminiscences, and possibly off-base thoughts. )

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Originally uploaded by ellarien.

The weather has been glorious this week, with sunshine and fluffy white clouds blown across a shining sky. The wind has a touch of autumn crispness, and carries the tang of dead leaves; the trees are starting to turn colour, and drop brown crinkly leaves that lie in drifts among the lush green grass.

I've been in love with this campus for nearly a quarter of a century, and on days like this I think that it is in autumn that I've always loved it best.

And the photo? Creepers on the wall in front of the library that dominates the grassy square at the heart of the campus; if you look closely, you can spot a tiny brown spider at the centre of a perfect web.

PS: The next post might be from Romania. If I don't manage to post from there, you may not hear from me until I'm back in the US late on the 19th. There is supposed to be wireless at the conference, so we'll see.

It turned out there wasn't a reception after all, so after registering we went out for dinner. When we got back to the hotel I spent several minutes on the balcony on the ocean side, watching the sea. The tide was high, leaving only a narrow strip of beach, and the waves came in and in, tall as a row of galloping horses in the distance, then toppling and spreading out to a thin shifting curtain of lace over the sand. Little groups of sandpipers ran in the shallow parts until the waves caught them, and then rode the receding water out. The air was heavy with the salty, fishy smell of the sea.

It's been so long. Not quite as long as I thought; I did spend a week in Nice, France in 1996, and that involved at least one early morning stroll on a pebbly beach, but I don't think the Mediterranean has breakers like that. When I was a teenager we used to spend a day in Scarborough each summer, my father and my sister and I, and I loved to lean on the promenade railing and watch the waves come in.