The plane was a bit late, so I missed my bus. I had to hang around nearly another two hours for the next one, but the compensation was a really nice, friendly, kind and chatty driver who kept me entertained all the way to Cambridge. Found the hostel OK, but Alan and Ana were missing. They only turned up the following day, but at least they managed to borrow a car, so the trip back to London on Sunday was comfortable. Due to my later arrival I missed the first session and was so tired that I couldn't face walking right across the city to the pub where the rest of them were. I hit the pillows quite early.
The weekend school was brilliant. I met some really lovely young people, the kind we didn't have too many of in the recent period until the last few years. On Saturday morning Dan's leadoff on Philosophy was superb; in a topic that normally tells me nothing I haven't already heard before, he managed to get ideas across which were new and interesting to me. Very bright young man with a promising future. In the afternoon I joined the workshops on the First, Second and Third Internationals, which were also brilliant. Fred and Marie introduced the topic very well and even the discussion was lively and interesting. That day the only bad aspect was one of the halls where there were some slightly open windows which made the temperature well below 10 degrees Celsius and everybody was slowly freezing. The other room was much better, so we went there to warm up in the afternoon, even though I would have gone there anyway as I was interested in the topics there.
The social in the evening was great, if a bit noisy for my old and sensitive ears, but the atmosphere was so nice and all the youngsters delightful, that I was very happy indeed. On Sunday the last session was led off by Alan, who is always a joy to listen to, and this occasion was no exception. Under the stern gaze of John Maynard Keynes in Kings College we celebrated the history of our organisation and its brilliant future. On the trip back to London we went shopping at Tesco's and had a gorgeous roast dinner together. Marie and Naja from Denmark came to stay at Alan and Ana's as well, so it was a very jolly party indeed.
This morning (Monday) Marie, Naja and I went to the Cortauld Gallery in Somerset House to see the glorious paintings there. The emphasis was on impressionists, but many periods were represented from medieaval to contemporary. I discovered some very well known, famous paintings, which I never knew were there. It was very nice indeed, especially that between 10am and 2pm on Mondays entry is totally free. I found one of my absolute favourite paintings, Modigliani's Nude, which was quite an event for me to see in the original. There were plenty of Seurat, Cezanne and Renoir, a few Gaugin, Van Gogh and Toulouse Lautrec and many, many Monet and Manet on the walls. Amongst the modern paintings I found many names I have never heard of, but even some of those talked to me, especially the ones with very bold shapes and colours, but not all. It was very tiring and after about an hour and a half we came out. We then proceeded to walk along the Strand all the way to Trafalgar Square, then down Whitehall to Parliament via Horseguards Parade and back up to a pub for lunch. Naja went home, Marie stayed as she had other plans in town later and I returned to my dear friends' house for a rest. Just one funny aside at this point: while typing Whitehall I made a typing error of a Freudian kind - I replaced the 'w' with an 's'. Nuf said!
This was a very good day indeed, but I think tomorrow I will take it easy, considering that I have to leave at 5am on Wednesday to make my flight from Gatwick in time. Further reports from Portugal, if the promised WiFi in the hotel works.
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