"I went to a Garden Party"

When the term finishes, celebrations abound. First, come the Bumps, then the Garden Party. Like every other celebratory event here, this, too, was subject to weather conditions. We had been given a contingent venue in the event of rain, but no mention had been made of where to go in the event of windy weather. On the day before the Garden Party, our windows rattled from continual gusts of wind with speeds in excess of 35 mph! But as you can see from our squinty smiles, the sun decided to appear for the Garden Party.

Our outfits were particularly springy. Bill was wearing a small windowpane print of peachy-pink lines on white. He is also wearing the Wolfson summer tie, maroon and gold stripes on a field of off-white. I am wearing the chiffon skirt that I re-hemmed after it had spent 25 years in the closet because of its wildly uneven hem. I also made the necklace and bracelet because I couldn't find a suitable necklace at the store.



One of the beverages served at the party was ginger beer. It's a little alcoholic, very sweet, and exceptionally gingery (unlike ginger ale). I preferred the champagne.



The woman in the red sweater and polka dot dress is the wife of Wolfson's president, Prof. Sir Richard John Evans. I hadn't intended to snap her picture, but she is a delightfully refreshing person who doesn't stand on airs, even though her husband was just made a Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth. At the June Event (ball), she dragged her husband off to ride the Dodgems.



As the afternoon wore on, the students took full advantage of the sun.



Here's another picture of us.



Below are our new friends, Marcia and Ezra. We met them in our little kitchen next door and keep the same dinner hour, one that inevitably turns into several hours of sharing stories. Marcia is a law librarian at the University at Buffalo and reminds us of our friend, Anne Marie, who retired from Mullins Library last year. Ezra is the chair of the Department of Anthropology at UB. He and Marcia have travelled the world on his digs--from Siberia to Mexico. Like Bill, he's visiting Cambridge to work on research.



Here we are with the Zubrows and Christopher Kuner, an attorney who specializes in EU law. I have to say that meeting new people from all walks of life is one of the best things here at Cambridge. The students are interesting, too. In the picture above, Ezra is without his "John Lennon" hat, as Bill called it, because a student asked to wear it for a while simply because she liked it.



It wouldn't be a proper English garden party without the brass band. Here is the Cambridge band who entertained us. In the middle of the two-hour event, we were also treated to some choral selections by the Wolfson chorus.