Hello, Old Friend

On Sunday I took a tall tall coach from Grantham to Nottingham, to see Morgan Stankey who, if you don't know, is my friend, is wonderful, and is going to grad school at NU. Little as it was, it was my first solo independent travel, and I'm a little bit proud. I tried to get bread and cheese (okay, and Diet Coke) at Morrisson's while I waited for my coach to come, but evidently even though they open at 0930 on Sundays, you can't check out until 1000, and I had to leave before then. Still, I made it to Nottingham smoothly and thereupon found Morgan quite well. It's possible that everyone in the bus station thought we were either big lesbians or big loud Americans, as I've found the English don't really touch each other. But that was no concern of ours. It's amazing what a hug will do after a month without one.

We walked casually around one of the UK's largest pedestrian areas and slowly drank tea and ate scones (how fitting) while catching up on the past five months and remembering Indiana and Tennessee. She took me to see her school, whose campus is huge but lovely. It's more fall there than in Grantham, where it seems to be an unknown season we don't have in America. Most of the day was spent sitting in different places and talking, as I hoped. We sat on her bed and talked, sat by the lake and talked, sat on the bus and talked, sat in a pub and ate food with taste for once and talked. Seven hours may not be much for a trip, but it was a truly splendid afternoon out. At six we parted smiling and happy to do it again soon, and back home for work and work, but rather more refreshed than before.