Oxford Trip!

     On Leap Day I boarded a plane for London.  How cool is that?!  I was invited to give an academic paper at a panel session at Oxford on 'Aristotle, Political Philosophy, and American Government' on March 2.  It was a very worthwhile experience.  I feel so honored that I got to participate.

 

     The panel was at Pembroke College, which, incidentally was JR Tolkien's college when he was an undergraduate.  The other panelists were each very distinguished, Janice Breidenbach from Ave Maria University, Zena Hitz from St. John's College, and Tom Smith from Villanova.  I learned a lot from each of their papers. Janice spoke about Aristotle's biology and politics, Tom gave a very provocative paper about Aristotle's notion of the common good vs. individualism and identity politics, and Zena talked about Aristotle's notion of political education. As for me, I talked about Aristotle 's notion of the human good in Aquinas and then compared to Locke's conception of the human good.  It was a very good exercise for me to write the paper, and it has actually helped me to see how to move forward on my larger academic goals, so all around the experience was a real blessing.

 

     I stayed in Corpus Christi College.  My room looked onto this courtyard:

 

Corpus Christi College, Oxford

 

     So I got to stay in this ancient building, with its sloping roofs and creaking floors.  Here's the door to my staircase:  

 

Staircase 5, Corpus Christi College

     Here's the entrance to Corpus:

 

Front entrance, Corpus Christi

     After the pressure of giving my paper was over, I was able to relax a bit more and enjoy Oxford.   On Thursday morning I had a nice cup of hot chocolate with Gillian Evans, my PhD supervisor, just near the Bodelian Library.  I was able to go in later that evening and get some work done. Here is the Duke Humphrey's part of the Bodelian:

 

 

Duke Humphrey's, Bodelian Library

     Here's the opposite side of the Duke Humphrey's quad:

 

Bodelian Library

     And I just had to take a picture of this door, of course!

 

School of Moral Philosophy!

 

      Here's the Radclilffe Camera, which is another library opposite the Duke Humphrey library.  I love this building:

 

Radcliffe Camera

      My host, Paul Kerry, is, like me, a big C.S. Lewis fan, and, like Samuel, a big Tolkien fan.  So on Wednesday night after the panel session, he drove me all around Oxford and took me to C. S. Lewis's house, his gravesite, the church where he worshipped, and Tolkien's Oxford home where he wrote Lord of the Rings.  Unfortunately I did not have a good camera with me so I did not get pictures of those things, but I did get some great pictures of other Lewis/ Tolkien sites. 

 

     First, I suppose, is Magdalen College, which was Lewis's college.  It is a truly beautiful place. Here is the courtyard that you see when you first walk in:

 

Magdalen College, Oxford

      And here is the Magdalen College chapel, and Lewis used to go to the services here and sit in these choir seats (apparently he sat near the top lefthand side):

 

Magdalen College Chapel

 

      Here is the building where Lewis had his office for about 30 years:

 

Magdalen College courtyard

 

      And here is the road that Lewis and Tolkien walked along where they had the 'how myth became fact' conversation that was instrumental in Lewis's conversion to Christianity.

 

Magdalen College

       Lewis also gave a very famous, now classic sermon, called 'The Weight of Glory' in the University Church, St. Mary's.  Here is the church:

 

University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford

 

 

St. Mary's, Oxford

      And apparently the lamppost to Naria is in Oxford!  I had no idea!

 

Narnia lamppost

      Tolkien taught at Merton college, another stunning place.

 

Merton College, Oxford

 

     On Friday I was privileged to talk to the Oxford Latter-Day Saints Student Association about parenting and striking a work/life balance.  It was a bit daunting; indeed, I have never given any kind of a talk like that before.  I met some really faithful, wonderful members of the church and I hope that they enjoyed the discussion as much as I did, although of course I don't really know.  

     Late Friday afternoon my time in Oxford, sadly, was at an end.  But I had great things ahead:  I took the train to High Wycombe and got to stay the night with Rosemary and Nigel Harding.  It was so lovely to see them again and we had great food and great conversation, as per Nigel and Rosemary!

     The next day I went into London and met Peter and Lynn for lunch.  We went to this great little French restaurant just off of Bond street.  Very posh!  The bread was fabulous and I had a wonderful butternut squash, blue cheese and red onion tart.  The conversation was very lively, as it always is with Peter.  But I was just really pleased to see them both.

 

     Then it was time to do some shopping for the kids!  They miss England so much, so I tried to find them things that were both useful and would remind them of home - their home.  I missed them when I was shopping, something that I thought would never happen!  I thought of them especially when I saw all the Easter egg displays.

 

Selfridges, London

 

Selfridges, London

      I couldn't help myself, I did have to buy something gourmet.  This time it was a passion fruit confiture and I was overjoyed with my purchase.  It is basically passion fruit in a jar and I used it to make passion fruit curd for our Easter brunch.

 

     It was funny seeing this bus around London:

 

 

 

     I ended my trip by seeing Grant and Margaret Curley.  It was beyond wonderful to see them.  We talked every minute that we had together, from Saturday night to Sunday morning to the moment they dropped me off at the airport.  I am so blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life.

 

 

A Hollywood Visit and an 18th Birthday

February is always a bit of an exciting month in our house.  Both Verity and Abigail have birthdays, so there is always lots of planning to be done.  In England the weather in February is a bit of a drag, but in San Diego it really is a rather glorious month.  Not too hot, but pleasantly warm enough to do whatever one wants to do.  And, even though we miss the February half term holiday in England, it turns out that President's day often brings some kind of alignment of a school/work holiday.  So Tim and the kids had a four day weekend over Valentine's Day, and Tim is usually pretty adamant about using his time off to do something Deliberately Fun.

So, after doing the wish fulfillment vs. constraint analysis, we decided to go to Hollywood Blvd.  I had no real interest in going but it did seem like the sort of thing that one should do at some point if one lived in Southern California.  So here are some pics:

View through the car window of Hollywood Blvd

The very odd Highland shopping center

More outlandish buildings of the Highland structure

We ate at the 1950's diner, Johnny Rockets.  Nothing too fancy on the menu.  Old fashioned hamburgers and malted milkshakes.  As it should be!

Johnny Rocket's 1950's diner - pretty cool!

 

My 1950's inspired burger

 

Lots of malted milkshakes!

Then it was off to see the stars on Hollywood Boulevard!

Orlando Bloom's star!  Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings - finding his star was a must!

 

 

Julie Andrew's star - enough said!
 

But I actually think we were all more mesmerized by the handprints and footprints in the concrete.  I think that seemed a bit more personal than the stars.

From Dorothy herself

 

Another Mary Poppins star - the one and only Burt!

 

One of the oldest inscriptions there, from Jimmy Stewart in 1948 - amazing!

 

And something a bit more modern ... Harry Potter.

Sadly, Abigail was with a friend on holiday in the mountains, so our singer/actress didn't get to come with us to the land of the stars.  But she still had a very nice 18th birthday a few short days later.
Her 18th birthday was on a Monday.  Monday's are crazy days in our house, so we did the Bleakley birthday breakfast and presents in bed thing on the Sunday morning so everything was nice and relaxed.

The birthday girl awakening from her beauty sleep!

Ok, the breakfast was just me having too much fun in the kitchen.  Poached smoked trout on a bed of watercress and asparagus, topped with a gently fried egg, with the best hollandaise sauce I have ever made on the side (Abigail loves hollandaise).  Also homemade pain au chocolate, a rich milk/egg bread studded with lots of dark chocolate pieces, topped with butter and orange marmalade.  Finally, a dish of strawberries with balsamic vinegar and mint.

The birthday breakfast

The birthday girl!

Concentrating hard on opening all those presents!

Abigail always asks for the full works for her birthday dinner, so it was the pork roast, applesauce, red cabbage, roasted kale sprouts, etc.  And for dessert, the ever-popular chocolate truffle cake.

Quite a lot of candles on that cake!

  

 

 

I wonder if I, as the mother, am expected to say something at this rather important milestone.  I suppose the main thing to say is that this 18 years has been one incredible ride.  Love means something so much richer, and deeper, than I ever knew before Abigail came along.  We drive each other crazy, but we are also joined at the hip.  This world is a better place because Abigail is in it, and I am honored to be her mother.

 

 

Denmark Conference

     After the Christmas holidays, it was straight back to business as usual.  We actually had a pretty awful trip back to San Diego from Idaho.  We got caught in a snow storm between Twin Falls and Ely, Nevada, which was the first leg of our trip.  That slowed us down, so that we didn't arrive in Ely until about 6pm, where the snow was falling thick and fast.  We still had at least another 9 hours to go, with the most dangerous part of the journey just ahead.  We also also started having car trouble with the beetle, which, as it turns out, is a very spoiled California car which does not like cold weather.  All the warning signs were on, so we decided not to risk it with the snow and the potentially malfunctioning car, and stayed overnight with my sister Julienne's in-laws, Don and Rama Robertson.  They were so good to put us up for the night.  After some pretty fervent prayers and a good night's sleep, we got up early the next morning to find that the car engines had not cracked in the -15F weather, the beetle had now decided to behave, and the snow storm had passed! Within a few hours time, we were in Las Vegas, well on our way home.

     Anyway, as soon as we got home I had to prepare for an academic conference in Denmark which was taking place on the 7th and 8th of January.  The conference was entitled 'Happiness, Well-being and the Good Life:  Applications and Perspectives.'  I thought that it might be a good opportunity to develop some of my ideas on a philosophy of parenting that I had been thinking back for a while.  Looking back, I'm not quite sure what made me think this conference would be a good fit with some of my ideas, and I'm thinking now that I must have been inspired to see that I could mold a philosophy of parenting into a conference on happiness.  Of course, there is a connection, because my ideas on parenting that I have been writing about in my Philosophy for Parents blog have been focused quite a bit on the idea of the 'human good', which in Aristotelian philosophy is intricately connected with the idea of happiness, or what can also be translated as 'flourishing'.  But I am still grateful that I was able to see how to develop some of my ideas regarding parenting and 'human flourishing' could fit into the framework of the conference.  

 

     So, I went.  Tim was very good to let me go.  It was a big investment in terms of time and money.  The conference was in Odense, Denmark, which is actually the hometown of Hans Christian Anderson.  My paper presentation went well.  I met some very smart, generous scholars and was able to have some helpful and encouraging discussions with them regarding my work.  I presented on the Thursday, and attended the conference dinner at a restaurant called Bacchus that night.  I had an excellent Jerusalem artichoke soup topped with a poached egg for my first course, and a delicious roasted quail with root vegetables for the main course.   The dessert was delicately stewed prunes with chocolate mousse, and it was fabulous.  

     When the conference was over, I spent the next two nights with the lovely Holmbone family.  Lars Holmbone is an old friend of Tim's from when they were missionaries together in Manchester, England.  Lars very kindly picked me up from the conference and took me to their home.  The next day he cleared his schedule to take me around some historical sites in Denmark.  First, of course, I had to see the world headquarters of Lego!!!
 

World headquarters of Lego ... in January!

     And then Lars took me to see Legoland, Denmark, which as you can see is very snowy and very closed in January.  

 

It doesn't actually snow as much as you might think in Denmark ...

 

     We then set off to see a little village in Denmark which is known as the 'birthplace of Christianity' in Denmark.  It is apparently the place where the Danish king Harold Bluetooth accepted Christianity.  So there is a beautiful old church on this ancient site, as well as a very famous stone which bears an intricate carving of a picture of Christ on one side, and a rune inscription on the other stating that Harold now was a Christian and therefore a Christian king.

 

The ancient church, on the site where Harold Bluetooth accepted Christianity

Rune inscriptions describing Harold's conversion 

Carvings, now faded, of Jesus on the cross and other Christian images

 

Lars Holmbone, my fabulous Danish host!

Then it was back home to face the carnage that always awaits me whenever I return home, although Tim had done a very good job managing while I was away.  I had a new course to prepare for, as well as another conference in Hermosa Beach later in January, plus 3 birthdays to plan and execute!  

     Samuel's is the first birthday of the year, January 22.  Samuel isn't much of a planner and we aren't loaded with cash, so in the end we agreed that he could take a friend to the movies and that would be a great party.  So he had his friend Ian over for a family pizza party, then it was off to the movies and we were good.

The minimalist birthday party

     To commemorate Samuel reaching the milestone of officially being a teenager, Abigail took this lovely photo.

Samuel at 13

     Two days later, Eleanor has a birthday!!  She decided to follow suit and also have a movie party.  Yea!!  So we had friends Katie and Rachel over for a birthday lunch, and then took everyone to see The Good Dinosaur.
 

Eleanor's 9th birthday party

     Every year, Eleanor always asks for a horsey cake.  I don't do it often enough to get very good at it, but I do try.

Eleanor the horse lover!

     The next day was Sunday, Eleanor's actual birthday.  As per usual, she got the Bleakley birthday breakfast  and presents in bed.
 

Happy Birthday Eleanor!