Last Outing
The highlight of last week (ok, besides the season premiere of _Buffy: The
Vampire Slayer_) was the opportunity to attend the press reception for the
new Darwin Centre at the Natural History Museum. Our guest--Sian
Gramates--had arranged for passes for the two of us through a friend who
writes for Science magazine, so I got to represent Science (it was on my
name badge and everything) as we explored the public areas, listened to a
couple of presentations and took a guided tour of the back rooms. The
centre's primary function is to provide storage for the 22 million items of
the museum's "Spirit Collection," specimens--mainly animal--stored in
alcohol. Vast as the collection is--it occupies 25 kilometres of
shelving--the new building is only the first phase of the centre. A second,
larger building will be constructed next door to store the Botany and
Entomology Collections--6 million plant specimens and 28 million bugs. We
had a great time talking to the bug guy, seeing a barracuda recently caught
by a fishing trawler off the coast of Cornwall, and getting close enough to
a real coelacanth that we could have touched it! For more information--I've
already gone on too long about it, but it's a very, very cool place--check
out their website at www.nhm.ac.uk/darwincentre/.
We thought the trip to Cornwall would be our last major excursion here
in England, but when we realized we didn't have any plans for this weekend,
we thought we should take advantage of our remaining time to check off a few
more items on our list of things we had hoped to see.
On Friday afternoon we picked up a car and headed southwest to Chawton, a
picturesque little village southeast of England. There we visited Chawton
Cottage where Jane Austen spent the last years of her short life. It's a
lovely place, set in beautiful gardens. The rooms are decorated in the
style of her period (early 19th century) and include several pieces of
furniture known to have been in the house at that time. Perhaps the most
touching is the tiny little table on which Jane liked to write. The room
had a creaky door, which was left that way at her request, so she would have
warning when someone was entering and could hide her manuscript. She never
admitted to authorship of her works during her lifetime. There were many
interesting tidbits of information--perhaps the most touching was the
original letter written by Cassandra to Jane's favorite niece, describing
Jane's death and her feelings on the occasion. It was also interesting to
see the exhibits of typical clothing of the era and items relating to other
members of her family.
After completing that pilgrimage, we went back up the road to the nearby
market town of Alton, where I had booked us a room at the Alton Grange
Hotel. We had a nap in our lovely room and then went down to dinner at
Truffles, their highly recommended restaurant. After an amuse bouche of
Lebanese style eggplant in pastry cups and Japanese style tuna tempura,
Jason enjoyed a starter of aubergine (eggplant) tempura layered with a salad
of asparagus and green grapes, while I had the smoked haddock on a bed of
spinach with a poached egg and creamy mustard sauce. For mains, Jason
ordered the caramelized fillet of beef with honey roasted root vegetables
and wild mushrooms, while I took the breast of Barbary duck in a red wine
demi-glace. I didn't much care for my duck, but Jason thought it plenty
tasty, so we switched plates halfway through the meal. For dessert we
shared a plum claufoutis (plums baked into a tarte-like thing) with roasted
almond ice cream.
Back in our rooms I was happy to relax in their deep tub before a very
pleasant night's sleep. In the morning our adorable young French waiter
from the previous evening served us a tasty English breakfast before we
headed on our way.
Our first stop was in Winchester. We visited the cathedral, largely built
in the 11th century, when Winchester was still an important city. It's a
beautiful church, with several interesting elements, including the site of
the tomb of St. Swithin, the Lady Chapel rebuilt by Elizabeth of York in the
16th century in honor of the birth of her son in Winchester, a series of
stained glass windows designed by Edward Burne-Jones, and the grave of Jane
Austen. Her stone, in one of the aisles of the church, doesn't mention her
literary endeavors, but on the wall nearby is a plaque and a memorial
window in her honor. As we wandered around the church, we were very pleased
to have the choir rehearsing in the background, lending ambience to our
visit.
After a stop in their excellent gift shop (I saw a plaque with a saying I
really liked: Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, today is a
gift--that's why it's called the present!), we strolled around the grounds
and spent a few minutes in the garden planted on the site of the former
monastery that was destroyed during Henry VIII's Dissolution. Then we
wandered up the High Street, past the 16th-century market cross, to the
Westgate--formerly one of the main gates in the city wall--where we visited
the room above the gate with it's elaborate Tudor ceiling, which was
transplanted from a nearby college. The gate is quite close to the site of
Winchester Castle, established by William the Conqueror, elaborated and
inhabited by many monarchs, eventually turned into army barracks and sold to
the city. What remains today are a few ruins and the Great Hall. That is
in the tourist guides mainly because of the Round Table which decorates one
of its walls. Believed for centuries to be the top of King Arthur's famed
table, it has been dated to the 13th century. Weighing 1.4 tons and painted
in Tudor times, it is still an impressive piece of work. At the opposite
end of the hall are steel gates erected in honor of the wedding of Charles
and Diana in 1981.
Leaving the hall, we returned to our car and headed on down the road to the
area that has been known as the New Forest since William the Conqueror
brought it under Forest Law (essentailly, claimed it for the Crown) in
1079. It consists of 145 square miles of forest, heath and bogs, including
the largest expanse of primeval oak forest remaining in England. After a
stop at the main Visitor Centre in Lyndhurst, we went up to an area known as
Bolderwood where there are waymarked paths. We picked the two-mile route
and enjoyed our walk, especially when we saw a young buck with a beautiful
rack of antlers and a large group of fawns being fed near one of the
platforms erected for visitors to view the deer without disturbing them. We
drove on across the heath, marvelling at the ponies that stand so fearlessly
near the roads. About 5,000 animals--ponies, cows and pigs--are pastured in
the forest by Commoners, according to Rights set down by law over the last
thousand years and administered by Verderers, Agisters and Foresters.
Back on the highway, we decided to make Portsmouth our next stop. There we
visited the Historic Dockyards. It was late in the day, but we were able to
see a couple of very interesting vessels. The first was the remaining half
of the hull of the Mary Rose, flagship of Henry VIII, sunk during battle in
1545. The remnant was raised from the seabed in 1982 and placed in a
purpose-built hall where it is showered twenty-four hours a day with
propylene glycol to replace the water in the timbers so they can dry out the
hull without it cracking. After seeing that we took a tour of the HMS
Victory, Admiral Nelson's flagship during the Battle of Trafalgar. Our
guide was a Sri Lankan navy man who enjoyed telling tales of the rigor of
19th-century naval life. It's an enormous vessel and there were lots of
stories to tell, so the tour took about an hour. By the time we were
finished, the dockyards were closing for the evening, so we headed on toward
Arundel through some very heavy traffic, the experience of which was
softened by a glorious sunset.
I had tried to book a room at Byass House in Arundel by email and got mail
back saying that they didn't have any room, but there was a room available
at Surrey House just down the block. That turned out to really be a private
home, but a very lovely one. Our bed for the night was a full four-poster
with a top and a gorgeous bath. The owner, Sylvia, had offered to make a
reservation for us at an excellent new restaurant, but warned that we might
not get in, as they only have seven tables.
Having eaten so well the night before, we were quite happy with the thought
of Chinese, but when we arrived and learned that we did have a table booked
at Duke's, it didn't seem polite to turn it down and we were glad we didn't.
I started with a langoustine bisque that was light and lovely, followed by
an amazing sliced chumpsteak of lamb over a bed of spinach, in a red-wine
demi-glace with rosti potatoes, carmelized onions and a mixture of eggplant
and roasted tomatoes that was divine. Jason started with the herbed goats
cheese on a bed of greens with sun-dried tomatoes, peppers, olives,
artichoke hearts and the toasted hazelnuts that he felt really added a
special touch to the dish. His main was two small fillets of red mullet
with langoustines in a tomato-y sauce with a touch of curry to it and a
couple of boiled new potatoes. He was disappointed in the potatoes, but
everything else was delicious and we traded many bites back and forth. We
were very impressed with how confident the chef's hand seemed, how perfectly
the complex flavors meshed, and we were quite surprised to learn from Sylvia
that he is only about 24. For dessert, Jason chose the coconut creme brulee,
which he enjoyed, but I found more custardy than I like. I chose the cheese
plate--slices of four different cheeses with grapes, celery and water
crackers--and enjoyed that very much. The restaurant is a family affair and
we had a pleasant chat with the owner's father, Mac, who lived in Sausalito
for a while, but was born and raised in Arundel--quite a character he was.
After a pleasant night in our lovely bed, we ate the full breakfast Sylvia
prepared for us and then drove up and parked our car near the pedestrian
entrance to the castle. It didn't open until noon, so we had a couple of
hours to wait. We peeked into the cathedral--a very lovely place--but they
were just starting mass, so we walked on. Arundel Park (the grounds
attached to the castle) are open to the public, so we walked there. The
family raises race horses, apparently, and we passed some of them out for
their morning exercise. We walked down the road that passes straight
through the middle of the park, passing only a very few other people. At
one point there is a small castle--perhaps a lookout tower from ages past,
or merely a folly--looking out over the valley beyond. When it came time to
turn back, we decided to take the bridle path instead, since it led through
the woods and the sun was beginning to get a bit hot. That was a lovely
trail and we saw a group of pheasants bobbling their way across the path and
into the underbrush. We got back to the castle gate with some time to spare
still, but our feet were ready for a break, so we sat on a pleasant shaded
bench and read until the gates opened.
Arundel Castle is the home of the Dukes of Norfolk, who have been the senior
Roman Catholic family in the UK since the 16th century split with Rome and
have included two cardinals and a saint in their family tree. The castle
was acquired by marriage along with the title of Earl of Arundel. The 17th
Duke of Norfolk died in June, so his son is now the reigning duke. The
castle was founded in the 11th century by one of William the Conqueror's
chief supporters and the Norman keep still stands. A group of medieval
re-enacters were preparing for a swordfighting exhibition in the keep as we
were climbing around it to enjoy the view. The castle was seriously damaged
by Cromwell's army in the 17th century, but repaired in the 18th century and
largely redecorated in the 19th. The family returned to live in the castle
about ten years ago and additional changes were made then, including a
lovely staircase made of oak and cedar from trees uprooted on the grounds of
the castle in the Great Storm of 1987. The State Rooms were lovely and
impressive, especially the Great Hall, with it's wooden cathedral ceiling
and the lovely Regency-period library. We spent just about an hour going
through all of those and were on the road just after one.
We made great time to Leeds Castle, about ninety miles away to the
northeast, near Maidstone. Leeds Castle was founded shortly after the
Conquest on an island in the River Len, near a fortified mill. Given to
Edward I, it remained in royal hands until the 16th century, when it passed
into private ownership. It was purchased in 1926 by the Hon. Olive, Lady
Baillie, eldest daughter of Almeric Paget Lord Queenborough and the American
heiress, Pauline Whitney. She restored and renovated the entire castle and
it passed to a foundation on her death in 1974. It has been used as a
conference center, most famously for talks between the foreign ministers of
Israel, Egypt and the U.S. during the preparation for the Camp David
agreement in 1978.
In addition to the castle--considered to be possibly the loveliest in
England--the Park is a treat all its own. We enjoyed a visit to the
extensive Aviary, which houses the descendants of Lady Baillie's collection
of exotic birds, and the Maze. Built of 2400 yew plants, it is the most
intricate and challenging of the garden mazes we have visited and it took us
quite some time to work our way to the center. The mound there allows
visitors to overlook the entire maze before descending into the grotto, with
its Green Man fountain, which leads through a corridor to the outside. We
didn't have time to visit the greenhouses, the vineyard, or any of the
several other gardens, but were delighted with the many lovely prospects the
grounds have to offer.
After all our walking, we were very happy to be able to catch a ride back to
the main entrance on the trams provided. We picked up gas at the service
station near the entrance to the motorway and decided to give a ride to the
young man hitching there. He had come from Prague, where he'd spent the
summer working in a youth hostel, and was headed home to his sister in
Manchester to pick up his mail and touch base before heading to Southeast
Asia to work there for the winter. We had feared traffic would be a mess,
but Jason mapped us a route through Greenwich that had us into London in
less than an hour. We dropped off our passenger at a tube station and
headed home, which took us another whole hour, due to construction
hold-ups.
We had a pizza and checked our email and then Jason loaded up the car with
computers and went up to Cambridge to swap machines with the office there.
I talked to various folk as I went through the mail and messages and fell
asleep before Jason got home. This morning I returned the car and he went
off to meet with the British C++ folks in preparation for the meeting in
Santa Cruz later this month.
So now I guess it's time to do some more packing. The removers come for our
things one week from today. It is unbelievable that our time here is over,
but when I look back on everything we've managed to do in two years, it's
equally hard to believe it hasn't been longer.
Vampire Slayer_) was the opportunity to attend the press reception for the
new Darwin Centre at the Natural History Museum. Our guest--Sian
Gramates--had arranged for passes for the two of us through a friend who
writes for Science magazine, so I got to represent Science (it was on my
name badge and everything) as we explored the public areas, listened to a
couple of presentations and took a guided tour of the back rooms. The
centre's primary function is to provide storage for the 22 million items of
the museum's "Spirit Collection," specimens--mainly animal--stored in
alcohol. Vast as the collection is--it occupies 25 kilometres of
shelving--the new building is only the first phase of the centre. A second,
larger building will be constructed next door to store the Botany and
Entomology Collections--6 million plant specimens and 28 million bugs. We
had a great time talking to the bug guy, seeing a barracuda recently caught
by a fishing trawler off the coast of Cornwall, and getting close enough to
a real coelacanth that we could have touched it! For more information--I've
already gone on too long about it, but it's a very, very cool place--check
out their website at www.nhm.ac.uk/darwincentre/.
We thought the trip to Cornwall would be our last major excursion here
in England, but when we realized we didn't have any plans for this weekend,
we thought we should take advantage of our remaining time to check off a few
more items on our list of things we had hoped to see.
On Friday afternoon we picked up a car and headed southwest to Chawton, a
picturesque little village southeast of England. There we visited Chawton
Cottage where Jane Austen spent the last years of her short life. It's a
lovely place, set in beautiful gardens. The rooms are decorated in the
style of her period (early 19th century) and include several pieces of
furniture known to have been in the house at that time. Perhaps the most
touching is the tiny little table on which Jane liked to write. The room
had a creaky door, which was left that way at her request, so she would have
warning when someone was entering and could hide her manuscript. She never
admitted to authorship of her works during her lifetime. There were many
interesting tidbits of information--perhaps the most touching was the
original letter written by Cassandra to Jane's favorite niece, describing
Jane's death and her feelings on the occasion. It was also interesting to
see the exhibits of typical clothing of the era and items relating to other
members of her family.
After completing that pilgrimage, we went back up the road to the nearby
market town of Alton, where I had booked us a room at the Alton Grange
Hotel. We had a nap in our lovely room and then went down to dinner at
Truffles, their highly recommended restaurant. After an amuse bouche of
Lebanese style eggplant in pastry cups and Japanese style tuna tempura,
Jason enjoyed a starter of aubergine (eggplant) tempura layered with a salad
of asparagus and green grapes, while I had the smoked haddock on a bed of
spinach with a poached egg and creamy mustard sauce. For mains, Jason
ordered the caramelized fillet of beef with honey roasted root vegetables
and wild mushrooms, while I took the breast of Barbary duck in a red wine
demi-glace. I didn't much care for my duck, but Jason thought it plenty
tasty, so we switched plates halfway through the meal. For dessert we
shared a plum claufoutis (plums baked into a tarte-like thing) with roasted
almond ice cream.
Back in our rooms I was happy to relax in their deep tub before a very
pleasant night's sleep. In the morning our adorable young French waiter
from the previous evening served us a tasty English breakfast before we
headed on our way.
Our first stop was in Winchester. We visited the cathedral, largely built
in the 11th century, when Winchester was still an important city. It's a
beautiful church, with several interesting elements, including the site of
the tomb of St. Swithin, the Lady Chapel rebuilt by Elizabeth of York in the
16th century in honor of the birth of her son in Winchester, a series of
stained glass windows designed by Edward Burne-Jones, and the grave of Jane
Austen. Her stone, in one of the aisles of the church, doesn't mention her
literary endeavors, but on the wall nearby is a plaque and a memorial
window in her honor. As we wandered around the church, we were very pleased
to have the choir rehearsing in the background, lending ambience to our
visit.
After a stop in their excellent gift shop (I saw a plaque with a saying I
really liked: Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, today is a
gift--that's why it's called the present!), we strolled around the grounds
and spent a few minutes in the garden planted on the site of the former
monastery that was destroyed during Henry VIII's Dissolution. Then we
wandered up the High Street, past the 16th-century market cross, to the
Westgate--formerly one of the main gates in the city wall--where we visited
the room above the gate with it's elaborate Tudor ceiling, which was
transplanted from a nearby college. The gate is quite close to the site of
Winchester Castle, established by William the Conqueror, elaborated and
inhabited by many monarchs, eventually turned into army barracks and sold to
the city. What remains today are a few ruins and the Great Hall. That is
in the tourist guides mainly because of the Round Table which decorates one
of its walls. Believed for centuries to be the top of King Arthur's famed
table, it has been dated to the 13th century. Weighing 1.4 tons and painted
in Tudor times, it is still an impressive piece of work. At the opposite
end of the hall are steel gates erected in honor of the wedding of Charles
and Diana in 1981.
Leaving the hall, we returned to our car and headed on down the road to the
area that has been known as the New Forest since William the Conqueror
brought it under Forest Law (essentailly, claimed it for the Crown) in
1079. It consists of 145 square miles of forest, heath and bogs, including
the largest expanse of primeval oak forest remaining in England. After a
stop at the main Visitor Centre in Lyndhurst, we went up to an area known as
Bolderwood where there are waymarked paths. We picked the two-mile route
and enjoyed our walk, especially when we saw a young buck with a beautiful
rack of antlers and a large group of fawns being fed near one of the
platforms erected for visitors to view the deer without disturbing them. We
drove on across the heath, marvelling at the ponies that stand so fearlessly
near the roads. About 5,000 animals--ponies, cows and pigs--are pastured in
the forest by Commoners, according to Rights set down by law over the last
thousand years and administered by Verderers, Agisters and Foresters.
Back on the highway, we decided to make Portsmouth our next stop. There we
visited the Historic Dockyards. It was late in the day, but we were able to
see a couple of very interesting vessels. The first was the remaining half
of the hull of the Mary Rose, flagship of Henry VIII, sunk during battle in
1545. The remnant was raised from the seabed in 1982 and placed in a
purpose-built hall where it is showered twenty-four hours a day with
propylene glycol to replace the water in the timbers so they can dry out the
hull without it cracking. After seeing that we took a tour of the HMS
Victory, Admiral Nelson's flagship during the Battle of Trafalgar. Our
guide was a Sri Lankan navy man who enjoyed telling tales of the rigor of
19th-century naval life. It's an enormous vessel and there were lots of
stories to tell, so the tour took about an hour. By the time we were
finished, the dockyards were closing for the evening, so we headed on toward
Arundel through some very heavy traffic, the experience of which was
softened by a glorious sunset.
I had tried to book a room at Byass House in Arundel by email and got mail
back saying that they didn't have any room, but there was a room available
at Surrey House just down the block. That turned out to really be a private
home, but a very lovely one. Our bed for the night was a full four-poster
with a top and a gorgeous bath. The owner, Sylvia, had offered to make a
reservation for us at an excellent new restaurant, but warned that we might
not get in, as they only have seven tables.
Having eaten so well the night before, we were quite happy with the thought
of Chinese, but when we arrived and learned that we did have a table booked
at Duke's, it didn't seem polite to turn it down and we were glad we didn't.
I started with a langoustine bisque that was light and lovely, followed by
an amazing sliced chumpsteak of lamb over a bed of spinach, in a red-wine
demi-glace with rosti potatoes, carmelized onions and a mixture of eggplant
and roasted tomatoes that was divine. Jason started with the herbed goats
cheese on a bed of greens with sun-dried tomatoes, peppers, olives,
artichoke hearts and the toasted hazelnuts that he felt really added a
special touch to the dish. His main was two small fillets of red mullet
with langoustines in a tomato-y sauce with a touch of curry to it and a
couple of boiled new potatoes. He was disappointed in the potatoes, but
everything else was delicious and we traded many bites back and forth. We
were very impressed with how confident the chef's hand seemed, how perfectly
the complex flavors meshed, and we were quite surprised to learn from Sylvia
that he is only about 24. For dessert, Jason chose the coconut creme brulee,
which he enjoyed, but I found more custardy than I like. I chose the cheese
plate--slices of four different cheeses with grapes, celery and water
crackers--and enjoyed that very much. The restaurant is a family affair and
we had a pleasant chat with the owner's father, Mac, who lived in Sausalito
for a while, but was born and raised in Arundel--quite a character he was.
After a pleasant night in our lovely bed, we ate the full breakfast Sylvia
prepared for us and then drove up and parked our car near the pedestrian
entrance to the castle. It didn't open until noon, so we had a couple of
hours to wait. We peeked into the cathedral--a very lovely place--but they
were just starting mass, so we walked on. Arundel Park (the grounds
attached to the castle) are open to the public, so we walked there. The
family raises race horses, apparently, and we passed some of them out for
their morning exercise. We walked down the road that passes straight
through the middle of the park, passing only a very few other people. At
one point there is a small castle--perhaps a lookout tower from ages past,
or merely a folly--looking out over the valley beyond. When it came time to
turn back, we decided to take the bridle path instead, since it led through
the woods and the sun was beginning to get a bit hot. That was a lovely
trail and we saw a group of pheasants bobbling their way across the path and
into the underbrush. We got back to the castle gate with some time to spare
still, but our feet were ready for a break, so we sat on a pleasant shaded
bench and read until the gates opened.
Arundel Castle is the home of the Dukes of Norfolk, who have been the senior
Roman Catholic family in the UK since the 16th century split with Rome and
have included two cardinals and a saint in their family tree. The castle
was acquired by marriage along with the title of Earl of Arundel. The 17th
Duke of Norfolk died in June, so his son is now the reigning duke. The
castle was founded in the 11th century by one of William the Conqueror's
chief supporters and the Norman keep still stands. A group of medieval
re-enacters were preparing for a swordfighting exhibition in the keep as we
were climbing around it to enjoy the view. The castle was seriously damaged
by Cromwell's army in the 17th century, but repaired in the 18th century and
largely redecorated in the 19th. The family returned to live in the castle
about ten years ago and additional changes were made then, including a
lovely staircase made of oak and cedar from trees uprooted on the grounds of
the castle in the Great Storm of 1987. The State Rooms were lovely and
impressive, especially the Great Hall, with it's wooden cathedral ceiling
and the lovely Regency-period library. We spent just about an hour going
through all of those and were on the road just after one.
We made great time to Leeds Castle, about ninety miles away to the
northeast, near Maidstone. Leeds Castle was founded shortly after the
Conquest on an island in the River Len, near a fortified mill. Given to
Edward I, it remained in royal hands until the 16th century, when it passed
into private ownership. It was purchased in 1926 by the Hon. Olive, Lady
Baillie, eldest daughter of Almeric Paget Lord Queenborough and the American
heiress, Pauline Whitney. She restored and renovated the entire castle and
it passed to a foundation on her death in 1974. It has been used as a
conference center, most famously for talks between the foreign ministers of
Israel, Egypt and the U.S. during the preparation for the Camp David
agreement in 1978.
In addition to the castle--considered to be possibly the loveliest in
England--the Park is a treat all its own. We enjoyed a visit to the
extensive Aviary, which houses the descendants of Lady Baillie's collection
of exotic birds, and the Maze. Built of 2400 yew plants, it is the most
intricate and challenging of the garden mazes we have visited and it took us
quite some time to work our way to the center. The mound there allows
visitors to overlook the entire maze before descending into the grotto, with
its Green Man fountain, which leads through a corridor to the outside. We
didn't have time to visit the greenhouses, the vineyard, or any of the
several other gardens, but were delighted with the many lovely prospects the
grounds have to offer.
After all our walking, we were very happy to be able to catch a ride back to
the main entrance on the trams provided. We picked up gas at the service
station near the entrance to the motorway and decided to give a ride to the
young man hitching there. He had come from Prague, where he'd spent the
summer working in a youth hostel, and was headed home to his sister in
Manchester to pick up his mail and touch base before heading to Southeast
Asia to work there for the winter. We had feared traffic would be a mess,
but Jason mapped us a route through Greenwich that had us into London in
less than an hour. We dropped off our passenger at a tube station and
headed home, which took us another whole hour, due to construction
hold-ups.
We had a pizza and checked our email and then Jason loaded up the car with
computers and went up to Cambridge to swap machines with the office there.
I talked to various folk as I went through the mail and messages and fell
asleep before Jason got home. This morning I returned the car and he went
off to meet with the British C++ folks in preparation for the meeting in
Santa Cruz later this month.
So now I guess it's time to do some more packing. The removers come for our
things one week from today. It is unbelievable that our time here is over,
but when I look back on everything we've managed to do in two years, it's
equally hard to believe it hasn't been longer.