Post 15: The Long and Winding Road

One of my goals for this mini-sabbatical was to make progress on the Biological Psychology textbook that I’ve been working on. And indeed I’ve spent a lot of my time here in Cambridge working on the manuscript and art. There’s been quite a lot of ftp’ing of files between me and Gabe White, the developmental editor based in Philly, with cc’s to Sarah England and Sheri Snavely at WW Norton in NYC, and Rick Gilmore, our ace consultant on pedagogy and content, at Penn State. And I’m pretty happy with what we’ve accomplished trans-Atlantically. I hope to leave here in 2 weeks with 6 chapters ready for final review before being sent off for copy editing. We’re not at the end the Long and Winding Road (today’s song) but at least we’re driving down it.

The weather finally turned sour. After weeks without rain, and often with warm sun, yesterday and today it’s been typically English dreary (though the sun just came out). Because it’s mid May, the heat is off. But it was so chilly in my flat this afternoon that I emailed the incredibly accommodating and efficient folks who run the housing facilities and within minutes they had little space heaters at my door. I’ll have some adjustments to make back in NY after having been looked after so well here. Speaking of which, have I mentioned that every week, a scout named Christine comes in for dusting and Hoovering (I first learned about scouts from Milo, since he has one at Oxford as well, though I think his room is too messy for her to even consider Hoovering)?

Tonight it’s dinner with Seth Grant, a great guy and fantastic scientist. We first met when he was in Eric Kandel’s lab in NY. Now he’s a got a very impressive facility at the Sanger Institute, just outside of Cambridge. We’re going out for a meat and potatoes pub kind of meal—my request, since I’ve had a lot of formal banquet type dinners lately with vertically-oriented entres sprouting colorful adornments.

Haven’t heard any music lately. Maybe I’ll head to The Hopbine tomorrow night for old times sake.

(Seth and Joe at The Three Horseshoes)