Building Excitement

So, I’m beginning to get excited about my planned trip to London this weekend. I’m letting myself get a bit excited about it because there’s a pretty good chance that L will be well enough to come (hooray!). We’re considering going to look at Kylie’s pants (and other items) at the V&A, or possibly visiting the Tate Modern. We should be in central London for about 6 hours hopefully (from about 12:30 til 6:30 ish) so while we’re there we’ll be getting some good old sightseeing in, or museums, or at the very least lunch!

Then we’re coaching across to Harrow on the Hill, the location of my old University’s Harrow Campus. I’m most excited about that. There has been some brief mention of perhaps checking out the old SU bar – the Undercroft. However, I’m concerned that it will ruin my (somewhat blurry) memories of the place. Who knows?

This will be my first return visit to my university since I graduated in 2003, so it’s been almost 4 years. I don’t know if we’ll have the time (or the inclination) to have a poke around and see the new halls and what has become of the bungalow.

Ah, the bungalow was a fantastic deal for us third years (and to be honest, for most of my second year!). You see, in the first year you can get a place in halls, however in the second year you have to move out and rent a house with some other students. However, for three lucky students, in the third year you could rent the bungalow. This was a halls-price single story building with three reasonable sized bedrooms, a bathroom, lounge and kitchen. It was furnished, including a piano. L was one of the fortunate three for his year, and as I didn’t like my house in Wembley much (especially when the heating wasn’t working) I spent an awful lot of time there. Then, I applied to live in the bungalow for my third year. Given that my parents were below the halls income threshold and given that they lived a long way away, I was accepted. I lived there with another third year and his other half, plus two different third persons. The first of whom I didn’t always see eye to eye with, the second of whom I really didn’t like! Anyway, it was only two minutes from campus (making me the last person to any lecture or lab session) and was convenient for fire drills too. The last good point was that it was just across a small (50 feet?) grassy area from the Undercroft bar, and less than two minutes’ stagger from the on-site club Area 51. (They’ve probably renamed that again by now).

So, I’ve tried to contact all my old course mates to see if we can get together, and I’ve had pretty good responses. That’ll be the nicest bit, catching up and seeing what everyone is up to now. I hope that they’re all doing well for themselves! I wish I had better things to report on my job front though.