Luke arrives at university

What a tiring day it has been! Adam phoned late last night to say that 'jacket and tie' required for formal wear actually means a suit (whose interpretation is that, I wonder?) and consequently he urgently needs a suit for his matriculation ceremony and dinner on Monday. We had planned to leave at 6.30am this morning to drive Luke up to Durham University, and so decided to first go via Cambridge to drop off Adam's suit - it was only about 30 minutes out of our way. He was very surprised to see Luke standing outside his room very early this morning with his suit!

That deed done, we had a pleasant drive up to Durham along the A1 with no traffic. As we did yesterday, we noticed many fully laden cars on the motorway with parents obviously taking their children to university. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the beautiful English countryside, seeing as we travelled almost the entire length of England today, going through Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and finally County Durham. It was a lovely sunny day and the scenery was beautiful. Sadly no time to stop for photos.

We arrived, got Luke settled in his room and helped him unpack. Fitting all his stuff in the severe lack of storage facilities required something of a maths degree specialising in geometry!

We left him to go have lunch with his fellow freshers while Gavin and I had a quick lunch in town - then we met up again to say goodbye. He seemed very happy and was looking forward to his matriculation dinner and ceremony which is taking place tonight. This was a hurried photo of him in front of his college (hurried before anyone else noticed just how embarrassing his mother was being...) It is a rubbish photo but it serves as a record for my journal.

I have added an extra photo taken this morning in Grantham where we stopped for a coffee. Grantham is famous as being the birth place of Margaret Thatcher and where Isaac Newton went to school, hence this statue of him that has been erected in front of the Guildhall.

Coming home was much busier on the M1. Our expected 4,5 hour journey took 5,5 hours due to heavy traffic. It has been a very long day and madness to go there and back in one day but that was the way things worked out. Now off to bed....