Hello All!

We hope the holidays are finding you well if they've succeeded in hunting you down.

The picture above is the two of us at Dartmouth Castle on the mouth of the River Dart.  Unfortunately, we couldn't  show you a picture of us at some historic site in Reading because Reading basically doesn't have any (although Reading does have a surprisingly interesting history).  One thing Reading does have is plenty of pubs both in the city and in the surrounding countryside.  These gathering places are truly a fantastic aspect of living in England.  True, we have had to give up margaritas for bitters, but you can't beat blowing your own trumpet about that brilliant goal you scored in the Meteorology Department football match over a couple of pints down the pub.

For those who haven't been keeping track, Dave's been living in Reading since January 2001, getting paid to grow plants in global climate models.  He carefully tends to them daily by adding just the right amount of convective precipitation and solar irradiation with just a touch of loving encouragement when required.  Diane arrived in England about one year later, and quickly set about spending loads of money on plane tickets to hop back and forth over the Atlantic as part of a poorly designed strategy to finally finish her PhD degree in geochemistry.  Finished it is, though, and it has been great to get that monkey off the back so that she can make room for all the new monkeys that are queuing up to jump on.

Besides the pubs, Reading's best feature is that it is a convenient springboard to get to other places (what a recommendation for a city, eh?).  On the small scale, the surrounding countryside is perfect for cycling and leisurely walks.  On the large scale, the many countries of Europe are just a short and cheap flight away.  We've managed to bounce over to France, Ireland, Spain, Austria (just Dave), and Italy since we've been here and as a result Dave has inched ahead of Diane in the intra-marriage 'countries visited' competition by a score of 20 to 19.  A few highlights:  getting lectured by an animated Italian ski-patroller because we were about to encounter the uphill start of an overnight randonet ski race since we snuck onto the slope post apres-ski drink; Diane smoking past a suffering Dave on her bike while climbing Les Deux Alpes at the Tour de France; Dave making weak-stomached Englishmen feel ill merely at the sight of him balancing on one foot at the edge of an Austrian alps precipice; feeding directly off the trees as we trekked from village to village in Las Alpujarras of the spanish Sierra Nevada;  freezing our tootsies off in Ireland in June forcing us to resort to our fallback strategy which was watching as many World Cup games and listening to as many Irish jigs as possible; freezing our tootsies off in Wales in July forcing us to resort to our fallback position which was visiting as many Welsh castles as possible; freezing our tootsies off walking in the Yorkshire Dales in November (no surprise there) and dealing with it; and last but not in any way least, sampling splendid Spanish tapas, tasty Italian pasta, exquisite French fondue, hearty Irish Guinness, and fulfilling English roasts (food food food!).

It's been easy to stay sane, despite the gray winter weather, because we've found a great group of friends in Dave's department who somehow manage to put up with our Americanness.  We have tried to assimilate.  We eat fish and chips now and then, go out for curries, buy rounds at the pub, play lots of football (which, as you can imagine, wasn't so hard of an adjustment), and complain about the rubbish weather (even better at that than most Englishmen).  Dave has even gone to the drastic length of playing cricket which, it has to be said, is a dreadfully dull game but a pleasant way to enjoy a long summer evening nonetheless. 

That is pretty much it, in a nutshell.  We can see though that you are thinking and wondering about the future. You are curious about what we are going to do next.  We would love to tell you, but ... well, so are we.

Have a jolly ol' Christmas and a smashing New Year and all that, what, what.

Dave and Diane



Pictures: upper left, Betws-y-Coed, north Wales; upper right and lower left, Yorkshire Dales; lower right,  The Thames river between Reading and Sonning.
 
Pictures of the pub signs from some, but most certainly not all the pubs we have visited this year (clockwise from top left):

The Cleave Inn, Lustleigh; The Rose Revived, near Oxford;  The Plough Inn, Longparish; The Roebuck, Reading; The Warwick, Reading; The Old Boot Inn, Stanford-Dingley

The Horn, Reading; The Three Tuns, Earley; The Jolly Angler, Reading; The Bull Inn, Sonning; Back of Beyond, Reading

The College Arms, Reading; The Royal William, Cotswold Way; The Start Bay Inn, Torcross; The Upin Arms, Reading; The Butt Inn, Aldermaston; The Blacksmith Arms, near Sheffield

The Allied Arms, Reading; The Fisherman's Cottage, Reading; The Black Swan, Monxton; The Hogshead, Reading; The Sun, Reading.