Farewell to Hogworts...I mean Harlaxton

Well, the first of the three coaches has come and gone, carrying almost half of the Harlaxton students to their overnight stay at Heathrow before their Thursday departures for the U.S. I took a walk down the lane tonight just to listen to the sounds of the countryside one last time. That is what I will miss the most as I think I wrote last weekend. And so, this is the final installment my saga from Harlaxton Manor. It seems a lifetime ago that I was going to the Burghley Horse Trials and to Ely Cathedral...the Orkneys and Chatsworth House...beagling with the Radley College hounds and to the opening meet of the Belvoir Hunt. It has been a rich experience in so many ways. But then, this is England...what else would one expect?

I'm off in about five hours on a coach of my own. I'm also bound for Heathrow and an 8:45 am flight to Venice to begin the next nine days exploring Italy. I won't be reporting on that adventure until I get back to London on Friday next though. But stay tuned for more. The road goes ever on...Cheers.

Touring the kennels

On my last Sunday at Harlaxton, I was fortunate enough to get a tour of the Belvoir Hunt kennels and a chance to meet the hounds. Despite a torrential rain storm in the morning, the sky cleared and the sun was bright when one of the BH members came to fetch me from the manor.

This was really a special opportunity. Because the BH hunts four days in the week, when Sunday comes, it is truly a day off and no one wants to be around. We asked permission of the Master of the BH to ask the kennel huntsman (the man who cares for the hounds but doesn't hunt) if he might be willing to show me around. As it happened, one of the Whips was going to be there and willing to give the tour despite having work to do around the kennels.

So we entered along the private drive to Belvoir Castle, passing massive pheasants crossing to and fro across the lane. We finally approached the kennels. They were magnificient at 250 years old. Chris, one of the Whips, met us in the courtyard and cordially walked us in. The BH has 38 couple of hounds (so that's 76 individual hounds) at the moment though before the Hunting Ban went into effect in 2004, there were probably closer to 60 couple.

Here they were ready to greet me. They clearly knew I was a friend. The bitches were kept in their own portion of the kennels, as were the males, and the puppies. But they were all every bit as beautiful as these pictures show you. They were climbing over each other to get a sniff of me and then nudging me to reach in and pet them. But as you can see too, these are no small animals. They are built to run across the fields of Lincolnshire for hours at a time. It is also amazing to think that their bloodlines go back further than the kennels themselves. Every hound's pedigree is documented.

Here are a few more pictures of the inside of the kennels and of the hounds themselves.

One of the rooms in the kennels is called the "Duke's Room." Here, one of the old Dukes of Rutland would inspect each and every hounds. But the poor man had gout so he build a seat (you can see it in the second picture...it's the white bench) with a gate around it so that the hounds would be brought in to him, one at a time, but they couldn't jump on him. Then they were moved out and the next hound brought in. Now, the Duke's Room is a museum that was re-opened last spring, full of photos and memorabilia of the Belvoir Hunt, its hounds, and hunt staff. There are pictures of HRH Prince Charles riding with the Belvoir in the 70s and 80s (though he usually rides with the Beaufort) and others too. It is a splendid exhibit of Hunt history.

One of the last pictures I took was looking from the kennels up the hill to Belvoir Castle. It was a lovely view. A little closer to the castle is a field where the Duchess and her daughters keep their horses stabled and closer still is the Dowager Duchess' cottage. Sadly the Duke of Rutland is more interested in shooting than hunting so while the hounds are technically referred to as the Duke of Rutland's Hounds, it is in name only, much to the disappointment of the Hunt staff and members.

But there it is...the Belvoir Hunt and its hounds remains one of the oldest and most renowned of all the Hunts in Britain. It is also one of the last to maintain its historic kennels. May it always be so.

KEEP HUNTING! KEEP HUNTING! KEEP HUNTING! KEEP HUNTING! KEEP HUNTING! KEEP HUNTING! KEEP HUNTING! KEEP HUNTING! KEEP HUNTING! KEEP HUNTING! KEEP HUNTING! KEEP HUNTING!

Harlaxton Family Christmas

Father Christmas paid a call to Harlaxton Manor yesterday! As is tradition, the college puts on a holiday lunch for the staff and their extended families. It was a lovely day for them and especially for the children. Each of the 120 of them had a chance to sit on the knee of Father Christmas and pass on special requests for this year. As one might expect from such a generous person as Father Christmas, each child received a special early gift from him. Let's just hope they didn't notice that FC had an American accent, being our own UE engineering professor John Parr under all that regalia.

Later that afternoon, it was time for a replay, but this time for the students, their "meet-a-family" hosts, and the faculty. The night began with a reception complete with punch and Christmas crackers so the students were introduced to the fine tradition of wearing paper crowns, telling awful jokes, and playing with tiny toys. They all got into it after the first waves of disbelief went away.

Dinner followed and for the first time I actually ate in the State Dining Room where I taught all semester. The food was good...mostly turkey, ham, and roast beef, shrimp, a cheese board, and of course lots of sweets, including overly sugared mince tarts. After dinner, we call gathered back in the great hall to enjoy the roaring fire and some carol singing before a small group actually headed out to sing carols in the village. As it had turned into a rather bleak mid-winter evening with rain coming down, I decided to prop myself by the fire and enjoy some port with the other faculty that stayed behind as well.

I include a couple of pictures of my students once again. All having a grand time in the lull before final examinations when all still seems right with the world.

Last walk to Denton

The sun was so beautiful today, I thought I would make my last pilgrimage to the Denton reservoir since I would not have another chance before I leave for Italy. As you can see the early afternoon sun was already casting long shadows across the lane down from the manor. It was a gorgeous day to be out and about wandering.

The footpath signs kept beckoning me onward. Through the horse pastures, across the fields now sown with winter wheat, all the way to the reservoir where the swans, ducks, and geese were all enjoying the quiet of the day. It has been fairly damp here so there were plenty of puddles and mud to muck through but that is half the fun. You can see on the third picture a pale green sheen to the fence posts. The photo doesn't do them justice. To look at them and the trees around and see the moss casting off an almost iridescent light. It was an amazing sight to see.

The bridge crosses a small creek that on the way back across the fields to Harlaxton village. It is all just so picturesque. I'm afraid this is the kind of thing that I will miss most about leaving...just walking out one's door and being able to wander like this in solitude, only crossing paths with the occasional person walking their dog. I suppose it is not entirely accurate to leave you with the idea that all was silence. The guns were busy with the pheasants in the distance. I found out that in addition to paying the fee to attend a shoot and the cost of the guns themselves and the proper shooting tweeds, a shooter pays L40 per bird shot...at least on the Belvoir Castle estate. At 100 birds being average for a days shoot...do the math!

I took the last photo for its dramatic qualities. It is actually just next to the footbridge in the photo above. I thought you might enjoy seeing it too.

Beginning of the end

Just as the manor has been dressed for Christmas, it is nearing the conclusion of our Harlaxton experience. To mark the occassion of the last day of classes, a Valedictory Convocation and dinner were held to give students a chance to reflect and celebrate.

The Convocation took place at the Harlaxton village church, the Church of St. Mary and St. Peter. It was a bit of a mixture of a service of remembrance and graduation. The Prinicpal gave a farewell address to the students, the student choir sang several songs, the Vice Principal and Dean of Students handed out certificates of recognition and Harlaxton pins to each student, and near the end, yours truly was asked to read two poems, "The Soldier" by Rupert Brooke and "Jerusalem" by William Blake (I can hear you already humming the tune as we speak). It was a very nice service on a cold, dark night.

We returned to the manor for a reception, followed by a formal dinner. Once again, the students and faculty were in their smartest clothes and everyone certainly enjoyed themselves. The choir performed on last time, a rendition of "Amazing Grace" (which, despite their excellent performance, as some of you might guess, made me do everything in my power to keep from screaming...no no...not this bloody song again!). Ah well...sipping just a little more wine and one hardly noticed it!

Dr. Edward Bujak took the podium to give out several award for student achievement. And before the evening was done, all the faculty were presented individually to receive boisterous applause from the assembly which was gratifying. Maureen, my student from Marian, is here with two of her classmates, Rebecca and Ashleigh, enjoying the final event of the term.

I'll conclude with Rubert Brooke, though despite it being a reflection on the many British soldiers buried in Flanders in the Great War, it is an interesting farewell:

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there's some corner of a foreign field

That is forever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of England's, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.