Our streak of cold, bad weather continued into this week, and on Monday, a ferocious windstorm swept into the area, downing large trees all over St. Andrews (see photo at left of a car parked in front of the B. Janetta ice cream shop on South Street in St. Andrews!) and closing several of the local bridges. It was quite a strange day...vacillating between pouring rain, crazy wind, and full-on sunshine! I dashed out to pick up the kids from school at 3pm and almost couldn't make it to the car because it was so windy. As I stood on the playground outside the school waiting for them to emerge, it was blazingly sunny, but on the way home it began to pour, and we were all soaked just from the trip between car and front door!
The study group met for one last time on Monday night--we took all the students to the Pizza Express (that's actually a pretty good UK chain...despite the name!) for a farewell dinner, and everyone had fun--though John probably enjoyed himself more than anyone by circulating among all the groups of girls and turning on the charm. His seven-year old version of charm is unfortunately to poke them on the back and run away quickly, and when they tire of that, to tousle their hair. But they all tolerated it quite well! At the end of the dinner, we all stood outside the restaurant (in the 70 mph wind!) saying our goodbyes, as some of them were heading in different directions after finals, and all of them would be gone by Thursday. It was quite sad--our group has been marvelous, and we hate to see the study group part of the trip end. All of our students got along with each other so well, and they were always up for any kind of adventure, whether it involved climbing 400 steps in York, getting up early for the wrong train, or pushing a narrow boat down a freezing cold creek in Oxford! They are a cheerful, casual, welcoming bunch, and we'll really miss them!
Just hours after our group dinner, we started to hear the news about the ash cloud that was slowly settling over Scotland. At first, the BBC predicted that it wouldn't affect air travel, then when the news came that President Obama was leaving Ireland early, things began to change quickly. By Tuesday morning, all flights in or out of Glasgow and Edinburgh were cancelled, and no one seemed to know anything. One of our students was supposed to fly out of Edinburgh to Paris early on Tuesday morning but didn't make it. Instead, he caught a train to London to try for a flight there. I last heard from him as he was enroute to London... The fear was that the rest of the students, scheduled to leave from Edinburgh on Thursday morning, would be stuck here as well until the ash dissipated. What's worse is that our family is scheduled to fly out of Edinburgh too, just an hour after the students leave, to Paris for a vacation. I guess when I was booking our tickets I should have left more than an hour's worth of time in between the flights, in case anything went wrong. Oh well...I'll know that when we do the next study group! So, while I was monitoring the BBC website for news and emailing people at Colgate to form a Plan B, C, and D for the students, I got another email from Allison Buras, the wife of the Baylor study group in St. Andrews who have been here with us for the past semester. She just learned that her grandmother had passed away, and she was preparing to leave with her three boys as soon as possible on the next open flight.
We went over to their house to say a hasty good-bye, and our families ended up taking one last walk down the Lade Braes together. That was sad as well--our kids have become good friends, and David and I enjoy spending time with Todd and Allison as well. We have had dinner at each other's houses on many occasions, and have often traded babysitting. Since Allison changed her flight and we weren't sure that British Airways was going to be able to fly this morning, I offered to drive them to the airport and wait with them until they checked in. Todd came as well, though he isn't returning to the States until Saturday with the rest of the Baylor students. We left St. Andrews at 4:15 am, which of course wasn't a problem since the sun was already up! We arrived at the airport, which was absolutely mobbed with people who had spent the night there waiting for their cancelled flights to leave, and Allison checked herself and the boys in without a problem. Their flight was the first one to leave that morning, and I could tell that she was quite relieved not to have to haul six months worth of luggage back to St. Andrews with her to wait for another flight.
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