A quick update on the last week's events, which have been numerous.
First, we have found a long-term place to live, in Grange as we had
hoped.  It's a flat above a cafe and bakery (so expect us to be larger
when we return to the US), in the middle of town, close to the railway
station, overlooking an ornamental garden with a collection of exotic
wildfowl which includes, incongruously, a pair of nene geese, the
Hawai`ian state bird.  The address is 1, Yewbarrow Terrace, Grange-
over-Sands, Cumbria LA11 6ED.  The place is larger and more expensive
than we had been looking for, but there weren't a lot of places to
choose from in Grange, and we have enjoyed our two weeks in the town so
much that we really didn't want to look elsewhere.  The good part is
that we will have plenty of room for visitors, and the place is bright
and sunny (on good days), with large south-facing windows with a view
onto the gardens, and the location is perfect. 

Last weekend we made our first forays into the Lake District.  On
Saturday we made a short car tour with the Aunties, on a sunshine-and-
showers day that brought views of heartbreaking beauty.  On Sunday we
returned for our first fell walk, up Heron Pike (for the record), 2000
feet above Grasmere.  It felt good to have the Lakeland mountains
underfoot once more, and to return to a summit that I used to visit
frequently in the summer of 1973, when I worked as a dishwasher at a
hotel in the valley below (my first job).  It was disheartening,
however, to see how much the mountain paths had been eroded by overuse
in the past 25 years- the Lake District is just barely holding up under
the strain of its own popularity. 

Last Friday I had an unexpected trip to the BBC television centre in
Manchester- their cable news channel wanted me to comment on Gene
Shoemaker's trip to the Moon and on the Navajo Nation's unhappiness with
it (which I hadn't heard of till the BBC people told me about it, so I
wasn't too helpful to them on that score).  For some reason they wanted
me to perch on the edge of a desk for the interview, which was done
remotely from London- I suppose this was meant to convey an air of
immediacy, but I had to remain in this precarious position for 20
minutes till they got round to talking to me.  Anyway, it was good to
have a chance to talk about Gene's contribution to our understanding of
the world, even if the audience was relatively small (the BBC cable
channel is new, and not many people get it, yet).  I'm finding that I
can work fairly efficiently from here, though being on the Internet
means that I get as many interruptions and demands on my time as I did
back home, so the sabbatical goal of getting away from distractions to
focus on some projects full-time may be elusive.