A BRAG

Well, it's not mine, really, to brag about, its my grandchildren who should be doing the bragging. But I'm happy to shine in their reflected glory. I've known for a while that my older granddaughter, Alice, graduated this year from the University of Nottingham with a degree in Philosophy. So proud of her!  With so many looking for utilitarian degrees, these days, I'm happy and proud that she chose a field that simply broadens the mind. It will stand her in good stead throughout her life--particularly, perhaps, in her later years. I have been known to wax a but philosophical myself...

Then, just this morning, more good news. I have eighteen-year-old grand-twins, Georgia and Joseph. They were offered places at universities earlier this year, conditional on getting the required grades at the end of their secondary school year. Then, as we all know, the coronavirus arrived to throw everything off course, including the school-leaving exams that would have qualified them to accept their places. So they have been sitting, these past, um, four? five months? awaiting some kind of clarity about their further education. Not a pleasant place to be, on the cusp of that big move from school to university.

Today we heard this news, based I think on teacher assessment of what their exam results would have been, had they been able to take them. (I think I have that right...) Anyway, Joseph has earned his place at the University of Kent, where he'll be studying Ancient History. Wow! And Georgia, bless her, has been offered a real and undisputed place at my old Cambridge College, Gonville & Caius! 

The heart swells! I was there in the 1950s. My father was at the same college in the 1920s. My uncle was a don there, a professor of, wait for it... Syriac and Aramaic! I'm sure that my admission was in part thanks to family tradition. That was a factor in the 1950s. But now, in these enlightened days, that does NOT get mentioned, even in a whisper. It's considered, even, a negative factor. So Georgia did this entirely on her own merits--NO thanks to Grandpa or great-Grandpa. 

Caius, by the way, was the college featured (not entirely favorably! anti-Semitism was rife there in the bad old days) in that great movie, "Chariots of Fire." Georgia plans to read--an Oxbridge colloquialism: we don't say "study", we "read"--Linguistics.

So there's my brag. Thanks for bearing with me. Today is a good day to have a full heart, and I'm happy to share it with you.