Last week in New Haven

We have a nice weekend at home and decide to climb the nearby East Rock.  It is a lovely and not too gruelling walk up the hill with a fabulous view over New Haven out to the shore.  It has a very distinctive 19th century war memorial at the top but alas few birds.  It is supposed to be the top migration time at the moment but the migrants have not appeared due to the late arrival of spring. Hugh is depressed but we try again the next day meeting up with some former students of Hugh's, Lianna, James and their darling baby Annika who are working nearby in the Bronx for the Wildlife Conservation Society.  James is a crazy bird-watcher like Hugh but still they do not find many birds.

I am very happy, as not only do we have pancakes for lunch, but it is a lovely sunny Sunday just right for driving around small towns in Conneticut.  We actually have lunch in Guilford where my friend Julie and her former husband lived when they were at Yale.  It is very cute with a village green and many painted wooden houses with shutters like you see in all the American movies. We also stop at many coastal parks in the vain hope of seeing birds.  It is nice to smell the sea-air which vanquishes my allergies and feel the sun on my face for a change. Also it is lovely to play with Annika and catch up on all the gossip. We are going to stay a night with them all next week before we fly off to Wisconsin.

This is our last week in New Haven and we head off each day together to work, although Hugh likes to go to work much earlier than me.  I have been taking the opportunity of the nicer weather to explore the campus at Yale as I have compared it unfavourably with Princeton.  There are some gracious old ivy-league type buildings around - see below Vanderbilt Hall and lots of pretty courtyards. Yale also has two wonderful art galleries - the Yale Museum of Art and the Gallery of British Art which was orated to the university by a rich philanthropist Paul Mellon. They sure do have a lot of rich philanthropists in America. Hugh's visit to Yale is being funded by one and went to the fancy annual board meeting where he sat opposite George Bush's Aunt. Moving among the rich and famous!