Graduation

Dot.T’s graduation - and funnily, she’s graduating a week before DougsJB who should have graduated 2 years ago.

It was immense and wonderful. I kind of need to list what we did, purely for the record that Blip is for me/us.

We left home early and arrived in good time.
We parked up and popped in to see some old church friends who were kindly letting us use a parking permit.
We walked into town, made contact with the girl, and stopped for a quick posh brekkie at FitzBillies whilst she assembled in College.
We joined her in College, and waited around with all the other guests as the graduates lined up for their year photos.
Once they were done, we walked off towards Senate House where we were marshalled into a queue on Kings Parade for 30 minutes.
With some considerable effort, that’s when WelshLad arrived. Dot.T was somewhere else at this point.
We were then filed in and coincidentally bump into the parents of her bestie and NoaNoa’s bestie. Great to meet them at long last.
Then we had the ceremony. So very different from LongLegs & HatBox’s graduations. More intimate. Shorter. More tradition. More formality. No clapping and no photos.
Then outside for photo opportunities with their certificates.
Then more photos. And more hugging :-)
We then went back into College for the Reception which was fantastically done. Great food. Lots of introductions, more group photos, lots of hugs good bye and stories told and matching faces to often heard names.
(And at this point, Elbows disappeared off into a room to join a Zoom of the Thanksgiving Service of his Uncle Peter who died 2 years ago. Elbows was supposed to be doing the Eulogy - so with the diary clash, LongLegs read it out for him and NoaNoa kept him company).
Then the 4 of us went for a one-off drink in the Rooftop Bar of the pukka Varsity Hotel.
This Hotel has plagued Dot.T as her room this year is so close so could hear it all throughout every night.
Then, we wandered down to a mini Sainsburys to buy required picnic-type snacks before boarding a punt back at Trinity Hall.
Then it rained and we had to take cover, but WelshLad meanwhile mastered the skill of punting. He really had us moving fast!
After that delightful hour, it was time for WelshLad to catch his train back to Nottingham and for us to return to the car to leave this amazing city.

I’m going to miss out trips visiting her here. My brother studied here but I never visited him as he’s 6 years older.

We’ve had an amazing day. And I think she would agree.

She’s put her heart and soul into this place. She simply could not have done more.