Today we visited Christ Church College Library which was my favorite to date. Each library becomes more and more spectacular each day. The Christ Church Dining Hall was where the Hogwarts Dining Hall scenes were filmed.  Christ Church College is also the Lewis Carroll's college and was the inspiration for many of his scenes in Alice in Wonderland.  Laurie knows  a lot more about this so I will let her explain.

The afternoon we are attending a presentation by David Benedictus on Winnie the Pooh and the next generation. I have been told that Benedictus is the leading authority on Winnie the Pooh.  I'll let you know how it goes.

I just returned to my room from what was slated as a poetry reading.  I honestly was ready to skip it - poetry, I'm sorry to say, is not my thing.  Dr Helen Kidd is a poetess but she also teaches creative writing at Oxford. It was great.  Not only does she write great poetry that is meaningful to me but she also inspires her students to find the right words.  We worked individually on a list of words and phrases around a central theme and then put the poem together.  It was fun and I learned that maybe poetry isn't all that bad. I was definitely out of my comfort zone but that is good.

Laurie and I just attended a fascinating lecture on dictionaries presented by Professor Lynda Mugglestone. Look her up on Amazon.  I will need to buy some of her books! Dictionaries are not just a long list of words and definitions. Mugglestone made the case that all dictionaries are very partial and are very selective - and they reflect the social and cultural norms of the time in which they were written. Dictionaries can be very controversial – should a word be added or should it be left out because the word is too “common” or too new. She is currently writing a book on Samuel Johnson and it was wonderful that I was able to visit Johnson’s London house last Saturday. It made the lecture so much more meaningful.

This has been an amazing trip.  Thank you USM!