Garden, family

[armb]

Alice and Pam have been busy planning and preparing a couple of new flower beds, reducing the lawn. One of them is going to be designed mainly for winter interest - cornus with coloured stems, and other things with evergreen (or ever-purple) foliage. They've also bought some plants for the little patches of soil outside the front gate. There are also vague plans to extend the patio round the corner, so we can have a table there in the summer evening light, but that will have to wait a while. Overwintering plants have been cleared out of the greenhouse, and we have tomatoes germinating to go in. I have some chili seeds I meant to plant at the same time, but I'll do them this weekend (all our seed trays were full).
We don't have any tulips, and the ones outside the boys' school are looking very nice, so I think we'll have to get some. The daffodils are fading, but the cherry blossom looks splendid.
Both Alice's sisters phoned. Bea is planning to go to Paris at half-term and wanted to know if we would like to come too - current plan says Rory and Nana will go - and Julia is worried about my niece's choice of college. So I have to persuade her that she can go to a "good" college and still be a nice left-wing liberal instead of becoming a well-paid-but-overworked-with-little-time-for-children banker or similar like her mother. Or something. And Julia's invitation to Nana Pam for Christmas has apparently changed from "if the new house is ready" to "we'll book a motel for you", which was a bit of a surprise as we didn't know about any Christmas invitation - so we'll be dogsitting, which rules out a friend's suggestion of joining them Youth Hosteling, but we weren't too sure about that anyway.

Comments

[crazyscot.livejournal.com]

It's entirely possible. It's the job of the admissions tutors to figure out what your course grades mean; to be frank, they're usually more interested in the "everything else" bit of the interview - who are you, what interests you have, and (the crucial bit) how you think and how you'll get on with the courses. One of my best mates when I was an undergrad (1996-99) was from New Jersey; he pointed out one day that, despite the "non-UK" fees and two air fares a term, it was still cheaper than him going to anywhere in the Ivy League... (I don't know if this is still the case, but it wouldn't surprise me.)

By all means, apply! You might do well to find a friendly college so you can have informal words with their admissions tutor now-ish (i.e. before you apply).

[armb.livejournal.com]

Clare's US admissions policy;. Yale and Clare also have an exchange scheme. I assume other colleges have other similar arrangements.