4 December 1966

A long time has passed since my last entry, I notice. Well, I have been busy. I think I recently told someone back home that I have been spending most of my days here struggling up a greased pole mounted in a nest of adders and that right now I am climbing like hell to stay even. The figure seems apt, if undistinguished. Day after day, week after week, I have been contending with the scheduling problems here. Will Dr. Bulpitt call me tomorrow to confirm his coming for a lecture six days hence? Does Mr. Madagan's failure to respond—for more than ten days—to my letter mean that he will not come to lecture twice this coming Tuesday, or that he has somehow forgotten      the appointment? When I reschedule the appearance of Brian Davison (who misunderstood the timing for his visit which I telephoned him about in London), I must remember to call Blinkhorn's: the slide projector, hired for Davison's first canceled lecture,must be reserved for the make up date.
     What about the next all day coach trip? Have I, or has Patty, checked to make sure that Blenheim Palace or Warwick Castle will be open at the hour at which our group arrives? And where is the confirmation letter from Midland Red Omnibus Co.? Has something happened to the letter I sent a week ago to Mr. Sparkes in Traffic? (Further note for tickler file on this trip: Ask chef either to stop featuring lettuce and butter sandwiches in the box lunches or, if those bland things are a sine qua non, to wrap them in foil rather than napkins so that the lettuce does not turn brown during its overnight and following morning wait in the lunch boxes. And tell him definitely no more pork pies, for which the students seem to hold me personally responsible.)
     I must remember, too, to get someone on the crew here to readjust the radiators in the Library Lecture Hall. One of them creates a sirocco on one side of the room, and the other one is a rather infuriatingly ironic ornament amidst the frigidity which surrounds it.
     Thus goes the train of events associated with getting someone behind the lectern as often as possible for our class meetings. The processes are often full of anxiety. Our deadline for printing a week's schedule of lectures quizzes, trips, and the like is early afternoon of the preceding Friday. More than once I have received acceptances from tentatively listed lecturers as late as 1:00 p.m. on the deadline day. On four different occasions, listed faculty have failed to appear. In each instance their reasons for withdrawing have been good ones—sickness, a sudden summons to duties elsewhere—but their need to withdraw has been explained to me at the eleventh hour, and their inability to come has required either a rearranging of the week's program or a somewhat jerry built carrying on with it in its diminished proportions.
     By and large, though, supervising the strictly academic details of Wroxton days has been a duty full of rich and rare rewards, intellectually and socially. Patty and I have spent happy and stimulating hours in the company of dozens of people who have, indirectly or directly, been associated with the conduct of the courses or the Abbey. With remarkably few exceptions, our guests and hosts have been delightful companions.