The Hodge Blog

Seems every morning starts early this week. After work disruptions this week I am in extra early to get a few things done before a colleague flies back to the US later today. Yesterday’s disruption was of course worth it as, according to Lindsay’s Facebook page, she became a LL.B (Hons) from King’s College, London. I posted a quick picture from my phone, but below are a couple I took on the proper camera during the day. (click to enlarge)

It was a complete family day with Lindsay, Jo, Emma, Josh and I travelling and I was fortunate to be tasked with driving both ways! We set of at around 6:30am as there was a ton of stuff to do before the ceremony and we had decided to park in Richmond and get the tube to the event in the Barbican on the South Bank. The event itself didn’t start until 11am, but we had to get pictures, gowns and just relax and take in the atmosphere. By the time it turned 10:30am, the whole scene on the terrace resembled a scene from Harry Potter and Hogwarts! It is really funny how there are different gowns and trim depending who you are or what you have achieved. Red for PhD, Blue trim for masters, and a buff trim for under-graduates. The ceremony kicked off spot on time and was extremely well marshalled with rows of students being directed out from there seats, out of the auditorium, and back in a side entrance, over the stage, two hand shakes, after being announced by some head wizard, collect a scroll and disappear of the other side of the stage and back to you seat. In all they processed all 200 or so students, got the speeches over and we were drinking Pimms in just over one and three-quarter hours! that was good as the next ceremony seemed to be kicking off at around 2pm. My only disappointment was that being a decent university it has a large intake of foreign students which, when the wizards went to leave and the national anthem was played, meant the atmosphere was very subdued as it was not the national anthem of perhaps the majority in the room. Dad of course made up for that by singing it at the top of his voice. Made a few people look around and Emma to shrink inside her clothes with embarrassment! It was, despite my joviality a proud day for me too with, as the chancellor kept reminding us, the student graduating from an ancient college, dating back to before Oxford and the 1100’s that consistently performed as one of the top twenty-five in the World! That is one daughter through and one more going there in September for three years…not bad! Of course the real congratulations are not mine, but Lindsay’s. She had to actually do the work, so well done kid! Anyhow, great family day done and it’s back to the grind… On this day in history and last year… Weather = Mood meter = The week seems like it should be far more ‘in’