…but we are about to have a little R&R** here at Wrightington Towers.

*[with apologies to Messrs Cochrane and Capehart and, indeed, to you if you’ve now got the song as an earworm]

**[Whilst I am notoriously fond of portmanteaux, I’m not a fan of “staycation”. It’s not as bad as “jeggings” or “webinar”, but it’s not far off. Anyway….]

As some of you know, we’ve been beavering away throughout the summer. Not that we’re complaining, of course. Au contraire - it’s tremendously exciting to have the opportunity to work towards something of which we could never have dreamt until this academic year!

But we are, it transpires, rather tired. The last few weeks have seen us occasionally slumping into blank-eyed stupor. Last Friday, for example, we each started out with the best of intentions, but instead ended up having a day of online cryptic crosswords, binge-rewatching Dexter, stretching inexorably to take up the whole sofa, and gazing into the middle distance whilst listening to stirringly patriotic classical music (I wonder if you can guess which of us was doing which…?).

This is, of course, neither productive nor restorative, so spurred by the kind comments that we should ensure we take a proper break within messages from several of you (on which more below), we're going to have a few bits of complete down-time, around the next few weekends’ sessions. Hurrah!

But before we do, a few things worth mentioning…

First, if you’re missing your “fix” of Dr Wright’s Pearls of Wisdom and my shambolic front-of-house activities (ahem), there’s still time to book for the upcoming Cleopatra taster sessions - please see here: Cleopatra.

Secondly, we’re pleased to announce that Robert has been invited by WEA to participate in York Learning Week. He’s running a truncated version of the first half of the Byzantium taster courses, so if you’ve attended one of those, you’ll already know what will be covered in this session. If, however, someone you know who is York-based is wondering whether it’s worth signing up to a whole course of Robert, sight-unseen, and has a spare couple of hours… voila: A Brief Introduction to the History of The Byzantine Empire.

Thirdly, although we’re not touring this summer, we almost feel that we have been, thanks to many of you, O Lovely Denizens of Wright History! We are so very very touched by the many communications you’ve been kind enough to send us - we’ve had lovely emails, postcards, reports of museum and gallery visits, comments on blog posts, photographs of your travels and loved ones (including a new arrival!), and even a recommendation to an online lecture from Hong Kong (which we very much enjoyed - thank you, Denis!)!*

*[I’m still catching up on replying to some - for which sincere apologies. Now that I’ve beaten less pleasant tasks into submission (see right for an idea of how very less pleasant said tasks were), I can focus on much nicer things.]

We're more than mindful of the importance, excitement, and joy of doing things which one has missed, catching up with loved ones, and generally getting out and about, now that one can! So we’re all the more touched that you have even thought of us amidst the sundry excitements of In Real Life, let alone shared them with us! It’s truly heart-warming to learn that some of you seem to enjoy the community and camaraderie which this strange time has facilitated here as much as we do. I hasten to add that it’s not compulsory - we don’t expect reports of your time away from the zoom screen and Robert’s dulcet tones! - but mere words cannot convey how very very chuffed we are that so many of you have embraced what we’re trying to do here. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.*

*[I know. I’m gushing. Sorry-not-sorry. But hey - most of you now know me, so I don’t think it’ll be that surprising…]

So. That’s our summertime news for now. Once I’ve belatedly replied to lovely communications and we’ve got the first Cleopatra session under our belts, we’ll be clocking off for a few days. The Costa del Bishopthorpe is rather lovely at this time of year…