Detention .. and birthdays

I had noticed that the pushta right below the ramp across from the Principal's office (the old music cells) was very clean and free of any moss .. but several mornings now there has been a high school boy not very enthusiastically scrubbing the pushta with a wire brush.  I assume he has some sort of detention or whatever they are calling it here these days.

Wednesday morning the archives team was invited to give a 3-4 minute presentation about the archives to the weekly meeting of the teaching staff. Before we had the stage several announcements were made, including all of the birthdays this week, including mine and my age (erk!  I must seem ancient to many of the young teachers) .. but I shared the day with 3 other staff members.  At break time in the development/alumni office, Tara had arranged for a cake for me, prepared by the Landaur Bake House. 

In the evening our groups was invited to the Principal's house for dinner, along with a couple of newer teaching staff members and an alum that lives on the hillside.  It was such a delightful evening full of good conversation with good food and wine.  Another cake brought forth - but for me and for one of the staff shared my birthday - and a carrot cake at that! Plus we both got very nice gifts from Mr & Mrs Principal. 

Just another busy day at the office ...

We have gotten much more accomplished than we thought we would on this trip.  We have sorted through the large piles of unsorted photographs, uncovered mystery folders, and dealt with many of the items that we had been avoiding on previous visits.  We even have three students working on projects for us - two of them creating a second set of Quads for a 'light archives' for use by the Development/Alumni office staff; one sorting through all of the various framed pictures and citations that have collected over the years.

CW is measuring the space and starting to plan for new filing cabinets and shelves, funded by the classes of '66 and '67.

SF was able to join a group of students to a visit to a girls' school in Landaur bazaar that we had visited in 2017.

I didn't take any new pictures yesterday - too busy!  But here are some ones of the wonderful Quad dining room that has become the hangout for students during the day and evening and a place for small groups to meet.

Accomplishments .. and hail

CW and LO finished up the Board proceedings, a project we had been dreading and thought would take the whole time here - so we are feeling very pleased with ourselves.  I also got material on the open shelves back in proper order, as they had been moved around while the room was painted sometime in the last 18 months.  We started sorting through several large piles of unsorted photographs, mostly from the 1980s and on (most of the photos through the 1970s have been accessioned).  We also met with the director of the Center for Imagination and three students - these three will start work on some projects for us which will both introduce them to the types of material that are in the archives, expose them to more history of the school, and introduce them to some basic aspects of archival work.

Around 4- pm a storm came through - hail, rain, thunder, dark clouds, electric power out & back on numerous times.  SF and I were glad we are staying here at the school rather than having to walk home!

Quiet Sunday

We woke Sunday morning to find the view to the Doon the clearest I've ever seen it - even could see details of the Siwalik mountains.  The town of Dehra Dun used to fill up one small portion of the valley, but now there are houses spread out across most it - I wonder is there is any land left growing that special Dehra Dun basmati rice!  Unfortunately my little cell phone camera can't pick up the amazing detail ..but here is best attempt.

The Quad area was so quiet all day - we learned late in the week that this weekend is an 'outdoor weekend' so many of the students were gone - some to Rajaji National Park, a few on a mountain bike outing, some on a hike to Pepper Pot, others?

Very welcome hot tea for breakfast!

Quad shots -

Later in the morning, for some exercise, we walked out Tehri Road as far as Oakville path, up that path to the chakkar, stopped for coffee & goodies at the Landaur Bake House (next to Prakash's store), and along past Rokeby and down to the Edgehill path.  The fog was coming up over the top of the hill, so no views of snows and no point walking on the back side of the hill!

Bazaar Day

Saturday we headed to the bazaar as S wanted to order some new glasses .. so we walked as far as Cambridge Book Depot in Kulri   We didn't buy any books, but S ordered her glasses, which should be ready in a week at 1/3 the cost of getting frames and lenses in the US.
We stopped at the top of Kulri hill to look down to the Doon .. so many more buildings along the lower ridges!

We also stopped half-way between Union Church and the Clock Tower to look towards Nag Tibba and the hills ... My cell phone camera caught a hint of snow on the Nag Tibba Ridge ... higher mountains were obscured by clouds.

The Clock Tower is back .. a little more garish and possibly a little taller than the old one - but so right to have it there again!

We stopped for lunch at the Clock Tower Cafe, at Ram Chander's for a few provisions, and at a phal walas for oranges and a few bers (which I am washing well in hand sanitizer then rinsing with filtered water) - haven't eaten them yet.

Green wooden staircase

Bonus round for those who have been here ... where are these stairs?  How many times did you walk on them? Who were you going to see?

Cleaning & Progress

We continued the clean-out of items that had strayed into the archives/Alumni office cage over the years ....

and ended up with usable space!

We also met with the Principal's secretary to learn what that office had retained of proceedings of the governing board, which then helped CW and L start work on our big task for this visit, which was to go through the file cabinet of miscellaneous board 'stuff.'  They made great inroads on those, while I was kept busy updating the finding aids.