The last stop on our year-long sabbatical in 2006 was Nottingham, England where we both worked on research projects at the University of Nottingham. Nottingham is a medium-sized city about two hours north of London. The University lies between the city and the outlying township of Beeston.
We found ourselves a flat in Beeston, right on the main street, above a shop. The flat was about a half hour walk from our office at the University so we got some exercise each day. Fortunately it did not rain too much while we were there!
Our flat was pretty big by British standards and it came mostly furnished, we just had to buy a few things for the kitchen and bedroom (which we found at our local Ikea!):
Our kitchen had brand-new appliances but for some reason our landlord had decided that we would only need a mini refrigerator! It was smaller than a beer fridge! This was very strange because, as the photo shows, there was plenty of room there for a full sized fridge! Fortunately, our location in the center of town meant that our local Sainsbury's supermarket was only a one minute walk away and since we couldn't store much in the fridge, we went shopping almost every day!
A friend in Nottingham kindly loaned us a TV set to use while we were there. However, it turned out that this TV was once owned by a Nobel Laureate and a Knight of the British Empire! This illustrious figure was the man in charge of our friend's research lab and he had given our friend the TV set when he no longer needed it. We felt pretty lucky to have a Nobel TV in our flat!
From our flat we could look down onto the High Street and watch all the activity there. In the summer there was a parade outside our window and in the winter there was a Christmas festival outside. On the downside, our proximity to the High Street also meant that we were often woken up at 4am by the McDonald's delivery truck!
We really enjoyed visiting the pubs in England and our flat had several within a short walk. There was even one right outside the back door to the flat. It was called the Malt Shovel and it quickly became our favourite pub at which to get a pint or two.
At the university we shared an office. This meant that we were basically together 24 hours a day for the 6 months that we were in England! We managed just fine though and are still married, despite it all!
Nottingham University is set on a fairly large, park-like campus and our walks through the grounds each morning and evening were really lovely. The architecture of the Mathematics and Physics building was not particularly attractive (Math and Engineering buildings seldom are!) but there were some really nice buildings in the central campus and in the Halls of Residence.
