24th/25th Back to Bristol-end of blog

Jonathan and Ken drove Bronwyn and Tami back to Chicago earlier, but the rest of us stayed to have an amazing Sunday breakfast at Gloria's place (my B and B). I have already booked Gloria's for next year. The boys are such schmoozers - so they like to be to be at the Illni Union near the action (in case they miss something!) and Viv likes to be there too, as walking tires her and it is nice to be able to nip upstairs for a nap mid-conference, but for all my fascinations with, and personal/political commitments towards collectivity, collaboration and community, I like to walk back by myself across the quads and through the trees to gloria's house up a leafy quiet lane. These walks have been some of the most productive moments of the conference in terms of my own thoughts and plans and distillations. Besides which Gloria does the most amazing breakfasts!!


Here we are with Gloria, getting
ready for the road trip back



We set Mavis (as we had come to call the very bossy Satnav) to return us to Chicago O'hare airport and off we set with Ying lin at the wheel (it was just like driving in Tai wan as far as she was concerned, so she was a good choice of driver!!)


Ying Lin and Mavis did a fantastic job between them, apart from the moment when we stopped for gas, which Mavis seemed to take very personally-she went beswerk , pointed her arrows in three directions and once and started to squawk!!

Jane has already made plans with Bronwyn for a workshop/panel contribution combining the thinking and writing of philosophers, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, educationalists, and historians, re-revisiting Foucault's revisiting of the testimony of Pierre Rivierre, which we could start during Bronwyn's visit to Bristol as part of the Learning Identity and Society theme.

During our road trip back we also thought that as well as a contribution from the Bristol Collaborative Writing Group (which has so far contributed as part of panels and plenaries but could now come of age at QI and contribute a whole session) we might combine with our UWS and St Cloud State companions to contribute a arts-based (music, song, poetry, writing, dialogue, perfromance) panel on road trips to QI. By the time we get to QI next year Tami spry and Bronwyn Davies will both have visited Bristol and Jane will have visited Western Sydney, so there will be possible moments to work on this...not to mention further interrelationships networks and projects will have developed...more of which....


Whichever plane we were returning on we all always seem to meet up at Gate M11 in the dreaded O'Hare airport, where for some reason there is no coffee available (no tea either, but no coffee????

C'mon, this is America!!) This year was no exception,

although we seemed to make more mess than usual
with all our stuff..and , due to lack of coffee, felt obliged to drink gin and tonic...(tough work but someone had to do it...)

Eventually after various night flights, we got back to Heathrow and got our various National Express coaches to our various cities.


I suppose that's the end to my QI blog for 2009. I have enjoyed doing the blog though and have received very good feedback from readers and followers at home, perhaps the best was from Laurinda Brown who commented
'this was the first blog I've seen the point of'...so perhaps now I've had a go, there will be others...if i can see the point to them!!



Jane Speedy, May 26th , 2009, back in Bristol after a long journey