Placeholder for Monday

I spent my birthday (and the 75th anniversary of George VI's accession) in Richmond with Paul, Dementordelta and Lin -- Daniel being busy studying for finals, and Adam being busy first at Hebrew school working as an aide, then at tech dismantling the Blast sets. We started at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, where the British Museum's Mummy: Secrets of the Tomb is currently on exhibit, with a 3D film narrated by Patrick Stewart and dozens of artifacts. We ate lunch in the museum, then went to Agecroft Hall, which was having its Yuletide celebration...the good news being that admission was free and there were many performers on the grounds, the bad news being that there was a very long wait to tour the house, so we skipped that.

In the late afternoon we went to the Lewis Ginter Botanic Garden, which has holiday displays in the visitor center, the conservatory, and all around the grounds. We saw the train and Christmas tree displays, the indoor displays based on The Old Tree, the GardenFest of Lights outdoors, and we had dinner in the tea house. Birthdays in the age of Facebook are wonderful in that I heard from nearly my entire extended family plus many old friends whenever we had to wait in line or drive from place to place. We didn't get home till after 10, so I have not even opened all my presents yet and don't have Paul's birthday card, which he didn't have time to finish, so here is one photo of the fountains and lights at the garden, a few at the end here and more tomorrow when I will also catch up on comments, correspondence, etc.!