I realise using the word spring might be a little bold when it’s the first week of February, but there has been a distinct spring feel in the air around Elon. Temperatures have bounced up and down a lot but today was 22 degrees Celcius! Very welcome indeed to walk around without a coat, although it makes me worry that March to May might get pretty hot!  For anyone wondering, Mebane is a town near here which is larger than Elon and so my BBC weather app seems to prefer to pick up the weather there.

There are also signs of spring on campus with blossom trees out, daffodils poking up and lots of beautiful camelias blooming. At home, there is a squirrel who spends his days running up and down the tree outside my window nibbling the buds off the branches – I do worry there will be no leaves on the tree with the amount of nibble damage being done!

In between my Washington DC trip and other work related activity, I’ve been doing a lot of crafting. I was invited to learn how to do strip quilting at the weekend (the results of which can be seen on my creative projects page). What a great way to use up fabric scraps that are too small to use for other things. I also received a lovely invite on Sunday to accompany Pam (from my book group) and her mum to have lunch in Hillsborough (a town about 20 miles away) and to visit a yarn store. Needless to say, as a keen knitter, I needed no persuasion. Hillsborough is lovely and has some nice small stores and a Waitrose-style grocery. I have to confess to having accepted the offer of a loyalty card at the yarn store and I will definitely need to go back and wander round a bit more.

I was invited to the Felten’s home on Sunday evening to watch the Superbowl…when in the USA… I feel I understand the basics of the game of American Football better now, but also some of the other less sports-related aspects of the Superbowl. Prior to the Superbowl starting there is the Puppybowl (see picture) where they have a set of rescue puppies, which are available for adoption, play with an American football and try to score. Meanwhile viewers can get in touch and offer to adopt the puppies! In between each section of the Superbowl game, the adverts are also ‘a thing’. Because the Superbowl final gets the largest viewing figures of anything on US TV, the advert slots are prime advertising, and so cost millions of dollars. Hence there are many slick adverts starring famous people and many viewers are watching as much for the adverts as for the game. There is also the half time entertainment, which this year involved J-Lo and Shakira – yet again, some people are watching as much for the mega-star half time entertainment as for the game. However, I was possibly most entertained by Trump’s Superbowl gaffe on Twitter when he congratulated the state of Kansas for their win (Kansas City Chiefs are from Missouri!), and had to hastily take down his Tweet. I also loved the Tweet which responded and said that Trump’s tweet was shocking – shocking that he realised Kansas was in the USA!

Is it spring? / Star spangled banter by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0