Halloween at St. Hilda's College

In England they celebrate Halloween in a similar fashion as the U.S., but not to the extent. Mainly just the real young kids put on costumes, and they are pretty simple ones (nothing huge and elaborate). We didn't expect any trick-or-treaters except for our American neighbor's little girls. But unfortunately we weren't home when they stopped by. We were on our way to a formal dinner at one of the colleges - St. Hilda's.

St. Hilda's is the only remaining all-women's college in Oxford. In the past, there had been about 5-6 women-only colleges. But starting next fall, St. Hilda's will also begin admitting men. To attend dinner at a college, one must be invited as a guest. You can be a guest of a student or fellow of the college. We were invited by an honorary fellow of the college, Dr. Lorna Casselton. Dr. Casselton is also the Foreign Secretary and Vice President of the Royal Society. Her academic focus is sexual developement in fungai, or rather, sex organisms in mushroooms. Brian made a wonderful contact with her during the Royal Society Soiree, and they have had lunch at St. Cross college, where Dr. Cassleton also is past fellow. Oct. 31st was guest night at St. Hilda's, and Dr. Cassleton kindly invited Brian and I as her guests so we could experience dining at a college. In the colleges, there are typically two dinner seatings, the early one is for the students and is a regular dining service. At the later seating, it is more formal and there is typically a dress code. Brian had to wear a suit and I had to wear something smart (as they call it here). I wasn't sure what they really meant, so I just played it safe with a black skirt and jacket.

We arrived at the front gates by 7 to meet Dr. Cassleton. Then we headed into the Senior Common Room, for sparkling wine and meeting the other high table guests. We met the new female principal of the college and other Oxford-esque guests and fellows. When it was time to enter into the dining room, we followed the server to our designated places at the head table. Head table is where the senior fellows, principal and guests are allowed to dine. It's usually one very long table on a raised part of the dining hall. (Seriously just like in the Harry Potter films). Probably seats about 40 people. I was seated in between Dr. Cassleton and another guest of the music director. He is an Oxford author (there are many authors around here) and wrote a book on Sigmund Freud. I was worried about feeling intimidated amongst all of these big league academics and others, but luckily they were all very kind and easy enough to talk to. And when conversation turned into thoughts on the recent DNA nobel laureate scientist's comments about African's IQs, luckily I knew what they were talking about - thank goodness for Newsweek! So at least I could follow all conversations, but just didn't really have much to contribute!

The dinner was wonderful, and here's a list of the menu. As they were serving the main, I quickly told Brian across the table to ask for the vegetarian option - he likes chicken and turkey, but duck isn't on his list. I thought it was absolutely delicious. And the soup was very good too. I guess if you are served high quality British food, it does taste great, even if the ingredients sound really weird put together. And the wines are always specially chosen by the college sommelier to match the evening's dinner. So we had a white and red, I think both from France. Yum!

After dinner, we went back into the Senior Common Room for coffee, tea or after dinner drinks. We were so full, that we passed on consuming anything more. So we visited awhile longer and then realized it was half past 10 already. Nicely enough, the Oxford author gave us ride home since he lived not too far away. Although the walk could have done me well to burn off the calories!