Luke's graduation

Luke, Meriel and Adam joined us for breakfast this morning at our hotel before Luke and Meriel had to go off to get organised into the order for the congregation ceremony for their graduation in Durham Cathedral. The parents queued outside the cathedral until we were allowed admittance, and it was rather windy and cold. The ceremony is done by faculty and it was very efficiently done, calling out the names as each person went up individually for the handshake with the Chancellor of the university. It was a wonderful ceremony and very special for the graduands to have a congregation ceremony in the beautiful cathedral which is a UNESCO world heritage site. The Chancellor also gave a very good speech, and we thought the entire graduation ceremony was very well done.

After the ceremony I took a few photos of the new graduates. In the extras you can see some of Luke and Meriel and Luke and his house mates (plus Meriel although she does not live in their house).

After the ceremony we went to lunch at a very good restaurant. There were 20 of us at lunch, being Luke's house mates, their parents and some extra family members - it was delicious with very good service. Lunch finished late, which is why we had planned to stay another night here. 

We found out that the cathedral is open during graduation week from 6pm - 8pm for visitors to climb the tower, so we went off to do that. There are many steps and the narrow spiral staircase is not that easy to climb up, but once we were at the top of the roof the views are well worth it. See extras for the roof and the view.

It has been another very special day for us, and we leave tomorrow morning to go back home again. Not often that parents get to experience two graduations in the space of just four days!