Blogging images

Redriverpak has been posting pictures of lovely ladies to illustrate the female blogger friends he has been highlighting recently.  If we are that wonderful, I assume he is too.  As I said to him I am most suspicious of his motives: so here am I getting my own back.  Ladies and gents, I give you our blogging hero as I envisage him, lets hear it for redriverpak:

Enjoy!!!

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A bit of a week!

Those of you who are regular readers will know of our sudden dash down to the Veterinary School at Cambridge University ten days ago.  I have written about the reasons before so will not go into them again in this post.

Once we were there, and it just shows what you get if you can pay for it, by golly it was plush, and had had our consultation we had to leave our dog there for 24 hours to have an anaesthetic and some tests.  So what to do with the time we suddenly and unexpectedly had on our hands?

We drove over to Wimpole Hall and sat and had lunch while we made plans.  We often used to visit there and we knew of a smashing second hand book stall in the Stable Yard. First off, of course, we had to ring home and make arrangements with kind friends to look after the other animals while we stayed away: then we booked the cheapest room at a Travel Lodge nearby.  Then we had the time to ourselves, not a situation we often find ourselves in!!  We each bought a book for 30p (about 50 cents) to read in the Travel Lodge that evening.

In the afternoon we drove 30 miles over to the next county to visit two elderly friends, one of whom is in a nursing home for keeps, is 97, and rather like a second mum to me: she is the mother of my oldest and closest friend who lives in Southern Ireland.  You may have read about my visits there on previous blog postings.  The other lives in my childhood village, was a very close friend of my mum’s and has been kind to me over the years.  Although at home with his wife he is now very frail and suffers from a weak heart after contracting a virus two years ago.  He is in his mid 80s.  When people reach those kind of ages you can never be sure how long they will be around so we were really pleased to have the opportunity to visit them.  We had great visits and came away with a recipe for High Dumpsy Dearie Jam: what a splendid name!!

This is the main street of my village as I knew it as a girl: our cottage was just round the corner!

We then went down to the Churchyard to look at my mother’s grave: the stone is leaning slightly so we will have to have that made good. The plaque in the grass beside it reserving the next door plot for me and my sister is completely grown over with grass but there will be a note in the Parish Records.  It was poignant that while we were standing in the graveyard we received a phone call from the Vet at the Vet School giving us possible prognoses and hitting us with the terrible cost of an operation he proposed.  Life can be so ironic at times!

This shock necessitated a drink in the pub – but all so different nowadays.  No faces to recognise and very noisy with people from London living here now.  So we drove back to Cambridge through both village fords and along the back roads of our youth: a glorious evening with the sun stretching across the fields and hedges and clouds gusting over head.  Only time then for a meal and then to bed.  By the way if anyone is interested I will do a blog sometime about the village years ago and the unusual customs which happen there.  Just let me know if you would find it interesting.

The next morning found us with a few hours free: as we did not want to venture far from Cambridge we decided to go into the town to look around.  We met there: I was at college and then worked there and John did his Ph.D. there.  The city has a long family connection.  So off to the Park and Drive, and a short bus ride right into the town centre.

We drove in past Magdalene College where son was Christened

and then went to have a look at my old ‘digs’ opposite St. John’s College and the Round Church.  I could not find my front door as the shops downstairs had changed.  It was stupidly unsettling!!  The window just at the edge of the top right hand of the photo was one of the windows of my flat: we had three windows going all round the circular corner.

The Round Church with my lodgings on the right hand side:

As a girl our mother used to bring us over to Cambridge each Christmas to listen to the service of Nine Lessons and Carols in Kings College Chapel.   It was really difficult to get seats but a relation lived in Cambridge and was eligible so used to get them for us.

My father and cousin both went to Trinity Hall College:

Husband went to Sidney Sussex College which, amongst other things has the dubious privilege of having Cromwell’s head buried under the floor just outside the Chapel.  We had our photograph taken standing above it at a May Ball!!

Not us I hasten to add, these youngsters were photographed along Kings Parade outside Kings College but it give you the idea of the dressing up and sumptuousness of May Balls!  These are huge balls given in each college just after the final year exams when everyone really lets their hair down.  We’ve been to a couple of these and in the early hours of the morning many of us used to get into punts and punt down the river the three miles to Grantchester (famous watering hole of Rupert Brooke,  “and is there honey still for tea?”) to have breakfast.  All sorts of high jinks used to take place on and off these punts with people being the worse for wear and falling into the river, jousts taking place between punters, jokes and insults being exchanged etc. etc

Breakfast at Grantchester.

Sidney Sussex College:

Sidney Sussex Master’s Garden over which husband’s rooms used to look:

Husband’s cousin was a Fellow of Trinity and later Master of Churchill, Colleges.

Walking in through the Great Gate of Trinity:

After a wander round we bought some lunch at the market and then wandered down to the backs of Kings to eat by the river.

Lots of people were out punting, in various stages of competency!!  Every birthday as a girl we used to go to the cinema and then hire a punt and go down the river with a picnic tea.

After our al fresco lunch we wandered back through Kings to the main street, Kings Parade,

where we bought an ice cream and looked at a, new to us, clock on the corner of Corpus Christi College.   The Corpus Christ clock – a chronophage (timeater):

We found it quite fascinating although a lot of people seem threatened by it according to some of the peculiar clips on YouTube.  But here is a more normal one of the clock in action:

With peoples’ reactions to it.

After all this excitement and walks down memory lane we hopped back on the bus, back to the Vet School, collected dog, and high-tailed it up the country back to our present life.

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