Bridget Jones Eat Your Heart Out!
Saturday 27th August. Calories: Many. Cigarettes: None. Weight: Can't figure out this pound business. Alcohol units: 2. v. good.
V. excited about Bank Holiday weekend. Have organised trip to Cambridge for warm weather rendezvous in Hamilton Hotel. Wore natty shorts on train and froze at Ely train station as connecting train was 20 minutes late, must remember to wear long trousers for return journey. Arrived Cambridge 12.30pm, half an hour late, to realise that Bank Holiday Weekend weather was obviously destined to be crap.
Yes, it was the Bank Holiday Weekend and we made the most of our first English mini-break by heading over to Cambridge. We meet up with Tara at the Cambridge Picture House (that's the cinema for those of us who are less posh) and wandered around the market, where we sampled the world's worst fudge, before finally finding a café for lunch. After heading off in search of dessert, and finding a sensational Chelsea bun and rum truffle, we were accosted by a woman offering to punt us down the Cam at a discounted 10 pounds each. Apparently we looked like students (hmm do you think she says that to all her potential puntees?). We took her up on the offer and were glad we did when we discovered that there were a lot of amateur punters actively forming a log jam on the water, but not getting to see much of the river itself. We cruised the Cam with only the occasional crunch as we hit an out-of-control punt, but sadly not one of them fell in. :) It might have been clichéd but it was a lovely way to see Cambridge and admire all the gorgeous buildings and gardens, especially as most of the areas you see are out-of-bounds to visitors.
Sunday we headed over to Bletchley Park: site of Allied code breaking efforts during WW2. The two and a half hour journey from Cambridge was punctuated by a change of bus as one of the passengers had thrown up soon after we'd left the bus station and then on the second bus someone else vomited 10 minutes into the trip so it hardly seemed worth the change. But it was all worthwhile as Bletchley Park was really interesting, and we got to meet up with Benno for the last time before he heads home to Oz. The Park is where people like Alan Turing worked during WW2 and where they broke the German ciphers, possibly allowing the war to end two years earlier than it would have and saving many lives. We did a tour of the grounds, ate lunch in the cafeteria, which hadn't changed much since 1944 (certainly not the menu), and attended a lecture where a very enthusiastic man chatted for an hour about how the Enigma code was broken and demonstrated his own decryption 'black box' which had obviously been an obsession for some years. We also got to see a working replica of Colossus, the world's first digital computer, spend some time in the Computer Museum where some very old computers were up and running, and also got to see a full size replica of the Bombe, the machine that Turing built to help break the Enigma codes.
Monday we cruised around several of the colleges of Cambridge. Lots of gorgeous courtyards, gardens with large 'Keep Off the Grass' signs in several languages, and bike racks. We admired King's College chapel, which we both considered one of the most gorgeous churches/chapels we've been to and watched in horror as a woman strode across the perfect patch of lawn out the front. Obviously she was a Senior Fellow as they, and their guests, are the only people allowed on the grass. Sad to think that this is the highest privilege at King's College, still it's got to be cheaper than an executive bathroom; certainly there has been no need to water it for the last few months - England has recorded its wettest summer for 50 years. Ah, England. I don't think Bridget Jones mentioned that part of living in London!
Since we last wrote on the website it's also been Kate's birthday. Thank you to everyone who sent cards, emails, text messages or rang to say hi, she felt very loved. We celebrated by going out to the local Chinese restaurant, which is also considered a culinary highlight of Ipswich. It was pretty tasty, although the orange fluorescent spring rolls where unexpected. You might also notice some photos of Long Melford in the photo boards. We went there the weekend before last. It was an hour and half bus ride one way through some fantastic little towns, and no one threw up! Melford Hall, which we went all that way to see, wasn't very exciting but it did have a few Beatrix Potter original sketches on display (she was a cousin of the owners) and some photographs of the current family members scattered around which was a really nice touch. They looked pretty normal which was a bit of a shock, hardly like English aristocracy! Long Melford church was also lovely with its medieval stained glass and the cream tea we had at the pub topped off the day - clotted cream rocks.
Otherwise life in Ipswich is pretty much as per usual. Our jobs continue on with varying degrees of success and we remain devoted users of the Ipswich library. And we did our first online grocery shop this week. It was very exciting to have food delivered and not have to lug it home! Much love to you all, we miss you!
- 2 September 2004
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Having lunch with Tara at a Cambridge cafe. |
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