A visit oop North to Cambridge (everything is oop North when you live near Brighton, except France obvs but I ain't got a passport so that's a moot point!!) to visit No.2 offspring Henry and his Girlfriend Rebekah (No.2 is Chronological and nothing to do with any other ranking system which I use to order my children!). We had arrived on Thursday, we nipped over the border to Suffolk to visit Lakenheath Fen on the Friday (a full birdy blog post will follow in due course) So Saturday was our chance to hit Cambridge for the full historic tour!! We were relying on Henry's local knowledge to guide and organise our day, which predictably was a mistake, 😏however we muddled through and had an excellent time as detailed in the text below (note some names have been changed and the timeline maybe slightly muddled, this is mainly due to an excess of Cocktails and my phone dying so had to rely on the pics from others!! )
The plan was simple we were to meet Offspring No.1, Nicky, and her Boyfriend Will off the train from London, get food, wander around historic Cambridge see the sites, etc. However Nicky missed the train, due to some Maccyd's related issue we couldn't quite follow but in truth with Nicky was entirely predictable, don't think she has ever arrived anywhere on time!! However this was quite a relief as Margie and I were both slightly suffering due to the previous night's cocktail indulgence, where Margie apparently had the best think she'd ever drunk in the form of a Guava Colada!! This may have been the Guava Colada talking to be fair😁 I was denied my long wished for Blackberry Swizzle, due to being in the wrong cocktail bar, though I consoled myself with a couple of other concoctions!
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| Cherry Chocolate Torte |
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| Espresso Martini |
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| Guava Colada |
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| Henry's Whisky Sour |
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| An Easy Stormy was a bit medicinal but by this time I didn't really care!! |
We were staying in the Turing Locke hotel, all quite swanky, had only been open 4 weeks, unfortunately one of the teething problems was that the air con was very loud in the rooms and couldn't be turned off which meant a good night sleep was difficult, think " of a jet going over crossed with a water tank filling up" and you have some idea of the situation!! Luckily our imbibation (maybe another word I've made up, take that Shakespeare!) of the Cocktails mitigated the problem somewhat, which was more than the hotel staff managed to do😢!!
Saturday didn't start to well due to me burning my Bum on the towel rail in the bathroom, shower was excellent by the way, although this was more to do with the size of my Bum than any design fault, pictures to horrific to show, not because of the injuries, just my derriere ain't that pretty😀😀😀 also no pictures were taken!! Things improved, after a visit to the local artisan bakery where some delicious breakfast pastries were bought!
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| Yum!! |
Revived by Pastries and Paracetamol, we met up with Henry and Rebekah and jumped on a bus to town, good value at £3 for the day and by the amount of cyclists and crazy peeps on Scooters in the town center a lot easier than driving, we duly arrived at the Train Station just in time to meet Nicky and Will from their train, I love it when a plan comes together!!
We headed into town, Henry pointing a few things out, lots of historic buildings, shops and such like, Extinction Rebellion were doing a silent protest on the lawn outside one, which seemed more effective than holding up traffic, good on em! though I was distracted from the cause by the close proximity of a fudge shop!! We eventually stopped for lunch at the Eagle pub where back in the day, the mysteries of DNA were unravelled but more importantly they had a table for six and a supply of excellent pies!!! After lunch we resumed our wanderings once more before arriving at the river!
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| The Hotel Courtyard |
There now follows some pics of historic buildings I've forgotten the name of!
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| Kings College |
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| XR |
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| Hair of the dog, sadly I forgot to take pics of the excellent pies😢 |
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| I think it's a clock |
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| Fudge Manufacture |
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| Lemon Sherbet flavour, the smell was amazing! Much fudge was purchased!! |
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| Margie demonstrating her amazing sense of direction |
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| Everyone being baffled by Margie's sense of direction |
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| Margie realising she's in Cambridge!! |
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| A Gargoyle, Cambridge is big on Gargoyles!! |
We had arrived at the river, we had pretty much decided we weren't gonna Punt, but a slick salesman talked me into it and £120 later we were on our way to the carnage that is Punting on the Cam!! Luckily we had gone down the getting somebody to do the Punting for us route, which judging by the chaos caused by those going it alone was a wise decision! Our Puntsman was called Eden and although he refused, despite my entreaties, to sing about Cornettoes or car insurance comparison websites, was an extremely skilled and knowledgeable guide on our riverbourne adventure!! Some pictures from the Punt below, I unfortunately missed the pictures when a young lad was punting and did the classic hold onto the bank while the boat drifts away, luckily his dad held him up by his belt and he escaped a dunking although at one point he was completely horizontal!😲 We only hit 2 other punts on our journey which was a tribute to Eden's skill with the pole they really ought not to let unskilled people steer em! We passed one pair simply going round in circles, could well be still there the way things were looking. The pictures below are a bit random and I think because they are from several different phones are in a strange order which I can't be bothered to sort out sorry!!
So having survived, Pirates and incompetent Punters we successfully disembarked, IE none of us fell in and continued our exploration of Cambridge, we walked along the Riverbank past several rowing boathouses a Woodcock flew across the river which was a bit of a surprise!! Heading back into town we stumbled upon a wondrous place called Heavenly Desserts and as we hadn't had pudding at the Pub we decided to enter, ok I decided to enter and the rest followed!! The choice was overwhelming but somehow we all managed to pick something, although I haven't really got over having to leave the Cornflake Tart behind😢
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| Henry's |
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| Nicky's |
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| Mine, typical me going for the healthy option, gotta be 2 of my 5 a day right there! |
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| Margie's Raspberry and White Chocolate ! |
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| and a Mango Milkshake!!!! |
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| Margie preparing to fight to the death to stop me having a taste!! |
Having finished desert we wandered again, dark now, we stopped at the Anchor pub for a quick drink, I had a pint of something called "neck oil", think the last thing left at the Bildeston Beer festival circa 1985!!
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| We passed the clock again, it was lit up hurrah!! |
Nicky and Will headed to the train station, there was much hugging by everyone else, have they learned nothing from the pandemic?! The rest of us head back to the hotel via the bus, on arrival we visited "Dutch" another cocktail bar where I finally had the long desired Blackberry Swizzle and a plate of meat!! Which was quite tasty!!! This also helped with the good night's sleep issue!!! Although if we had stayed another night I would probably be an Alcoholic!!
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| Blackberry Swizzle |
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| Margie's Raspberry Mojito! |
So that was the end of our trip, we checked out today, had a very nice breakfast of Eggs Royale at "Kota" the scene of our first Cocktailfest and a couple of nice dinners, and headed home to Sussex where both Margie and I and my Credit Card can have a well earned rest, although Margie has pointed out she's got all the washing to do!! Still a very nice trip all round!!
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| "Eggs Royale" Smoke Salmon and Poached Eggs can't really go wrong with that! |
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| A selection of Fudge!! |
Nice to have a proper catch up with everyone after the pandemic, shame Offspring No.3 couldn't be present, hopefully next time!!
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