Flight to London, drive to Cambridge

8/16/2013:  Our (BA) flight to London was to leave @ 10:10 PM – S thought he’d sleep better and we wouldn’t have to wait around to get into our hotel room, if we took the later flight rather than the usual 6-ish PM.  I’d gotten Dr. Kong to give me Ambien, when I thought I’d be flying economy to Japan, but that didn’t happen, so I had tablets to bring along.

The flight was late, but we didn’t want to change the taxi pickup, so we waited & got sleepy.  I had a flight of wines (3 1 oz servings) and read a murder mystery by Kathy Reichs (Mimi’s rec).  We boarded, I took an Ambien and fell asleep before dinner was cleared (Steve reported), clutching my wine class.

So the flight seemed far less long than usual.  We got into Heathrow, took train from T5C to T5A, picked up luggage.  I got coffee and a bun.  S scouted out where the Hertz shuttle was (S’s bag doesn’t have wheels, so he was carrying it by backpack straps), and got our car, set off around London on the M25 and north to Cambridge, S driving and me squeaking in alarm when I thought he strayed too far to the left.

Hotel Felix is a couple miles outside Cambridge proper.  We arrived w/o incident, slept a couple hours, ate here last night (service v. slow because of a wedding upstairs).  My lamb vg, but the “home baked” bread in my appetizer could have been fresher.

Slept like logs (despite it being somewhat damp and sticky), got up, breakfast vg, set off for King’s college in good order.  Vg exhibit (same as 15 yrs ago, I think) on how Henry VII and VIII continued Henry VI’s construction as a sign of being legitimate successors.

S noted (I didn’t) that the red Lancastrian rose was a later attribution, not used at the time, nor, at the time, was the conflict called the War of the Roses.  Kings’ College as lovely as I remembered, but full of school/camp groups – many sounded Chinese(?).

We went on to Queens’ College – much quieter—1/2 timbered building lodges the president.  Mathematical bridge is in Queens’.  The Cam v clogged w/ punts.  We had lunch at a pan-asian noodle place – next to a lg. Chinese family group, slurping w/ gusto.

We tackled the Fitzwilliam museum – I don’t know why, but the collection didn’t grab me.  S v. taken by two Hogarths titled “Before” and “After” (showing a couple looking flushed & disheveled in the “After”).  It took him a while to realize “After” what.  There was a Van Gough that I liked in the postcard collection in the gift shop that I hadn’t seen (neither had S) and some Japanese paintings I’d missed (the 2^nd floor v stuffy – no AC except in a room w/ Flemish paintings).  V. comprehensive collection – starting w/ Babylonia and ending in the present.

We spent a couple of hours – I mostly reflecting how travel makes me appreciate little things, like finding a rest room when I need one and getting a drink when I’m thirsty.  Then we had tea and a piece of cake at a tiny patisserie and headed over to Emmanuel College (Wren architecture and a stained glass portrait of John Harvard).  

 To our surprise, no admission fee and no signs in the back forbidding walking on the grass.  A small ornamental pond w/ ducks and pairs of queer black birds w/ long legs and red bills – a larger one w/ a glossy feathers & a smaller one w/ duller feathers.  Later we saw chicks – little balls of black fluff on long legs w/ their mommies.   V pretty and peaceful – we sat on a bench for a long time watching the ducks swim back and forth and back and forth.

Cambridge, Ely, Wicken Fen

8/19/13:  Had dinner at an Indian place – I ordered prass (?) something w/ peppers and then said make it spicy, and got a veggie dish that curled my feet when I ate it, it was so hot, but the server good-naturedly brought me lots of water and then I was fine.

Had I said I’d wanted to go to Peterborough – the Blue Guide said it had a v. fine Norman cathedral?  “One of England's most important”.

Yesterday we went to Ely (pronounced Eel-ee as in full of eels) got there by 10, so had ½ hour to see the cathedral before the service started.  V. fine w/ lots of Norman arcades of columns.  But we couldn’t go into the choir or chancel (I guess because services were to start @ 10:30), or the lady chapel (where many figures defaced during the reformation).

We walked around outside some – fine day and lots of triathaloners running in circles around the cathedral close.  Found a convenience store and bought some artificial sweetener.  Then we passed a bookstore – I’d been looking for a book that defined church architectural terms I was seeing in my guidebook – like reredos (a stone screen on the east wall behind the altar).  I almost didn’t go in because it looked v. small but it turned out to have a 2^nd and 3^rd floor and a 3^rd floor had an architecture section, where a helpful saleslady (proprietor?) found just what I needed, and several other books besides.

And she brought me tea – I settled in to examine & was happily occupied some little time. 

Meanwhile, S had found some walk-books and talked to the proprietor and found out about a nature center on the fens (Wicken fen), which we set out to find, S driving (of course—it’s not as if I’ve driven a bit or wanted to).  A curb jutted into the street & we drove over it, me squeaking in alarm, as I’m wont to do.

When we arrived at the center, a little further on S looked at the tire.  It looked ok.  The fen center was interesting – the docent by a windmill had a lot to tell about how the fens were drained.  The water is pumped by windmills into the washes, which run to the sea.  However, there is some winter flooding, as when a strong melt coincided with spring tide and storm, as in ’47.  He’d never heard about the 9 Tailors (a Dorothy Sayers mystery set in the fen country).  We went around the rest of the boardwalk, admiring dragonflies, sedges, and lodes (medieval canals that drained the fens). 

We set out for Cambridge – S remarking that the car was pulling more and more to the left.  At a roundabout, a lady was shouting at us and pointing and I could smell burning rubber and when we eventually pulled over, of course the tire was flat.  And of course the rental car had no spare, as S found out after calling AA.  Some confusion about how to dial AA, which had an 800 number.

I tuned out and read the architectural primer I’d bought in Ely, full of terms like pyncostyle, systyle, eustyle, diastyle and aerostyle, all of which refer to the ratio of space between columns to the diameter of their base. 

The AA guy appeared, found the tire the car needed wasn’t obtainable.  Don’t go to Peterborough, said he – it’s a rough town except for the cathedral.  So I gave up on it.  I’d wondered why the cathedral wasn’t in Fodor’s.

He had S drive the car another couple miles @ 5 mph to a nearby tire store, and drove us back to our hotel.  I dozed & Steve mulled over the afternoon, reading the fine print on the car rental contract.  Then we walked into the center of town to an Italian place (the busses stopped running @ 6 PM), and drowned our sorrows with pizza and beer for S and wine for me.  There was a Nutella/banana pizza on the menu for dessert.  How could we resist?

We walked back to the hotel & subsided into bed, S quite uncomfortable from a sore back.  A couple of hours later, an alarm startled us awake – we never figured out what it was – maybe a car alarm outside?

S up around 5:30 to pack and dress and at breakfast by 7 so as to be at tire place by 8:30.  They’ll take some time to find the right tire and have to talk w/ Hertz.

S calling the credit card place, which in principle covers damage to rental cars, but who knows what’s the case in practice?

Last day in Cambridge, Norwich

8/20/2013:  S got up at 5:30 AM yest, so as to be fully packed & breakfasted in time to walk to the tire place as it opened.  They had to consult w/ Hertz.  S talked w/ them, then walked back to the hotel, found my missing sandals and we checked out, leaving our luggage at the desk & set off for Cambridge center.

Trinity College unfortunately closed to visitors (some special event), but we went to St. John’s (nice Elizabethan court; chapel Victorian w/ pretty covered bridge across the Cam) & Pembroke (Christopher Wren’s Chapel – his first architectural work – he was nephew to the Master of the college).  S slightly crabby as we looked for a lunch place—and the Italian place we wound up in was noisy, which he didn’t like – but we survived and went off to the Antiquities Museum after lunch, which turned out to be all casts.

S calling the tire place at intervals all day – the tire for our car (an Audi A-1, not as fancy as it sounds having hard to find tires & the tire having to be sent from their supplier).  We went to the garage, the van arrived w/ our tire, and then there was another wait for Hertz to furnish an authorization #, and finally our car was usable.

We set off for Norwich (pronounced Norridge), arriving around 7 at The Old Rectory, had a nice dinner & I had a lot of wine.  We tumbled into bed & slept like logs.

VG breakfast, took bus to center of town, spent AM in the Norman keep restored into a museum, lunch at the museum café – good soup but poor approximation of a Greek salad – S v. taken by a v. tiny seal from a Saxon queen that showed her having sex w/ her husband on the obverse (not very graphic—it was v. tiny and rough, but S noted her mouth was open & her hair standing out behind her).

We set off for Elm Hill (cobbled, medieval street) and the cathedral, which was lovely – Norman columns, 15^th century lierne-vaulted ceiling and kids all over – several sets of volunteers working w/ them to make dreamcatchers and the like.

Down near the bottom of one statue was a dedication to a RAF airman who died at 22 in the Solomon Islands.  There was a reredos that survived the Civil Wars as a plumber’s workbench (? I don’t know where I heard that & can’t find it now in a guidebook).  

S walks slower than he used to and his left foot drags a little.  His left hand shakes more.

We had cream tea at a 15^th century coffeehouse, in a v. pretty garden on the roof, then S went back to the museum and I wondered around, ending up in a small, undistinguished flint-faced church (St. John Timberhill) that was 500 years old.

Tomorrow, said S, we bike.  I’m nervous because although I’d meant to practice at home, I didn’t.

Biking near Hoveton

8/22/2013 (Wed).  We breakfasted & scurried to the bike rental place near Hoveton, on the River Bure (just East of Wroxham)  S had researched the route he wanted to go on line – back country roads to Horstead Mill, and then return by a path that borders the Bure Valley RR line, whose gauge is somewhat less than 1 foot wide. (Total distance about 9 miles).

The roads are narrow – single lane, really.  Two cars can’t pass,  Some places a car can pass a bike, some places it can’t, and (news flash) I’m timid, so I dismounted & scurried to the side for everything.  Fell once, on the RR-side trail, as I was obsessing over a miniscule ridge that of course I steered into.

We bought a cream tea in Coltishall, and ate sandwiches – I’m not even sure I burned any calories.  But my legs could barely get me up the stairs to our room.

I’m writing this sitting on a little balcony at our b&b.  S’s doing laundry.  I offered to go w/ him & help and he pointed out that I never do at home, so why should I start now?

S’s adventured doing laundry.  First he couldn’t find the Laundromat – drove past it 3 times before he located it, on the opposite side of the street from where he expected.  Then, the vending machine for soap wasn’t working, so he set off on foot, and went some distance to a Morrison’s before finding it – actually, to a Pound-store (the equivalent of a Dollar-store).  In fact, there was laundry soap in the first store he looked in, but it had a name he didn’t recognize – something like Daz—and was shelved next to the dish detergent, so he thought it was another dish detergent.  Then, most of the washing machines were out of order.