Visit to Cambridge

Popped in to Cambridge yesterday, always wonderful. Here’s the view from our favourite meal stop at Cafe on the Round, where I had feta cheese, olives and salad in a wrap and Linda scoffed a tomato and basil soup with granary bread. Oh, almost forgot the apple cake and lemon drizzle cake followed up by strong tea. Seated upstairs is always a top spot to see life passing by.

We’d earlier wandered the couple of miles to Granchester Meadow, a spot I’d wanted to see for some time. Frankly it was a bit of a disappointment… the morning was still grey and so it looked a bit bleak. But may be that was apposite for the real reason I wanted to go there.

Rupert Brooke died at 16:46 on 23 April 1915 aged 28 years in a French hospital ship moored in a bay off the island of Skyros in the Aegean on his way to battle at Gallipoli. His friend William Denis Browne wrote…

...I sat with Rupert. At 4 o’clock he became weaker, and at 4.46 he died, with the sun shining all round his cabin and the cool sea-breeze blowing through the door and the shaded windows. No one could have wished for a quieter or a calmer end than in that lovely bay, shielded by the mountains and fragrant with sage and thyme.

His contribution to World War I poetry was important, probably the most emotional and well know being The Soldier. But it was his poem of The Old Vicarage, Grantchester, controversial for it’s description of occupants from surrounding villages and hamlets (including St Ives!) and which included the lines below, that I sought on the visit…

…Do hares come out about the corn?
Oh, is the water sweet and cool,
Gentle and brown, above the pool?
And laughs the immortal river still
Under the mill, under the mill?
Say, is there Beauty yet to find?
And Certainty? and Quiet kind?
Deep meadows yet, for to forget
The lies, and truths, and pain? . . . oh! yet
Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?

It’s always the last two lines that make me ponder. Very much someone dreaming of home from far away.

Then went shopping for skirts in Marks & Spencer. They didn’t have my size ~;o) so Linda got a few dresses while I had a ponder outside the changing rooms.

Had wandered along The Backs to look at Kings College Chapel in the morning…

 

… and viewed Kings College Chapel from the other side in the afternoon.

Looking up the street…

… and shortly afterwards viewing the fantastic market.

Lost to John at pitch and putt this afternoon, with David coming 3rd. Here’s David again playing out of his favourite tree on he first hole. I must have a few of these now, have to do a montage of them.

Here are swans doing a mating ritual on The Waits in St Ives.

 

And finally, the chickens enjoying a dust bath at the allotment.