CAMBRIDGE

Hello again. Just has a text from Barbara saying she is sitting on top of Machu Pichu having guinea-pig for lunch

The weather in London went back winter yesterday. Being Saturday, F and A slept in and then vegged out so I took a walk along the Thames, then to Canary Wharf for a delicious and healthy lunch of salmon caesar salad. I spent the next few hours in the Docklands Historical Museum. This is housed in an enormous old Docklands warehouse. It covered the history of the wharf area of the Thames from pre-Roman times to the present. There were fascinating exhibits of ship building, and every ancient craft such as rope making and barrel making, Docklands in the blitz and a recreated very sleazy street called Sailors' Walk, complete with the sounds of sea shanties and street sellers. I didn't know that during the war, this is where they built the Mulberry Harbours which were towed across the Channe after D Day. Also PLUTO, the pipeline under the sea, which supplied the Allies with fuel aster the landings.

Enough history! Coming outside I found the weather had turned nasty. I pressed on for home but got only half way before the skies opened. By the time I got back I was soaked to the skin with ice cold water. A hot shower and change made things better and we ended the evening at a nearby Indian restaurant.

Today dawned chilly and a bit wet but we decided to drive to Cambridge for lunch and a look around. It was well worth the effort. Cambridge is like most towns, with supermarkets and businesses all around the edges, but in the centre is the real Cambridge, dominated by the ancient colleges of Cambridge University. After a lunch in an Italian restaurant, we strolled around some of the colleges, Kings College, Trinity, and Gonville and Caius (pron Keys). This last is you'll recall, if you saw Chariots of Fire, was where the stars raced around the cloister against the chiming clock. (Except I later found out that they filmed it somewhere else. More later)

Lastly we visited Clare College which was the only one open to the public. We walked through leafy courtyards then into the college great hall where formal dinners are held. Then out again through Scholars' Garden, with blossoming trees and tulip beds. At the end of the path we walked onto a bridge across the River Cam, and spent a while watching punters guiding the craft up and down. The sun was out by then and with those punts gliding along between the leafy banks of the river one might have been in another more romantic era.Back in London now and an evening front of the tellie.