I lived in Cambridge in 2002 and coming back has been a trip down the proverbial memory lane. We haven’t actually been into town yet and I’m curious to discover how sharp my memories of the place are. Just being with Andrew and the whole Englishness of the suburb he’s living in is almost like déjà vu.
Last night we went to a lovely country pub owned by Andrew’s former boss and met up with a bunch of his workmates, quite a few of whom I’d met years ago. It was like a window into what life would have been like if I’d stayed. If the food at the pub was anything to go by I’d definitely be a lot fatter. Chicken, camembert and cranberry pie – so good!
The pub was called The Golden Ball and it was everything a pub should be. Lots of wood paneling and red carpet, a fire was going and there was the constant hum of conversation. There were even little pots of original edition Trivial Pursuit cards on each table. Sitting there, with a group of nice, funny people my age was just so comfortable.
We stayed til nearly midnight then Andrew decided to leave his car and a friend of his, Andrea, kindly gave us a lift home. We fell (gently) onto our air mattresses and had a solid night’s sleep.
….ooo000ooo….
This morning we walked back to the pub to pick up Andrew’s car. It was a beautiful hour or so’s walk through the countryside. We saw horses, a prize winning village and many daffodils. We couldn’t help but remark on how much better it was than walking in Slovakia, what with the easily-identifiable path and signposts and the general lack of snakes.
We decided to stop back into the pub for a quick drink and then drove into Cambridge where it was raining then sunny then raining then sunny and altogether quite like Melbourne. Everything looked pretty much as I remembered it. Including the hordes of people clogging the footpaths.
Luke got a long-overdue haircut, Andrew and I bought lollies at the market and then repaired to a charming, old-school pub for drinks. I found two ciders on tap that I hadn’t tried before and had a half pint of each before Luke came back.
We went for a wander around the city centre and now we’re back home at Andrew’s thinking about what to have for dinner and what our plans are going to be for the next week. Everything hinges on hearing back from Matt and whether we’ll have a car or not.
Here Comes The Planet 
Sounds like Matt is just as organised as ever 😛
You should take luke punting 😛
Definitely going punting, probably during the beer festival week, then we can take Leigh, Nikki, Sare and my mum too.
Looking forward to it!
Well if he can’t buy a car I am sure he will reimburse you for hiring one, at least in the short term. In fact a hired car might be better than a beaten up old thing that possibly breaks down.
The ones we’ve seen links to so far have been pretty new – cars are relatively cheap here. But hiring cars is really expensive – we could buy one for the equivalent of hiring one for 2 months. Plus if we sold the car after a few months we’d get at least half the value back. But yeah, I’m sure Matt would, it’s just a pain since we would’ve organised things ourselves. But hopefully we’ll hear back with good news tonight or tomorrow morning:).
Oh it’s so pretty! I really hope I get some time to travel around England….at this stage I’m just visiting Oxford (where I have family) and London (ditto) but maybe I’ll have to add Cambridge to the itinerary 🙂
How long are you in the UK for by the way? Are you staying there until we meet up in Edinburgh?
I think so… We’re here til Iceland, then back for a couple of weeks before Africa. I might put a list of dates up, actually – for my own benefit too!
I have heard that Cambridge and Oxford are very similar but I’ve never been to Oxford so I have no idea. Everyone tells me Oxford is lovely so I wouldn’t mind seeing that too… but we’re starting to now have more places to see than time to see them!
Yeah from memory (I haven’t been there for about 10 years, when I spent a month or so with my aunt/cousins) it’s beautiful 🙂 I’m heading to London June 15-20, then to Germany for a festival, then *possibly* back June 24 until Edinburgh….so if that’s the case let’s meet up, I’m keen to travel around!
Yay to returning your old foreign stomping ground!! 😀
Yeah, I’m pretty happy just to know where things are!