Yesterday’s journey from Cragwood to Andrew’s house went relatively smoothly apart from one train connection being cancelled.
Thrilled to be up early.
We caught the bus from Cragwood to Windermere on time but found the short train connection to Oxenholme, where our booked train tickets started, wasn’t running due to lack of staff. Luke tried to talk to the station manager behind the counter but he was on the phone and ignored us then went into his back office and shut the door.
Thankfully there was a taxi waiting outside so we jumped in and heard all about how incompetent the guy running the train station was. Apparently he leaves the station during his shifts to run personal errands and is really rude to customers all the time but there’s no one else to do the job so he just gets away with it.
We got to Oxenholme with time to spare and had some breakfast. I managed to drop a large chunk of my pie on my freshly laundered trousers.
We had to change at Preston then again at Birmingham but both other trains were on time.
Andrew met us at the station in his new (well, new to us) car. It has more buttons than any other car I’ve ever been in.
We went back to his new (to us) place in Fenstanton and said hi to his wife, Lila, and met his corgi, Winston!
After a cup of tea and tour of the house we walked to Fendrayton, the next village over and the site of a mini beer festival in the local pub.
I couldn’t help reflecting on the fact that we’d gone from the most rugged landscape in England to the most flat. Cambridgeshire is fens, land that has been largely reclaimed from wetlands. It makes cycling a dream but views aren’t precisely what you’d call inspiring.
The Three Tuns, ‘tuns’ being barrels that beer is stored in.
There were lots of people but a couple of free tables.
Busy!There were only two ciders on the list so that made life easy.I had the sweet one first then the dry. It was so dry it verged on salty. Andrew and Luke both thought it was disgusting but I managed to drink half then changed to wine.Baked Brie!Crumbed halloumi and pork belly bites.Wait… my brother is here???No, too much hair. Second sighting of the lovely clematis.
We sat for a while and listened to the band, who had at least two singers but neither could hold a tune. It wasn’t bad background music though and wasn’t too loud, which is the most important thing!
Back home along a new route thanks to my OS map app.At least the landscape makes for easy post-pub journeys.
I woke up this morning to find the latest Betoota Advocate headline was about me!
Despite making an effort to stay up later and fight my jet lag with all my heart, I woke up at 4am. With nothing better to do I turned the television on quietly and there was a cooking show where a woman demonstrated how to make risotto in a Bundt tin and I don’t think I’ve ever experienced this level of cognitive dissonance sober.
*shudder*
Breakfast wasn’t until 8 but I went down early anyway and the lovely lady in the kitchen was happy to accomodate me with a perfect plate of traditional English breakfast fare, which I think every will agree, is one of the best ways to start the day.
Much better than risotto Bundt. No grilled tomato or black pudding and I’m not apologising.
There were two men at another table having their breakfast just after I finished mine. We got chatting and it turned out they were on their way to Scotland to pick up medical supplies for people in Ukraine. They were retired and had started an organisation in the New Forest to provide aid. A doctor in Scotland had things to donate so they were driving north to collect the stuff then drive to Ukraine to deliver everything. This was the tenth time they had made the trip!
They were both very good humoured about it and clearly loved what they were doing. I suggested golf would be an easier way to get out of the house and they laughed, saying their wives were happy to see them go;-). People are so interesting, no matter who I talk to I learn something surprising!
Although the weather had improved slightly I wasn’t keen on walking too far so I inquired about the possibility of a bus to Penrith, assuming there would be at least a few each day. No, actually there was one… a week! But it went today! No one at the pub knew precisely when it went so I walked up to the shop and asked there. No one at the shop had ever caught the bus but they pointed me to the sign next to the bus shelter and it turned out I had a bit over an hour before the bus left and it would give me two hours in Penrith before doing the return trip. This was all very exciting and I promised to report back upon my return. Time for a few photos of daffodils before it arrived.
I arrived at the bus stop early and was joined by a man and then a woman and we had a good chat about how high property prices are, the scourge of Airbnb rentals and how terrible the weather was. Then a woman (Kay) pulled up in her car as she knew the lady (June) and asked if all of us would like a lift into a Penrith. I was a bit torn because I’d been looking forward to catching this mysterious once-a-week bus, but I also didn’t 100% trust it to turn up so I said yes to the lift.
The bus stop contains some cushions and a box of books. If you leave a donation it goes towards the pool.
It turned out to be quite an interesting ride – June runs the local OUTDOOR pool, however it’s not open for a couple more weeks. When it’s open it’s heated to 29 degrees! I am so sad that I can’t go, I’m definitely putting it on my list of things to do on my next visit.
We were dropped off in Penrith, with many thanks to Kay, and I arranged to meet June at Morrisons at 1:15pm. I had a short list of things I needed, which I managed to buy in the first 15 minutes so then I was free to wander around town.
Penrith has some charming laneways but this photo makes it look kind of derelict.. but it isn’t, I promise!
I had a walk around, bought two op shop books then realised I’d already read one of them so I left it in the bus stop box in Askham before I left. I took a few photos of some buildings around town too.
I had a cup of coffee in a cafe that seemed entirely filled with very noisy elderly people who either all knew each other or just like talking loudly to strangers (right up my alley, obviously) and the vibe was great.
Highly recommended!
The only other thing I did in town was look at the museum, which was small but had many interesting things. I particularly liked the Roman coins and this quiver and arrows.
I wandered up to Morrisons in time to meet June and then catch the bus back. June was probably in her late fifties but everyone else on the bus was definitely on their second set of teeth. They were talking about a young couple in the village who were very nice and then after a bit someone remarked that the couple in question were in their sixties 😂.
Then one of the ladies said a friend of her had written a book and everyone wanted to know what it was about and she said very loudly ‘Sex!’ and everyone laughed and wanted to know more but she claimed she hadn’t actually read it. By this time June and I, up the back of the bus, were almost crying we were laughing so hard.
When we got off she asked what I thought and I said it was the most entertaining bus ride I’d had in a long time!
When I got back to the Punchbowl it was a bit early to be propping up the bar so I took a walk to the other end of the village. I saw a church yard with some very old tombstones and lots more daffodils.
Beautiful but also kind of creepy.
Further on I walked over the river and then saw Lowther castle in the distance. Jet lag has really been an issue in the afternoons so I turned back after a short walk.
I had mentally prepared myself for a quiet evening as the previous night had been so enjoyable, chatting to so many people had really filled my tank in terms of social interactions, and the chances of having two great evenings in a row seemed unlikely, however it turned out that the second night at the Punchbowl was even better than the first.
Lakeland beers
I ended up chatting to the bar staff but also meeting a local, David, who is an author. He has one book published but is working on his next book, which is part of a three book deal, which I thought was very impressive!
I wish I’d got a photo together as we got on so well. We talked about poetry, art, music, film, travel – everything! It was so lovely to meet someone so interesting. I gave him the blog address so if you’re reading this, David, leave a message!
Being a bit more of a homebody than myself, he was very concerned at my laissez faire approach to my travels (I had no idea where I was staying the following night) but if you’re reading this I’d like to reassure you things worked out ok although I did nearly kill myself climbing over a very precarious stile!
Whew! Congratulations to anyone who slogged through this enormous post. It was all very fascinating to me but maybe not everyone is interested in the joys of regional bus services and swathes of daffodils😂. Good news, in the next post I actually do some hiking!
A later docking in Port Chalmers today, which is just as well as Luke and I stayed up late watching Romancing the Stone, which I’m sure I saw at least five times when I was a kid but remembered almost nothing of this time around. It had not aged well, if you’re wondering.
I’ve managed to get through four books since the cruise started and would probably have managed another two but for headaches and Luke wanting to go do things outside our room, which is a good thing but I’ve just started a new and excellent author, T Kingfisher, and I’d happily lie in bed all day reading. Plenty of time for that when I get home, I guess!
View over the port and the ubiquitous tugboats.
Port Chalmers/Dunedin is another of the ports, like Lyttelton/Christchurch and Picton/Marlborough region, where you have to pay quite a bit and spend time getting to the main attraction. It’s a bit annoying, more so if you’ve come from a lot further than Australia and want to see as much as possible. I guess if you were really desperate to see heaps of NZ you probably wouldn’t do a cruise. I hadn’t really thought a lot, prior to boarding, about the demographic of people who would be on the ship but there are a lot of people of all ages with mobility issues and it really is an ideal way to travel if you struggle with stairs, packing, going distances, etc as not only is everything flat with lots of lifts but there’s lots of people to help. Mum has complained about walking along all the corridors but also commented that she feels like she has gained some fitness too, which is not what you expect from this type of holiday.
There was a lot of walking from the ship to connecting transport too.
The weather is a lot chillier today, we sat outside with Mum and Michael for a short while at 9:30, Michael is keen to get into Dunedin as he and Izaac have had Covid and stayed in their cabin since Auckland. Michael’s very first Covid bout too, poor guy! Still, it was very mild and passed quickly. I don’t think Izaac showed many symptoms at all.
Everyone else decided to go into Dunedin, but Luke and I left the ship at about 11 and walked through the port buildings to the Main Street of Port Chalmers, which runs uphill. The very first building was holding an indoor craft market so we went in to have a look and ended up buying a couple of things and chatting to some locals, one of whom was a possum skin dealer. Possums are a pest in New Zealand and I can’t imagine why anyone would bother bringing them from Australia, but killing them is illegal at home so when people want possums skins for Indigenous rites, such as cloak making (a family at my school organised this for all our indigenous students, it is used all the time in ceremonies) they get them from trappers here.
After the markets we walked around town a bit, then up to a garden and lookout on one side of town. It would have been amazing to see when all the rhododendrons were out, but as it was the Japanese maples were very pretty and it was a good place to get a different view of the ship, looming over it while it looked over the town!
The majestic eyesore. There were lots of wild flowers around Port Chalmers.
Then we walked down the harbour and up to the lookout on the other side of town. We got there just as the ball dropped; a ball drops from a tower to allow people with pocket watches to set their timepiece to precisely 1pm. Apparently it fell into disrepair for quite a number of years but the historical society raised $50,000 to rebuild it. Money well spent? Probably not, but it’s a thing and we saw it.
After a quick wander around a small and boring sculpture garden that also apparently cost a lot of money, we walked back to town and managed to get the prime window seat at the most charming-looking pub (The Portsider). Luke was much more thrilled by this than the ball drop.
They had a wide range of beers and several delicious ciders. I’d recommend popping in to try some if you’re in the area, the lady behind the bar knew a lot about each of the selection.
They also had good wifi so I spent quite a while drinking cider and updating the blog. If I manage to get some done during our waiting time in Sydney I’ll have completed it all before I get home and that would be very satisfying!
In the evening Mum, Dad, Michael, Luke and I met up at the buffet for a few drinks before we visited the Asian-themed Harmony restaurant onboard. It was fairly quiet but the food was nice, with the red bean brûlée standing out as particularly good and an interesting take on French brûlées. We had three bottles of wine between us and many laughs, particularly at Dad’s stories and Michael making fun of Luke having a small sized head while my family all have massive heads. Apparently now that he has married in he’s fair game for teasing;-).
After Mum and Dad headed to bed, Michael, Luke and I hit the dance floor in the piazza, and then had a bottle of red wine before going to the casino lounge to talk for a while. I went to bed early and apparently missed out on the part of the night where they went to the Hollywood Bar at the top of the ship and Michael ended up trying to restrain a guy who was being aggressive to staff members, shouting and gesturing at them. Eleven years as a publican came to the fore and he tried to stepped in but fortunately Luke rerouted him. Michael had apparently forgotten it until security turned up at his room the next morning and told him that, although he was trying to do the right thing, it wasn’t the ship’s policy to encourage patrons to lay hands on other patrons. A bit of excitement, I suppose!
I’ve made an effort to see a few things that I didn’t do when I lived in Cambridge. So before I get into the Beer Festival here’s a couple of things I did when I wasn’t taking advantage of Andrew’s washing machine, tv and couch.
Kings College Chapel
Despite the fact that this is one of Cambridge’s most iconic buildings I didn’t even consider going in until one of my co-workers, Tim, came here a few years ago and I saw pictures of the inside.
It’s £9 to have a wander around. There are side rooms with informative displays but the main attraction is the long room and it’s astonishing fan ceiling.
The big dark thing in the middle of the first photo is an oak room divider that was donated by Henry VIII. I think it’s awful but my opinion seems to be in the minority. It houses the pipe organ and keeps the riff raff in the back half of the chapel out of sight.
When visiting these kinds of edifices it always pays to look for amusement in the small details.
I don’t know what led up to this scene, but this guy’s thinking ‘I have made a terrible mistake.’
This guy looks like the textbook definition of ‘chief executor’. Or possibly ‘grand vizier’ .
The Cambridge University Botanical Gardens
I wandered down here before our first Beer Festival session. Beautiful.
The gardens were much bigger than I expected and full of students, draped like cats over every available sunny bench and table.
The gardens have lots of ‘rooms’, as well as actual rooms in glasshouses. All are well-labeled and interesting.
The chronological bed was a concept I’d never seen in any other gardens.
I had two favourite parts to the gardens. The first was the lovely scented garden, which is a bit hard to share on a blog page.
The second was the way that grass/meadow plants had been left to grow into islands and borders around perfectly manicured lawns. The contrast of soft meadow and smooth green was delightful. Also difficult to really convey in photos but you’ll just have to trust me.
I sat for a while and read my book – Great Expectations. If anyone had told me how funny Charles Dickens was I would’ve read it years ago. Although perhaps I wouldn’t have appreciated it then? Who knows.
The 45th Annual Cambridge Beer Festival
One of the longest-running beer festivals in the UK (and probably the world.. outside Germany maybe?) it is put on by CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale society, who are a group that works hard to promote small scale brewers and keep traditional English Pubs out of the hands of criminals who gut the insides and replace all the dark wood with IKEA pine board or worse – turn them into offices.
The Cambridge Beer Festival is no small deal. It runs for six days, two sessions a day (12-3 then 5-11) and costs £3 to get in (per session), unless you’re a CAMRA member, which costs £20 per year and gives free entry to all their events.
I attenedd the festival with Andrew, who is thrilled to have my company.
This year we’re here on Tuesday evening and then both sessions Wednesday as I’m off to Belfast on Thursday.
I decided to approach my cider and perry choices this year (beer is revolting) in the same way I choose horses at the races – amusing names.
So far I’ve had ciders called ‘Virgin on the Ridiculous’, ‘Weasel’s Wevenge’ and ‘Monk and Disorderly’. I also tried one called ‘Ghandi’s Flip Flop’ but it was revolting.
Of course it’s not all about drinking. There’s an outstanding cheese counter too.
And don’t forget the pork pies. There’s also terrific curries, roasts and fish and chips.
Could anything be more British?
We were even first in line on Wednesday – and what a line it was.
If you’re ever in Cambridge at the end of May, and particularly when the sun is shining, I highly recommend going, it’s a great day (or six) out.
In this episode of Here Comes The Planet we take a cultural tour around Mto wa Mbu Village in Tanzania. This consists of walking through the village’s farms and sampling an amazing array of delicious food, learning about the village’s history and entertaining its children.
We also watched some local artists at work, sampled banana beer and found the village nightclub!
Here Comes The Planet 