Cambridge

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.

We left rainy Bratislava at 10am after an inordinately expensive taxi ride (when will I learn to look for a meter right away?!) to the airport and then the expected undignified crush to get onto the non-allocated Ryanair flight. Crammed together like sardines, we were at least grateful that the flight was only 2 and a half hours.

Stansted airport was bathed in glorious sunshine when we got there and after a long wait in a short line at customs we emerged, ready to give Matt a big hug and head to the nearest pub for a pint and a catch up. No Matt at the arrivals gate so we waited. And waited. And waited. Luke tried to call, sent messages to no avail. We’d spoken to Matt only the week before to confirm that he was picking us up so we started to get worried, both for his sake and ours. After a couple of hours and considering plans of hiring a car, heading to Nottingham by coach or catching the train into London and staying at a hostel, I realised that my friend (and former housemate when I lived in the UK) Andrew wasn’t too far away. We called him and he offered to come pick us up, which was amazingly generous, and was with us in half an hour. Thank god Cambridge is so close to Stansted!

We were overjoyed at Andrew’s arrival – he’s such a champ. He’s just bought his own place so we’re staying there for the moment and working out what we’re doing. This coming week was supposed to be a long drive along the south coast with the car that Matt was buying but we still haven’t heard from him. My guess is he’s either mixed up the dates or he’s had some sort of accident on the road and couldn’t reach us.

Hopefully we’ll find out what happened soon, but until then we’re hanging out at Andrew’s doing internet stuff, eating ridiculously cheap cheese from the omg-huge Tesco across the way. Apparently the third largest in the UK. It’s seriously the size of an aircraft hanger and just as charming.

…..oo00oo…..

To jump forward in time, since I wrote the above Matt called us to say that he thought we were arriving tomorrow and he feels awful about getting mixed up and hopefully will have acquired a car by the end of the weekend.

Fingers crossed! Now we’re off to the pub.