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Cambridge
09 November 2017 19:11


We had a great trip to view the bridge(s) over the Cam at the weekend. As I anticipated, the journey took way longer than Google Maps expected - mainly (or, indeed, entirely) owing to the M25's propensity to transform into a car park on a Friday evening.

When we set off at 4.15, satnav predicated arrival time of 6.35. "Yeah, right," I said, "we'll be lucky to get there before 8.00". I was right - with an hour's grace; it was just after 9.00 when we arrived at the hotel. Even with a coffee and nosh break, five hours is excessive for a 130-mile journey. Wouldn't have taken much longer to fly to New York!

We stopped for the break at a Starbucks next to a petrol station. The petrol station seemed familiar. I'm pretty certain I've been there before and bought a petrol can and fuel. There's a story there ...

Many years ago, my parents and I were travelling back from a family party in East Anglia. We were in mum's car as I'd recently crashed my dad's so it was off the road (yes, there's a story there too). Anyway, we were driving along the north orbital (which was all there was before the M25 was built - I said it was a long time ago) when the car ran out of fuel. While my parents were discussing who was to blame for this (mum (whose car it was) for not filling the car up before we left home, or dad (who was driving) for not noticing the fuel gauge) I saw a traffic sign for a roundabout in the distance. "Hmm", I thought, "If there's a roundabout, there's a good chance there is a petrol station" and set off to investigate. I was right. Less than thirty minutes later I returned to the car with a full can of petrol.

And that petrol station is where we stopped on Friday evening. Incidentally, when I related this memory to my parents, dad had completely forgotten the incident, but mum hadn't.

One other thing about the journey. CS3 did not stop talking. For five hours.

They'd been doing moral dilemmas in school, so she started us off with those: the one about switching the points so a train ploughs into five people rather than twenty-five people; the one about pushing a fat person off a bridge to halt a runaway tram.

Then questions related to things we saw: "where do you sleep in a camper van?" (well, in the van). "no, I mean where do you park the van at night" ... "are you allowed to park overnight in car park" ... "what about the side of the road" ... "or some empty land or a park" ... "if you had a boat, could you stay in it overnight on a river?" ... "what about a canal?" ... "a lake?" ... "can you camp in the Lake District without permission?" ... "but what if the weather turned really bad and you couldn't continue?" ... The questions just came on and on!

I'm not really complaining. She’s generally very quiet (and had selective mutism as a small child), and is the age where the idea of going anywhere with parents is synonymous with a trip to hell - and parents know nothing anyway. So, the fact that she was not only willing to come away with us but also to engage us in lively conversation on the journey was quite rewarding.

However, it was nice when we got to the hotel and she went to the bathroom and we got ten minute’s peace!

Saturday morning we did the parkrun – the main purpose of our visit. I am now probably the first person to have run parkrun at both Cambridge NZ and Cambridge UK. I think more people were running at Cambridge UK that day than the total that have ever run at Cambridge NZ. It was chucking it down with rain, and had been for some time, so a very wet run through lots of big puddles (which was fun). I enjoyed the course – lots of twists and turns, so felt like a proper cross-country route – and returned a reasonable time (25:08).

Back to the hotel for shower and change (really useful that check-out time wasn’t until noon), then we went into the city centre for a couple of hours. On the way back to the hotel, The Future Mrs Barefoot asked whether I needed the satnav.
“No”
“how can you remember where to go?”
“we only drove down here an hour ago”

We did the essential Cambridge things. We bought sweets from the old-fashioned sweet shop; books from Heffers; and buns from Fitzbillies. We found a Vietnamese restaurant for lunch (after discovering that the café at Fitzbillies was full), then walked along the backs and back to the car.

We didn’t look round any colleges – most were closed, and the ones that were open were charging excessive admission prices. “work hard and you could end up here” I told CS3 – echoing advice my mother gave me when I was a similar age. I never did (get there, that is, not work hard) though I was identified as a potential Oxbridge candidate at sixth form. I never followed it through – but can’t remember whether I consciously decided not to, or apathetically never bothered.


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