CAMBRIDGE - Brains unlimited.

We hopped a bus to Cambridge on Saturday to visit Claudia and were lucky to see Vivian briefly before he left for Cape Town after lunch - and both the boys Richard and James who were on half-term. We were also lucky with the weather. We stayed next door at a little B&B as Claudia is in the process of doing major alterations. She leads a full life and has done exceptionally well at Cambridge University Press where she manages a number of publishers and travels frequently so we were touched by how she generous she was with her time. Richard boards at Oundle School while James attends King's College School - he has just won a hard-fought scholarship to Oundle and will join Richard at Oundle next year.

Richard, Claudia and James

Cambridge - well lots has been written about it and it bowls one over on so many different levels. Extraordinarily beautiful of course and then it seems to pulsate with the high voltage intelligence of past and present people. Sylvia Plath used to live in the same road as Claudia, as does Tom Sharpe's wife and then of course Newton, Watson & Crick, Hawkins - the names of famous scientists and writers etc goes on and on. And the people one sees in the street are like caricatures - we saw three Daumier like academics strolling along in full academic dress, motar boards et al whose body language was all about the arrogance of superior intelligence.

We walked to the town through beautiful meadows and after a meander went to evensong at King's College Chapel where the music played and sung was written by Gibbon whose life was being celebrated and needless to say, he studied and wrote most of the music for the Chapel. Complex harmonies sung by the choir soaring to fill the high vaulted ceilings with clarity - heavenly sounds.

   King's College

We were fortunate with the weather and on Sunday Conal & I wandered up to the town from Newnham where Claudia lives to hop into a punt up the river past the backs of the colleges. Conal fortunately decided not to do the punting himself, a wise decision as I saw at least two people topple into the river. The guy who took us is a Canadian lawyer who chose to take a year off while his wife studied for her Masters. An articulate young man who had lots to tell us about the bridges and colleges we passed. Such an idyllic way to see the Cambridge in a leisurely way on a Sunday morning. 

Bridge of Sighs ----

As I mentioned - we were lucky weather -wise because the heavens opened as we drove home and we arrived home wet and bedraggled.