In Which There is Beer. And a Big Clock

A little while ago, Jess mentioned that she & the Mr would be in the UK visiting family, and it seemed a good idea to try to meet up, so on Friday I took a day off work and drove down to Cambridge, where we met in the delightful surroundings of the Madingley Road Park & Ride car park, in the drizzling rain.

Happily, the weather quickly improved. We had a proper pub lunch (they were serving pies, fish & chips, bangers & mash, and so forth) then we wandered into town, as the sun came out.

We went to see the new Corpus Christi clock, complete with 'Chronophage' grasshopper - it was difficult to get a photo (although if you look at the one on the right, you may be able to see Jess & Paul's reflections...

We also went for a wander around the city - it is nice - many beautiful buildings, (and many, many tourists).

We resisted the attempts of the punt-touts to get us to hire a punt and take a river tour, walked through the park & meadows and went to look at the Mathematicial Bridge at Queens' College.

We also visited a bookshop because, ...well..... books.

The plan was then to go to the Peterborough Beer Festival in the evening, so we headed back to Peterborough thorugh some heavy traffic, enlivened by seeing two cars retrofitted to look like 'Thunderbird 2' and 'Thunderbird 4' complete with plywood-and-ribbon 'jets', although unfortunately created by people with a very limited budget for paint, as sadly the colours were not quite right... But it made for a more-interesting-than-usual traffic jam.

Jess & I wandered around Peterborough, where they have a rather nice cathedral, with (on a damp friday evening) very few visitors. Behind the cathedral, as well as bits of cloisters, there are some stray bits of archway, and a house with random grotesque heads in the walls. I liked it.

We then had a very nice Thai meal on a barge on the river, before heading to the Beer Festival where we met up with Paul, and his family. it seems to me, however, that the problem with a beer fesitval is that there are several hundred different kinds of beer, yet with the best will in the world, one can only sample a select few.... (3, in my case).

Although they were all very nice!