Windows on Gozo

We went over to Gozo for our summer holidays, staying just over a week.

One of the main attractions is the Azure Window, in Dwejra bay. Given a rock collapse earlier this year, it might not be around for much longer.

We were staying in Gharb, which is just a few minutes from Dwejra, so we went down several times.

You can also take boat trips from the Inland Sea (you can see one of the boats in the picture above), so this is the Azure Window from the other side:

You can just see Fungus Rock in the middle there.

One afternoon, I took a little walk out from Gharb, to the promontory on the other side of the bay. So you can look back and see the window in context.

On the other side of Gozo, there's another window at Wied il-Mielah:

This one is rather more difficult to get to. We visited the San Dimitri chapel, and then drove across country, along some absolutely terrible tracks. We came across some locals in the middle of nowhere who didn't know where it was and who tried to send us off to Dwejra, as we obviously looked lost. But there is actually a good modern road from Ghammar if you can find it, and a path and steps have been put down the side of the valley so you can get to the window.

Retro Play

I've collected all sorts of thing over the years - Meccano, Stamps, Avalon Hill games, Books, Jigsaws, and Toy Trains.

Most of this stuff is moderately old, and that's the attraction - there's a wonderful tactile feel to old things. But I'm not just interested in these things to collect, I'm interested in using them. Jigsaw puzzles are to be solved, books are to be read, Meccano is for actually building things.

The toy trains is a bit more of a problem. It takes a little more time and space. But earlier this year I was asked if I would set up some stuff for the Cavendish Laboratory's summer party - there were outdoor activities aplenty, but if the weather was poor people would be forced inside.

I jumped at the chance. There's so much more space in on of the labs than I could ever have at home, so I could put together a proper layout and give the engines a proper run.

You can see the scale. I would love to have this much space at home.

This is almost all post-war, early 1950s. There's a BR goods on the left, which is part of a complete set. And An LMS engine with a passenger train.

This is a train from my other full set, a tank engine and passenger train. We've also managed to collect some buildings, including a station.

I had a lot of people stop and look. The kids were fascinated, of course. But also the older generation were taken back down memory lane, as this is the sort of thing they would have had as children, so I had plenty of "I remember having one of those.."

Cambridge Pub Crawl

We weren't able to get to this years Ely Beer Festival so decided we would go and visit a few of the Cambridge Pubs we haven't been to before.

We started at the Tram Depot, just off East Road. A pleasant half for me, and Mel had the special offer cocktail. The menu looks pretty decent, and we enjoyed relaxing in the comfortable sofas.

Then on to the Free Press, small and cosy with interesting memorabilia on the walls.

Just along the street to the Elm Tree. An excellent half of mild (of which they had two), while Mel tried the mead. The website says food, but that doesn't seem accurate.

So across to the First and Last for lunch. We weren't planning anything heavy, so shared scallops and mussels. The menu is really rather good, and I highly recommend it.

Over to King Street and a brief stay in the Champion of the Thames. Nice and quiet with a warm open fire.

The King Street Run is somewhat different. Sky TV, intriguing decor, and quite loud music playing. We're probably getting too old for this sort of thing.

The to the St Radegund just as it opened, so we had plenty of choice of where to sit. Known as the smallest pub in Cambridge, it's not really all that much smaller than, say, the Free Press of the Champion of the Thames. By the time we left it was getting fairly full.

Then along to the Hopbine, where we had an excellent dinner on the hot rocks (something it shares with the Portland Arms and the Geldart).

In all the places we visited we were warmly welcomed and were given excellent service. By and large, most being visited Friday lunchtime and afternoon, most places were fairly quiet. The two meals we had were pretty top notch, and I couldn't fault any of the beer.

There's clearly diversity here - from the small and simple pubs to the larger and more modern places where food plays a larger role.

One interesting trend was that books and games were fairly commonplace.

Off to start planning the next event!

The Jolly Scholar

Following on from Tea at Bill's we stayed in Cambridge for our evening meal.

Originally we had planned to use our Tesco vouchers at Brasserie Gerard, but it appears they've gone bust. So back to our list of new places we haven't tried yet.

The Jolly Scholar (the web site is somewhat incomplete at the moment) is where the Bun Shop used to be. We've heard good things in the press, and the one friend who's actually been there was very positive.

The good things we had heard are thoroughly deserved. We decided to book a table for 6:30 but actually got there only a few minutes after 6, as all the shops in Cambridge closed very promptly and it wasn't really the weather to wander. They were just starting to serve food, so we sat down and had a good study of the menu.

The food is exceptional. We both started with the wood pigeon. It was rather more generous than I expected, was very tasty, and the beetroot and chorizo complemented it well. (And there was the added bonus of a small lead shot.) Melanie had the chicken off the special board. My rack of lamb was supremely tender, simply matched to a selection of roast vegetables.

We decided to skip pudding - we were reasonably full in any case, and still had plenty of cakes at home from Christmas, but I would unreservedly recommend the food at the Jolly Scholar.

Tea at Bill's

I was wandering around Cambridge just before Christmas (a bit of last-minute shopping) when I walked past a new restaurant, but had to file it away for future reference.

Over new year we were in conversation on our Seckford Hall break and the couple we were talking to mentioned that they had stopped to have tea at this great place in Cambridge. It took a little while to connect the two places.

So, last weekend we had Saturday out and decided to have afternoon tea and an evening meal. And the afternoon tea location was set: Bill's.

It's quite out of the way, being neither in the shopping centre nor on top of any of the tourist traps. But it was absolutely packed, so word must get around (and I've never seen any advertising either).

There's a large table near the door, and we perched on a corner, with several other groups sharing the table.

We both had the standard cream tea. I actually drank tea (Earl Grey), while Melanie went for hot chocolate. The scones were delicious. If there was a criticism it's that the jam was a little runny (so you can't pile it high, and it runs off your scone), but that's nit-picking.

Overall, it's a little gem, and we hope to go back. (The burger on a board looked very tempting.)

New Year at Seckford Hall

We decided to try and get away for New Year. The girls are old enough to look after themselves for a night or two, so we can spread our wings a little.

It's also Melanie's birthday just before the new year, so that gives the opportunity of a double celebration.

We had a look around, and there are lots of places doing new year breaks. We wanted something not too far from home (which ruled out places like Scotland or the South West) but not in Cambridge itself. We wanted the night before new year, whereas a lot of places offered new year and the day after. And I definitely didn't want somewhere that was a formal black tie dinner.

We went to Seckford Hall, near Woodbridge in Suffolk. The distance was about right, the facilities looked good, and it met all our requirements.

They have old rooms in the main house and some more modern rooms. We went for one of the older rooms, with a 4-poster. It's a little more quirky, and has more character, although the floor isn't exactly very level!

The package included cream tea. It's more like stuff-yourself-until-you-burst tea. Lots of scones, jam, clotted cream, cakes, and of course tea. Delicious and very filling.

We had a good meal in the restaurant. We decided to sit in the bar and have a small drink beforehand, and they brought canapes out, let us peruse the menu, and took our order while we were still in the bar. Then, only when they were almost ready with the starter did they take us through to the restaurant. This is definitely more pleasant than occupying time at the table reading the menu, taking your order and then waiting for the food to arrive.

The food was excellent both in quality and quantity. I had smoked salmon cannelloni to start, with pork medallions for the main. Now, I'm rather partial to a cheese board for dessert, but decided against it as I would almost certainly have exploded if the quantity had matched all the other items we had. And coffee was again back in the more relaxed seating of the bar.

We took advantage of the small leisure facilities at the hotel. We swam several times and treated ourselves to a massage with Mary Scott.

On new years eve, we drove up the coast to Southwold. OK, so we did have a little walk along the beach and the pier, lost a few coins on the penny falls. But the primary reason for the trip was to do the brewery tour. This was really interesting. The last time I went on a brewery tour was (I think) about 25 years ago in Oxford. The Adnams brewery is somewhat more modern. The time of year meant it wasn't in operation during our tour, but this did have the advantage that we could get around more freely and study the equipment more closely. And of course, there's the obligatory tasting session and the free beers from the shop!

On to the New Year Dinner Dance. I have to confess that this sort of thing has never really been my cup of tea, and a gammy knee and broken elbow don't make it any easier. Of the dancing I'll just say that there was some, and I was occasionally seen to stand on the dance floor shuffling from one foot to the other. Any photographic evidence has been systematically destroyed. We were put onto tables of 8 (or so) for the meal. The hotel had clearly given a little competent thought to the groupings, so we were put with some very nice people and had a very enjoyable evening.

So, I would recommend both the general idea and Seckford Hall itself. Despite my general bah humbug attitude, I haven't ruled out doing something similar in a year's time.

Quarter Century

Twenty five years ago today, I married Melanie at St Aldates in Oxford.

So, recently we've been celebrating.

We had a party just over a week ago for family and friends. Having had a look at several places, we selected The Gonville Hotel here in Cambridge, and were very pleased. They gave us a superb lunch (the beef was rare, just as we like it, and they did salad without tomato, just as asked). We had a good buffet in the evening as well, although I have to confess to being rather full and not having much room to do more than sample it. We had a regular cake at lunchtime, and then a pile of cupcakes from Dorringtons in the evening. (They do a cardboard stand, but we bought a rather posh perspex arrangement and it looked stunning.)

This last weekend we went down to Ipswich and stayed for a night at the Salthouse Harbour Hotel, on the waterfront. We've never been to Ipswich (except to change at the railway station) so thought this was a good excuse to go to a decent hotel somewhere different. We stayed in one of the penthouse suites (after 25 years you get to treat yourselves) and, yes, it does come with a telescope. The room was spacious and comfortable, the bed luxurious, although the bath and shower were slightly compact and some of the bathroom fittings a bit the worse for wear. We treated ourselves to a joint massage at Flawless Image as well, the Vespers Drift Away, which was really superb.

Just to be silly we walked along to the cinema to see Johnny English Reborn. An OK film, with some really funny bits mixed in with some quite average scenes. In Cambridge, we prefer Cineworld (over the alternative Vue) because the seats are better and there's a better angle to the seating so you can see over the people in front; the one in Ipswich felt a bit tired and tatty.

Before eating, we had a swift drink at Isaacs, the pub on the waterfront next to the Hotel. A decent pint, although clearly it must get a bit rough - plastic glasses and bouncers at the door.

Dinner at the Hotel was good, but slightly disappointing in that our first two menu choices weren't available (we fancied sharing the Chateaubriand), and they had run out of our first choice wine as well. The scallops for the starter were really good, but slight disappointment with dessert as well - no blue on the cheeseboard. The quality of the evening meal we had was good, no doubt about it, but we were just put out a bit by not getting what we were looking forward to three times.


Here's to the next 25 years!

Trying the Guided Busway

The Cambridge Busway opened recently - two years late, and millions of pounds over budget. So, many of us have taken to calling it the misguided busway instead.

A couple of weeks ago we went to St. Ives (to the beer festival, which meant that public transport is an ideal choice). As that's directly served by the busway, it seemed an ideal opportunity to try it out and see what all the fuss is about.

Compared to the old bus service, not much has changed. We got on and off the same vehicles at the same places, and the cost was the same. By and large, I would have said that journey times were pretty similar too. The bus is definitely comfortable, but the ride is anything but. On the regular road it's very smooth, but the guided sections aren't that great. The track is made up in sections, about a bus length each, and as the bus goes across these you get a regular pitching movement that can start to make you feel seasick. I can't imagine this getting better over time - settling is likely to make the joints worse and the track less even.

OK, so the bus is great for getting from a few places in Cambridge to a few locations along the busway. But that's all. It's very much a one-trick pony. It doesn't fit into a larger scheme, or address any of the area's other transport problems, or have any flexibility to evolve to meet changing needs. And that, to my mind, is a fundamental weakness to the whole project. It doesn't do anything to address issues of freight transportation or long-distance traffic, or even local traffic between villages, and isn't going to take any significant traffic away from the A14.

That's over a hundred million pounds of investment, with minimal impact in a very restricted area. Meanwhile, public transport in Cambridge itself remains extremely poor - overpriced, limited choice, and unreliable.

Variations in Travel

Just back from a short week in Munich.

We flew easyJet from Stansted. I'm not personally a fan of budget airlines, because they go to a great deal of trouble to give pretty shoddy service. (I can't believe that not having assigned seating makes any difference at all to their costs, and would make loading the plain much easier and quicker - not to mention being able to track which passengers are on board - I remember on one flight waiting for almost an hour on the tarmac because the number of passengers on the plane didn't match the number who had checked in.)

Why Munich? It was a short trip, so we wanted to fly from Stansted to make it easier. And just looked down the list of destinations. Munich is a fantastic place anyway, and has the advantage that you actually fly there (and not to some random tertiary airport miles away from it).

We've tried a number of different ways to get to the airport. In this particular case, we chose Stansted because it's pretty close to Cambridge. If we get an early flight out of Gatwick then we normally go down the night before and stay locally: then the hotel look after the car and offer a shuttle to and from the terminal, which works out pretty well. (And avoids the not insignificant risk of missing your flight due to being stuck on the M25 for half a day.) But for Stansted we have tried an airport Limo, which works quite well, and in this case just booked a taxi from Panther which is a similar price and just as good.

Going by coach or train would be a reasonable option, but for one thing - actually getting from our house to the bus or train station is a significant issue. It's not particularly cheap and, while it's close it can actually take quite a while. We're on the right side of Cambridge that we can just head straight for Stansted without having to fight into or through Cambridge itself.

Using the total shambles of a bus service to get to the railway station isn't really an option. You're often needing to travel early or late when the bus service doesn't operate, and even when it's supposed to be operating it's a total lottery as to when it might turn up - for our local service that's supposed to run every 10 minutes that mean allowing an extra 45 minutes to be sure you get their on time.

I hate parking at airports. If I drive down myself then I'll normally use valet parking. This isn't really any more expensive and is so much more convenient. It saves typically an hour and is much less hassle.

Having got to Munich we entered a different world. One of fast, cheap, reliable public transport. Well, almost (I'll come to that bit later).

The best way from the airport into Munich is the S-Bahn. And they have this "partner" ticket that allows up to 5 people to travel on the one ticket. From the airport which is a fair way out, that's under 20 euros for unlimited travel around Munich for the whole day. (Just within the centre itself the ticket is about half that price.)

Within Munich there's the S-Bahn itself, which spreads out to a number of suburbs, the underground, trams, and busses. This time we stayed near the main railway station, so just had to choose the right service depending on our destination.

We fell foul of a couple of failures of german efficiency on this trip. The first was that one of the tram lines (the 19) has a huge chunk taken out of the middle of it, while they do maintenance. This doesn't actually cause much of a problem once you've worked it out, but it wasn't obvious - the notice plastered on the stop was in german, and the announcements on the trams were also in german, so we spent a couple of minutes scratching our heads working out what it all meant. And then got back on the tram we had just jumped off which went a slightly longer way round.

The second problem was on one of our day trips. We went out to Herrenchiemsee, which should have involved a simple train ride. Again, more maintenance work, so a simple train ride turned into one train which departed half an hour later than normal, then an unmarked bus through the countryside, then another train (just the random next train, not an actual connection to the bus). We then had a little tourist train at the end, and 3 boat rides to get round the islands. Fortunately the return trip was direct, but I'm not sure we would have liked to have tried the trip out without a tour guide.

Some bus drivers are the same everywhere. We had one occasion when we were waiting at a stop, the bus drove past ignoring us, then decided to stop 20 yards down the road. We run after it, just get to it and he pulls off again.

The flight back was delayed a little, but waiting was a right pain. Some pillock decided to start queueing about 45 minutes before boarding, and of course everyone else then has to queue - because if you don't then you won't get a decent seat or be able to sit together. So you end up standing in a queue that snakes all across the departure lounge, cutting it in two, and blocking access to the shops, for an hour before anybody shows up. (Even worse, the people who started the queue all had speedy boarding and therefore didn't need to queue at all.)

Brasserie Gérard, Cambridge

We went out to Brasserie Gérard in Cambridge last night, as a meal for Hannah's Birhday.

Now, Brasserie Gérard is one of our favourite restaurants. The service and food are always excellent, and the menu is a good match for our likes.

I started with the tiger prawns. Firm flesh and very tasty, although I think I would have added some more garlic for an extra bit of zing (which is probably one of the reasons you don't want me running a restaurant!). Main course was my usual steak frites - in this case the filet, and it was delicious. I'm not a great fan of the faux filet (aka sirloin) - I prefer either the onglet or the full fillet myself. Then the cheeseboard to finish.

Of course, the really good thing about Brasserie Gérard is that you can use your Tesco vouchers, which makes it extremely affordable!

Prince Albert, Ely

On Friday I went to the Prince Albert in Ely.

There's no website, but it's in the Good Beer Guide and I managed to locate it easily enough. And, almost by accident, managed to find the car park that it's right next to.

I thoroughly enjoyed my pint of Mild. I knew ahead of time that Mild was served, and that was one of the reasons for choosing the Prince Albert to spend that part of my evening in.

I also had sausage, eggs, and chips for dinner. Which was just what I expected - tasty and cheerfully served.

If you compare the food on offer to those pubs which have a much larger investment in food, then the choice isn't that great and the prices aren't the cheapest. I suspect both are because they simply don't do enough food trade to allow economies of scale to kick in. But what you get is of decent quality, and what you would expect from a small local.

I would have loved to stay longer (and have a bit more of the Mild), but had to collect my passengers and head home instead.

Film Review: Robin Hood(s)

We watched the 2010 Robin Hood film (the one with Russell Crowe) the other night.

It's an OK film, but it really didn't work. It didn't really make sense to me in terms of the Robin Hood legend, which they've definitely mangled beyond all recognition. The plot itself is a little confused, and the film seems to lurch unsteadily from one phase to the next. Occasionally I would be impressed by a bit of gritty reality, and then put off by some errant inanity. The other outlaws aren't well fleshed out and seem to be peripheral, while every time I see Marion I think "Galadriel".

Seriously, this would have been a much better film if they had written a story from scratch and not confused it with the Robin Hood legend.

I haven't seen it for a while, but the 1991 version starring Kevin Costner was a much better film. Not only was the story more coherent, but it flowed much better. And there was a dark undercurrent to the film that gave it some backbone.

My favourite Robin Hood has to be Errol Flynn, though. That is a stunner of a film. From 1938, even. It's bright, cheerful, funny, and unashamed fantasy. Yes, certain aspects of it are complete nonsense, but it all fits together to produce a hugely enjoyable whole.

Camden Market

A little while ago we went down to London for the day. After dropping one daughter and boyfriend off at ExCeL we drove into London, heading for Camden which is somewhere we visit every few months.

On a Sunday we park on the Outer Circle of Regent's Park, just round from London Zoo. There's usually plenty of space, parking charges are quite reasonable. And then just walk a few hundred yards across to Camden. (Driving into London on a Sunday works fairly well - not too busy, and no Congestion Charge to worry about, although getting to Regents Park just skirts the Charging Zone.)

This time, while Camden was packed as usual, there were an awful lot of FC Barcelona shirts and Spanish accents in evidence. The fact that they had won the Champions League Final the night before might have had something to do with it, I guess, and they were out in force shopping for souvenirs before heading home.

While I quite like the atmosphere in Camden, and love browsing, I've come to the conclusion that it's not really my scene. Mel and the girls come away with tops, dresses, shoes, and assorted accessories. I've struggled to do anything as simple as finding a good book at one of the 2nd-hand bookshops.

There are huge numbers of places to eat. We often end up at the Ice Wharf, the local Wetherspoons place. It's set back a few yards (nothing more, really) from the hustle and bustle of Camden itself, but seems fairly quiet, and the menu seems to be able to provide for all the fussy eaters in the Tribble family.

Snug Bar and Loch Fyne

With the girls off at the Jarman Centre sleeping in a bivouac, we decided to go out for a meal.

As our meal booking was slightly late, we decided to take an earlier bus (when they're still relatively frequent) and stop off for a drink first. So we called in at the Snug (there are two in Cambridge - their website calls this one on Lensfield Road the Trumpington one, and it really isn't anywhere near Trumpington). It was reasonably quiet, so we had our usual small table with a couple of armchairs at the back, and settled down to a Zombie and West Indies Yellowbird.

Then along the street to Loch Fyne. And it was pretty full, explaining why we were given a slightly later booking. We started off with The Fisherman's Plate, which had a good selection of fish (although a little more bread wouldn't have gone amiss). Mel had the King prawns and scallops, while I went for the Pan-fried fillets of seabass. Both main courses were excellent.

The meal itself was pretty good - what of the downsides? Quality is good, value for money fairly average; the service was of pretty good quality although a little slow, both in taking our order (another waiter had to come and welcome us and explain today's specials) and in the fact that the starter (a cold platter, so no preparation delay) took a significant time to arrive. But they're obviously doing something right as the place was packed out, and usually seems busy.

Denny Abbey and Farmland Museum

We went over to Denny Abbey and Farmland Museum yesterday. We went fairly early as rain was threatened, and were fortunate that the rain stayed away while we were there (although we could see threatening clouds to the west and rain rolled in after we got home).

There was a special event day. It was interesting, and certainly kept us occupied for a couple of hours. I think they could have made more of it though: another vehicle or two would have made a massive difference, and the real ale and cheese were somewhat underwhelming.

I think we found that the special events didn't add all that much to the visit. Which is a bit of a shame because there had clearly been considerable effort put in, but I got the feeling that a little more effort would have made a huge difference.

As a regular visit it's probably not going to be more than half a day, which is slightly tricky given the opening times. But it's interesting and definitely worthwhile.

We actually visited Denny Abbey some years ago. In fact, it must have been quite a while ago. We don't remember the Farmland Museum, so was probably mid '90s, and my recollection of the Abbey buildings was that they were in much worse repair.

Cambridge Beer Festival

Last week was the Cambridge Beer Festival. Held as usual on Jesus Green, the usual array of fine ales and other specialities such as mead was available.

At the beginning of the week anyway! I went for a quick lunch (courtesy of the well known Cheese Counter) on Tuesday and Thursday, and we went for an extended lunch and afternoon session on Saturday. When we arrived on Saturday the choice was already starting to look a bit thin, and by the time we left just after 5 on Saturday there really wasn't much left. I guess record attendance helped drink the place dry.

As always, a thoroughly enjoyable event.

A reminder: join CAMRA. Not only do you get in free, and much quicker, but you're supporting a worthy cause.

Bury St Edmunds Beer and Food Festival

On Saturday we went to the Bury Beer and Food Festival, held in the Greene King brewery gardens.

It's not a hard-core beer festival, but as a food festival organized by a brewery and held on it's grounds there is some evidence of beer.

There was a marquee with many stalls, and a number of stalls outside. A fair number of sausage stalls, fudge, cake, beer, wine, specialist foods. Oh, and a bar.

They were also running short beer-tasting sessions in a separate marquee. I thoroughly enjoyed those, especially getting to meet the head brewer.

Would we go again? Probably, yes.

There are a few things I think I would like to see improved on. I would like to see more variety of stalls. Yes, quite a few sausage stalls. Very little evidence of cheese, which I thought odd. Overall, a little lack of diversity (for example, nothing like the La Hogue farm shop or Chilford Hall vineyard). The beer-tasting sessions went well, but there wasn't anything else in terms of displays or presentations. There's not an enormous amount of advertising (or even a proper website or signs) but, to be honest, it's on a pretty small site and I'm not sure they could have got many more people in.

The Plough, Fen Ditton

I went to The Plough in Fen Ditton today. Our department had one of our managers over, so we went as a group.

I was quite impressed by the lunch. I've been there a few times over the years, and recently it's been a bit variable. On the previous couple of visits I felt it had gone too upmarket, being extremely pretentious and trying too hard, but they now seem to have got a much better balance.

The menu has good variety. Yes, there are burgers and standard pub fare, but there is also good variety and some more adventurous dishes.

Presentation is pretty good, quantity is just about right, and the quality of the food was excellent. The king prawns in particular were heroic in stature.

Of particular note is the fixed-price lunch menu. Two courses for under a tenner is extremely good value, and there's a pretty good choice as well. I had the whitebait to start and the breaded pork loin for the main. And I thoroughly enjoyed both.

To summarize: good food, decent choice, well presented, good value for what it is (and the fixed-price menu is exceptional value), and sensible portions. Definitely not basic, but not overly pretentious either.

Newmarket Races

As I get older, it's difficult to think of anything I might need or want as a present, so I've started to think about doing something interesting rather than getting yet more socks.

Last year I had a flight in an antique biplane for Duxford.

This year, we decided to have a day out at Newmarket Races.

We've lived near to Newmarket, the home of racing, for about two decades and, while we've visited the town a few times (and even stayed overnight at a lovely boutique hotel, Garrads) we've never been to a race. So, time to change that!

They do a variety of Party Packs. We went for the Ultimate Party Pack, which includes a proper meal at the Bistro. We got there early, had a little look round to get our bearings, and then went off to the Bistro to have some lunch. We both went for the steak, and it, like the meal as a whole, was excellent. One thing to note: the place can get busy, and they will put small groups together to fill up the tables. (I think this is an excellent idea, by the way - it keeps the queues short, the restaurant buzzing, and you might get some interesting people to talk to.)

We then went off to place a few bets, and did the circuit. Check the horses out at the Pre-Parade Ring; move across to the Parade Ring; and then find somewhere to watch the race (we sat up in the millennium grandstand, stood in the premier enclosure, and watched one from the rails right next to the finishing post). Then (hopefully!) back to the Winners' Enclosure before collecting your winnings.

There were 7 races. We got two winners and 4 places, only drawing a blank in the 1000 Guineas itself. It's just luck, but we managed to get almost all our money back. We went for the Tote, which seemed to be simple enough.

The weather was fine - dry and sunny, a bit breezy in exposed places - and we thoroughly enjoyed the day. And we will definitely go again.

It wasn't as busy as I expected. Sure, there were lots of people, but it never felt crowded, and the place itself was quite a bit smaller than I thought it would be.

There are a few comments, largely about organization. It's not clear to me that the £20 difference between the Premier and Ultimate Party Packs on the Premier race days is worth it. Basically, you get either the starter or dessert in the restaurant, so it's actually worth less than £10. Go for the Premier instead of the Ultimate, and put the money you save towards something else. (And actually check whether the pack will save you money.) Transport is a bit tricky, especially if you're going to have a drink or two and don't want to drive - there wasn't anything viable via public transport on the Sunday, so we took a taxi both ways. You would think that they would take more effort to organize transport, especially given the traffic jams on race days. And the website could do with just a bit of work to take it from average to good - it has all the content you need, but it can be tricky to find stuff and navigate around it.

Black Bull, Sawston

We went down to the Black Bull in Sawston yesterday. Went down on the bus, specially for their 1st Annual Beer Festival.

We weren't disappointed. A decent range of excellent beers, all the ones I tried were very good, and a small barbecue and hog roast (although we had some of the bar snacks as we were getting a bit peckish).

Staff were very friendly, and there was a very good atmosphere, so highly recommended.

Early Summer

The weather I've experienced recently has been varied and interesting, to say the least.

I was over in Ann Arbor, near Detroit, recently, and it was a typical English spring: cool, damp, the odd flurry of snow, and a little sunshine. Meanwhile, back home in England itself there was glorious sunshine.

I got a little sunburnt the day I came back, falling asleep in the back garden with a bit of jetlag.

While we've had some poor days, generally Spring has been good. We've already had two or three barbecues out in the back garden.

The downside to all this is that I've had a much stronger dose of hay fever this year. I keep hoping to grow out of it, and last year did in fact suffer far less. So I'm hoping that I'll cope much better with summer proper, when it arrives, and can take advantage of some glorious sunny weather rather than hiding inside with a handkerchief for company.

Are Hotel Star Ratings Meaningful?

I don't travel all that much, but do go away on business a couple of times a year and we often have a couple of stays away in a hotel each year. Over the years, I've ended up visiting a whole range of hotels of various ratings and price ranges.

And one thing that's become abundantly clear is that there's at best a tenuous relationship between the quality of the hotel, the price you pay, and its mysterious star rating.

Looking at quality against price, it's certainly not the case in general that better quality costs more. While within a certain locality, that may be true, but across the board I tend to see the opposite trend: increased competition tends to simultaneously drive down prices and increase quality.

And what of this star rating? In my experience that tends to correlate with size. Larger hotels offer more services, and that tends to be reflected in the rating. But it's just a measure of quantity, not of quality.

I've stayed in large hotels that feel welcoming and comforting, and those that are cold and mechanical. The same is true of smaller establishments (although recently we've tended to stay in more up-market boutique hotels that have tended to give vastly superior levels of service).

The star rating of itself is almost never a guide to how good a stay you're going to have. If anything, looking at the star rating is harmful, as it prejudices your expectations, which may be why I've been underwhelmed when I've stayed at four or five star (so-called luxury) hotels.

The Rosemary, Falmouth

We recently went down to an open day at University College Falmouth.

It's quite a trek: we decided to go down the day before, taking it relatively easy, although we just flogged it up the motorway on the way back (flat out, motorway speed, no delays, five and a half hours). So we needed to find somewhere to stay.

We went to The Rosemary, and we can thoroughly recommend it. The rooms are a generous size, well equipped, and comfortable. We had the Hedford Suite, which is at the top of the house, allowing the girls to be in a separate twin room. It's in a quiet area, not on top of the town, but close and convenient, and we had no trouble parking on the street outside. There's a pleasant sitting room, with some games, and a honesty bar that allowed us to have a drink before turning in. Breakfast was comprehensive and filling - we usually fill up at breakfast and just snack in the day.

Fleur De Lis Inn, Stoke Sub Hamdon

On the way down to Falmouth recently, we stopped off for lunch at the Fleur De Lis Inn, in Stoke Sub Hamdon, Somerset.

We hadn't really got a formal plan in place, just the idea that as lunchtime came up, we would look for something off the main road to eat and rest for a while, and that was where we ended up.

And it was a good choice. The staff were friendly, the menu covered all the bases, we asked for minor variations that weren't on the menu and were given exactly what we wanted, the quality and quantity of the food were excellent.

Sopwell House

Taking advantage of the girls being away with Guides for a couple of days, we stayed at Sopwell House last night.

We first visited the Verulamium Museum. I would describe this museum as scoring very highly on quality, although there's slightly less to see than I expected: we spent about an hour there. We walked into St Albans for a bite to eat (finding that many of the pubs we passed seemed to have menus that were a little upmarket for our taste - we just wanted something basic to share, so ended up in one of the Wetherspoon's.). We walked back through past the Cathedral and through the park.

The hotel itself is pretty good. (You would hope so, as it's pretty expensive!)

Our room was comfortable and spacious, although the hotel is pretty large and it was a bit of a trek. One odd thing was the in-room tea and coffee facilities. Many of the electrical sockets were of the old round-pin variety - plugging the kettle in meant putting it on the floor in an awkward place. Also (and this is a common failing of many hotels) there was basically enough supplies for one cup, and that's assuming you don't both have a sweet tooth.

We swam in the pool. There's quite a lot of refurbishment of the spa area taking place, so changing facilities were a bit of a temporary oddness. It was pretty busy, but that's not really much of excuse for running out of robes (and, while I'm on the subject, no robes in our room either).

We treated ourselves to the Valentine's special dinner. That was really very good. We were given a glass of bubbly and canapes beforehand, and all three primary courses were excellent. My only criticism was that they were a little slow in taking our order and bringing the starters (and they seemed a little disorganised - we were asked twice whether we wanted any water and which wine we wanted).

There was clearly some fairly major function in the hotel at the same time - it sounded to already be in full swing as we came down for dinner but there was a continual stream of new arrivals in black tie or extravagant dresses coming to join the party.

Breakfast was disappointing. Stocks of some items were running low and weren't getting replenished promptly - some items were stale as a result. Overall, the choice wasn't all that great. I found the cooked breakfast to be incredibly bland - potatoes, sausages, eggs all had very little taste.

Melanie wanted a spa treatment so I had a massage as well. I can definitely recommend this. The refurbishment works impacted this as well, to the extent that they were actually using rooms at the other end of the hotel, so we all trooped back and forth in groups.

Overall, an excellent stay, but they do need to improve the breakfast quite a bit.

Nottingham: Riverbank

Went to The Riverbank in Nottingham today.

It was almost excellent, let down around the edges a little.

Let's start with the strong point: the food. This was really good. I had leek and potato soup to start, and really enjoyed it despite not being a great fan of soups. Then the roast sirloin of scotch beef, nice and pink, very tender. Followed by pistachio & almond cake, which was quite intriguing, and was well balanced by the rhubarb sorbet.

My fellow diners also seemed to enjoy themselves, even the children.

One thing I did like was that the restaurant were happy to mix items off the children's menu with the regular menu. Especially with fussy teenagers who don't necessarily like a full starter, this worked out well.

Pricing wise, it was pretty good value as well.

On the weaker side, just a few irritations:

The meals seemed to take a little while to arrive. Yes, I know they need to be prepared but my impression was that we seemed to wait just a little too long each time.

Parking could be problematic. This is definitely out of season, slightly out of peak hours, and the place certainly wasn't full. Yet there was no parking free - we had to park along the road. I hate to think what it's going to be like when it's busy.

The menu needs a couple of tweaks: they need to keep the website up to date so it matches what's actually on offer. And it's not clear what's actually covered on their "early bird" menu and what has a supplement (specifically, the steak: our reading of the menu was that the steak wasn't included in the offer and there was a supplement for the beef, whereas the supplement was for the steak and it was included in the offer).

So, in summary, excellent food at an excellent price, as long as you're not in a hurry or mind parking down the street.

Winter closing in

So the clocks have gone back, we're now into November, it's dark, wet, and windy.

And I've got a cold.

Yup. Winter's on its way.

A Fitter 2009

It's not a new-year resolution - as such - but one of my short-term targets is to lose a bit of weight. I'm probably half a stone above where I want to be, and probably ought to be aiming even lower.

It's no help that Melanie's an excellent cook, and we both enjoy good food and drink. Combine that with my somewhat defective knees and old broken arm, and physical exercise isn't as easy as I would like. So it will be a challenge!

Almost entirely unrelated, we got Wii Fit for Xmas. I say almost unrelated, because the aim of getting the game was entirely to have fun. I'm not so naive as to believe that the game is going to get me fit, but as it's there I'm definitely going to use it to help. It reckons on on the overweight/obese boundary, which I regard as a bit excessive.

It's interesting that young Hannah is attempting to monopolise the Wii, and even Melanie is joining in (after a "you're not getting me on that thing" statement). Yet more competition for the available electronics devices.

Excellent Service from Lush

Shopping in the UK can be a miserable experience. Overpriced goods, often out of stock, lack of choice, and terrible customer service abound.

Some stores are exceptions. The exceptions that prove the rule, if you like.

At the weekend I was getting some gifts in Cambridge. Melanie likes goods from Lush, so putting together a selection box is in order.

Now I'm a complete dunce in a shop. Especially a cosmetics shop. No sense of smell, they've reorganised the shop so I don't know where anything is.

So there I am looking perplexed in a packed shop, when a friendly assistant asks if I need some help. She shows me where the first item on my list is, then helpfully offers to carry the basket as I'm struggling with all my other bags and the shopping list, and we fill the basket up. They do a gift wrapping service and, as I was a bit short of time, one of the other assistants wrapped my goods there and then.

All in all, excellent service - perfectly helpful while unobtrusive, with a smile - leading to a happy and satisfied customer who will no doubt be back.

Economic pointlessness

Would you trust these people to run the country?

So the chancellor announced a cut in VAT from 17.5% to 15%. Supposedly to kickstart the economy, but it's obviously a pointless wast of time and effort.

It's going to have no real effect: shops in the UK don't advertise an untaxed sticker price and then add tax at the till. So the sticker price - which is largely rounded to a convenient looking number such as 99p - will largely be unchanged, so consumers won't benefit.

It's going to be a nightmare to implement. Businesses are going to have to redo all their finances. And in the unlikely event they reprice, that's going to require effort they won't want to do.

Consumers aren't going to notice any difference, so this isn't going to lead to an increase in consumer confidence.

Not only that, but attempting to reduce prices at a point when inflation is already falling isn't exactly gong to stabilise matters. And then there's the 2.5% increase to kick everyone in the teeth at the end of 2009.

And the counter to this is an increase in taxes on income. So everyone sees the money in their pocket going down (again) and simply responds by cutting back on spending.

So, these changes will at best be completely pointless, and are likely to seriously harm the economy.

It's clear that what should have been done is to reduce taxes on income. In addition to the direct stimulus to the economy, people actually get a positive feeling from having more cash in their pockets.

On yer bike

I'm very pleased that I've managed to cycle to work every day this week. The weather has been pretty good (although it can be a bit chilly in the mornings) and now Hannah's at secondary school there's no need to ferry anyone to school in the car, so I've been taking advantage of it.

Even today, when the cold that's been hovering around me for the last couple of days descended in earnest.

Remember the Sinclair C5? I saw one of those heading the other way one morning this week. Now that's a blast from the past.

Useless shops

It's not just markets that are useless. Shops are going the same way.

The local supermarket has gone steadily down hill over the last few years. (It's only a few minutes walk, so is the obvious choice for most of our shopping.) There are two obvious things that have happened:

• The choice has shrunk dramatically
• Many of our favourites can no longer be found

Suppliers don't help out. The 'new improved' recipes they offer taste simply awful. They can't resist destroying a winning formula.

The same is true on the High Street. I decided to go into Cambridge after my Birthday to go round the shops and treat myself - and came home empty handed. The choice was dismal, and the couple of nice items of clothing I found weren't available in my size.

There are all these worries about the economy going into recession, but stores aren't helping themselves by not selling goods consumers want and not having stocks of what they do.

Mixed Markets

I remember when car boot sales were interesting places to visit. There were always bargains to be had - and the sellers benefited by getting some cash for stuff they would otherwise throw away.

It's been some years, though, since I've been to a car boot sale that has had anything useful. They now seem to be dominated by repeat sellers hawking the same old tired tat, or "professionals" looking to make a profit.

On holiday in Rome, we went to a Sunday Market. Another dead loss - some sellers doing a good job of selling to locals, but also significant numbers of stall purely aimed at ripping off gullible tourists.

Back in the UK, we went to a bank holiday Monday market. And that was even worse. Absolutely nothing of interest, lots of rip-off merchants selling substandard goods at excessive prices (by which I mean significantly more than you can get fully guaranteed on the high street).

It's not all doom and gloom. We went down to London for the afternoon, and went round Camden Markets. And while there is a bit of trash, and you see the same items on multiple stalls, it's got a lot more character, and feels a lot more wholesome. While I didn't come away with anything, I quite enjoyed it.

Roasted in Rome

After our trip to Wales, with the girls back from camp, we headed off to Rome for a short week.

It was dry (we just had one sharp shower) and pretty warm. I'm not overly keen on hot climates - but at least it's better weather than some of the apathetic stuff we have here in the UK that passes for summer!

Rome wasn't quite what I expected. I don't think we saw any of the modern city. What did impress me was the sheer size and extent of what's left of ancient Rome: some of these buildings are huge and were obviously built to last. And it's not just the odd bit of wall, there's acres and acres of buildings.

The Vatican and the Sistine Chapel were a huge disappointment. We queued for hours (continually pestered by tour guides promising us that they could get us in without waiting), and it's largely a tourist machine. The Sistine Chapel was particularly disappointing - OK, it's a decent bit of painting, but it's overrated. And we're all crammed in like sardines into the chapel, with security guards yelling Silence every few seconds, and shouting at and hassling people who ignored the prominent 'no photography' signs.

There was some really interesting stuff in the Vatican museum, that you get pushed past as the throng pushes you through the sausage machine to the Sistine Chapel. I was fascinated by the Gallery of Maps in particular. But generally the whole day was a bit of a washout.

It was late afternoon when we left the Vatican, and we decided to eat locally before heading back to the hotel. And then what I found interesting is that for every block away from the main tourist route, the prices fell basically linearly. So we walked a couple of blocks and ended up in an excellent local restaurant with excellent service and had an excellent meal - a lot less frantic and a lot less expensive than a similar place a couple of streets away. (This pattern was repeated all over Rome - just go down a side street and you'll get a better meal for less.)

We also went to a local water park. And even though it wasn't all that sunny, and I took care to keep in the shade as much as possible, I still got sunburnt.

Wet in Wales

The girls were off to guide camp, so after a couple of decent restaurant meals, we headed off to Wales for a few days.

We stayed at a fabulous self catering place - The Gwalia - not far from Ruthin. It's tucked away now narrow single-track roads, but it's a great place to relax and unwind once you've got there.

We didn't just sit back, though.

One afternoon we went Quad Biking. Just tore around a muddy field on a quad bike for an hour.

Then a couple of mornings White Water Rafting and Gorge Walking. I'm probably getting a bit old for this lark - or, rather, my gammy knees and bad arm are, despite my mental willingness.

Then on the last morning Melanie went off to have a pamper session at a local hotel and spa while I had a ride on the Llangollen Railway.

Avoiding the private car

We went to the Cambridge Beer Festival yesterday. The nature of the event meant that driving was out of the question, so we had to take the bus.

It's not particularly inconvenient. We can walk round the corner to catch the bus, and it's only a couple of minutes. The bus route is moderately direct, and it's not much further to walk at the other end. Furthermore, the service is frequent - a bus every 10 minutes.

So should have been easy; but in practice travelling in Cambridge by bus is hard work and has often been problematic.

While there's supposed to be a bus every 10 minutes, in reality you wait more in hope than expectation. This case was no different - no bus at 20 to; no bus at 10 to; a bus finally appears at 5 minutes to.

Then we get to the railway station and the bus stops. Everybody has to get off and get on a different bus because this one goes no further.

A bit further on, we get into Cambridge and the bus stops. This time we have to wait 5 minutes for a new driver to take over.

All in all, the journey (it's about 3 miles in a straight line) takes about an hour.

What's more, the total cost - certainly for a family - significantly exceeds that of driving and parking a car.

Is it any wonder that we're having trouble enticing drivers away from their cars?

Poor timing

I've just received my tax disc (vehicle license, for those unaccustomed to the terminology).

I paid for it online, which is good. As I did earlier in the year for my TV license.

However, both the tax disc and the TV license have one flaw. They send you the reminder letter about a month before it's due, but you can only pay from the 15th, so you get the reminder about 2 weeks before you can take action on it. Which means that there's a real danger of filing the reminder away meaning to act on it and then completely forgetting about it.

50 quid a tank

Ouch. The price of petrol continues to rise. Filling up over the weekend cost me 50 quid (that's about 100 dollars to our transatlantic brethren).

But with finer weather I'm cycling to work when I can, which helps both my finances and my fitness.

Versatile tickets

Or not.

Came to pay for a car park ticket today, and the machine insists that it has to be inserted with the magnetic stripe on top and to the right.

What gives? It's trivially easy to make the thing read it whatever way you put it in, and pretty well any machine does that. But not these brand new ones, it would appear.

Britain's got Talent?

I wouldn't normally watch this, but other family members had it on.

Generally, though, the show proves that its title is false. And the few examples of real talent amongst the talentless rubbish that came forth serve to emphasise the point.

Half a bottle?

Why is it that almost all bottles of wine are the same size?

Do I always want to drink exactly the same amount?

Often, we find it would be nice to just have a pleasant glass of wine with a meal, maybe two. It's not that often that we feel like finishing off a whole bottle between us in one sitting.

I reckon the suppliers are missing a trick here - it would be great to be able to get half-litre or half-bottles of wine. Especially decent wines - many of the smaller bottles available are of the more basic varieties and the choice is very limited.

Changes everywhere

Been rather busy recently. We've been making a number of long overdue changes around the house.

Our main bedroom has been completely revamped. New bed (modern metal frame, and a king size rather than the minuscule standard that passes as a double bed); new furniture (light and airy); and a new wooden floor. We originally planned on just replacing the carpet, but never found a colour we liked and became drawn to a wood (laminate, we're not that rich) floor. It all goes together nicely!

I don't include DIY as one of my strengths. Sure, I can wield a brush and roller, but anything beyond that is quite a challenge. But I managed to replace the light fittings (and that's something that was much more involved than it has any right to be), and moved an electrical socket so the fitted furniture would actually fit. The electrics don't bother me - it's knocking holes in the house to gain access that causes all the trouble.

Of course, once we had a wooden floor one of the girls decided she wanted a wooden floor too, and of course they both had to have dimmer switches for their lights once we had one!

The spare room needs a revamp. It's currently got the old futon we had in Toronto. We've been looking for a replacement sofa bed for a while, and are going to see one tomorrow. It appears that we only have a fairly restricted choice. As in we've only found the one that will fit - and it's been tricky finding somewhere that has one in stock to go and look at. It should make watching the second TV rather more comfortable, and should provide us with a proper guest bed (the old futon simply wasn't anything you would expect a guest to use, so we've used it ourselves, and I really don't want to have to do that again).

As the girls' bedrooms have been decorated fairly recently, and we've just had someone in to paint the upper hall and landing, that just leaves the bathroom. Melanie has realized that you can get regular sized spa baths, so it looks like some fairly major work is on the cards there....

Water water everywhere

Where it's not supposed to be. One of the girls was having a shower upstairs, and I could hear something dripping while cooking in the kitchen. Went into the hallway and water was pouring through the ceiling. Over the fusebox. Everywhere.

Dagnabbit.

Just got the car back, and fixing that cost me a fortune. Looks like more expensive repairs are in the pipeline.

Summer Holidays

Just had a couple of weeks away.

The first week was spent up at Griffon Forest, near York. We've been there twice before, and love it. It was really pleasant to be in a cool lodge (the weather in England was unusually warm). We packed a lot in: Flamingo Land, swimming, relaxing in the hot tub, visiting Lotherton Hall, going to Scarborough and Bridlington.

The first time we went to the coast was very unusual. We had hired some bikes in Dalby Forest earlier in the day. It was right and sunny, and as we neared the coast it looked very strange - a brown band in the sky ahead of us. Then we went into dense fog and the temperature dropped about ten degrees.

On the way home we stopped off at Magna. In addition to the pavilions (OK, but suffered a little - as many of these attractions do - by some of the hands-on exhibits being broken) much fun was had outside in the playground.

The second holiday saw us heading off to a beautiful cottage in the Dordogne. Another repeat visit - we were there the same week last year. We also went back and had a good day climbing through the trees at L'Appel de la Foret.

The holiday itself was great, but the journey was "Interesting". Having driven down and gone across on EuroTunnel, we were about an hour and a half south of Calais when something in the car went. Lots of vibration, sounded pretty sick, felt bad. We pulled over and couldn't see anything, but attempting to start off again resulted in the car shaking and it obviously wasn't happy. We were stuck in a pretty dangerous position at the side of the motorway, and knew there was a service area (just a picnic area, really) just along the road, so we managed to limp to that. Calling the recovery company, they tell us that they can't do anything - we have to contact the police to get towed off the motorway before anything else can be done. Having been towed to a local garage, there are lots of phone calls - eventually we get someone at the recovery company who can speak French.

It takes a while, but it was too late to get a hire car and, while the garage had a car themselves, they wanted a large cash deposit (more than we had). We were put up in a local hotel for the night (OK, but not quite the Chateau we had booked as the overnight stop), and were back at the garage next morning. The recovery company still couldn't get a car from the major hire companies, and it was looking like we would have to stay there till Monday or Tuesday. But we eventually negotiated with the garage that the recovery company would guarantee some of the deposit, and soon after got on our way.

The car we got was actually very nice - a new Renault Clio. I've always thought of this as a small car, but it didn't feel like it, and even managed to take most of our luggage. I was impressed, and the Clio is definitely a car I would look at when the time comes to replace mine.

Coming back, we had to set off very early to get the hire car back to the garage before it closed. Clearly the recovery operation was up to full speed by then: the rental had all been paid for, a taxi was waiting to take us to the compound where our car was waiting, it was put on the back of a truck and taken up to Calais. We had to take the car onto the train and off by ourselves - the recovery vehicles can't go that far. And driving through the ticket barriers and up to the car park felt OK, but the car rapidly sickened from then on. Sounded like I was dragging tin cans along as we got on the train, and it wasn't happy. I managed to stagger off the train, and only needed to go about half a mile to get to the services to meet the next recovery truck, but it seized up completely on the slip road into the services.

It's now home, and we're looking at a replacement gearbox and clutch. More expense!

While the trip was reasonably smooth in the end, and we did get there and back without too much of an interruption to the holiday, the recovery company could have done better. I'm not sure we ever talked to the same person more than once in a dozen or more calls. The initial response was sluggish and uncertain - just at the time when you need good service, they didn't seem to be on top of it. This was the same sort of problem I saw when I had an accident - they sorted the claim and repair out very well, but seemed incapable of doing a good job of making sure I was alright and able to get home in the immediate aftermath of the incident.

21 Again

The title ought to give a hint. It's also true in another sense - another 21 years have passed since the first 21.

I'm older, for sure. Wiser? Not so sure.

The weather turned nice and warm. (So hay fever assaults me - I've not grown out of it yet.) We had a nice lunch out, and generally relaxed.

Having taken the day off work, and it being necessary anyway, I dropped the car off for a service. Shame it didn't work when I got it back :-(

Netherhall Concert

Last night we went to see Amanda take part in the Netherhall Spring Concert at West Road Concert Hall.

There were about 15 mini-performances, from the full band and orchestra, choirs, small groups, and solos.

The choice of pieces was good, and the quality of performance was excellent.

Of course, West Road is an awesome venue, which helps a lot. The only disappointment was that so few parents turned up - the audience was pretty small, which was a shame.

Vroom....

No, not the start of the new F1 season!

The Baldock Bypass is now open. This makes a considerable difference to my commute to and from work - saving me about 15 minutes in the morning and about half that in the evening. Great stuff!

It's still too long, really. And there aren't any other improvements in travel times I can look forward to.

Weekend Away

For the first time in twelve years Melanie and I just had a weekend away, with no kids in sight!

Both girls went to an orchestra weekend at Grafham Water Centre, so we booked a break at Folly Farm Cottage, in the small village of Ilmington in the Cotswolds.

The place was ideal for a romantic break - a small self catering apartment with a 4-poster bed, whirlpool bath, delightfully decorated, very nice and helpful people too. We ordered a cooked breakfast for Sunday and that was delicious.

We spent Saturday having a little drive round the area, visiting a couple of antiques places, Moreton in the Marsh, Broadway, and Chipping Camden. Coming past Broadway Tower there was quite a lot of snow around - some quite deep drifts in places. The weather was good - clear and sunny - but a little chilly!

Saturday evening we booked a table at the Howard Arms in Ilmington. We walked down - remembering to take a torch to see the way.

Not everything went quite according to the original script. After arranging all this we ended up going to a function at Chilford Hall Vineyard on the Friday evening, so our carefully laid travel plans got slightly derailed. The original plan was to set out, leave the children, and carry on. Instead we came back to Cambridge, had the meal, and set out much later than planned - so we didn't arrive until nearly 1 in the morning. Fortunately our hosts at Folly Farm were very understanding and made arrangements to leave a key.

Then, on Saturday evening, having had a drink at the bar, started on the bottle of wine, and just had our starters arrive at the table, the phone went - with a message to say that Amanda had been unwell and would it be better if we went to collect her and take her home? Needless to say this wasn't particularly practical, but fortunately Amanda was fine, so we were able to stay on. It did put rather a dampener on what was looking to be a very fine meal, though.

Today we had a walk round Stratford and a warming bowl of soup before heading back to collect the kids and bring them home.

Overall, a nice weekend. Let's hope we don't have to wait another 12 years for the next opportunity.

Make your own website

So I don't post items here as often as I do in my main blog, which is something I'm going to have to work on.

Anyway, Hannah's been asking about creating her own website, so had a look around today. She came home with piczo in mind (although she actually told us pixo, which isn't quite the same thing).

But piczo's terms and conditions impose a strict minimum age of 13, so that one's out. And after looking at a couple of pages they host, the intrusive advertising and popups really got on my nerves. Can't recommend that one.

So I had a little look around, and Hannah signed up for MatMice. This one is aimed squarely at children, and first impressions are good. The signup was a little klunky (most usernames are already taken - it would have been nice to get suggestions rather than have to take 20 guesses). The page creator is pretty simplistic for my taste (not quite as slick as most of the ajax powered utilities I use these days) but it works. Advertising, yes, but in the fairly tasteful google style. How this will work out in the longer term I don't know, but if your kids are looking for somewhere to make their own web page then MatMice is definitely worth a try!

Penguins

On Saturday I took Hannah to see March of the Penguins.

I think she enjoyed it - she's mad keen on penguins - and I found it interesting. We had seen adverts for the DVD while on holiday in France last summer, and I was tempted to get the DVD even though the commentary was presumably in French.

antidecluttering

In the new year, full of good intentions, we always have a good clearout of old junk. Some of this is to make room for new stuff just received as a gift; some of it is because new gifts replace old stuff; some is just getting rid of stuff we don't want.

That's the good bit. Then we spoil it by heading off down to IKEA to buy a whole load of new things to fill up the house. The end result is a house that's just as full of clutter, just a bit better organized. And the organization will decay over the year, and in early 2007 we'll repeat the cycle again.

We also found out that the accident I had must have damaged the satellite navigation system in the car too. It works for a bit, and then freaks out. Proceeding round the North Circular, we were suddenly instructed to d a U-turn. Coming up the M11, all of a sudden we were told to turn right at the roundabout.

However, while in London we did have a good late lunch at Garfunkel's.

District ADM

Went to the Cambridge District Annual District Meeting yesterday.

Ringing beforehand was generally good; a few hiccups due to Great Shelford being an anticlockwise ring. Usually once you're into changes and settled down, everything goes smoothly, but it was interesting how even good touches faltered as they came back into rounds.

The meeting saw a couple of elections of personal note. Amanda was elected a member, and yours truly got voted onto the district committee. I have no official responsibilities - I'm not an officer or anything so important - but there are a couple of extra committee members to give a wider spread of representation. I'm hoping to contribute more to the district - one first target might be to actually ring at all the towers, which is something I've failed to do despite being resident here for almost a decade and a half.

Sluggish traffic

Traffic on the way to work in the morning seems to be getting worse.

I'm not at all sure why. It could be seasonal (the operation or not of schools seems to make a disproportionate difference). It could be partly the weather (rain makes an obvious difference). Or - and this is my fear - it's a systematic trend.

Whatever, it's a pain.

Happy New Year!

A bit late, but this:

was made by Amanda at Guides in the run up to Christmas.

It's only small, but it's a real Christmas cake, very rich, properly iced and all.

And it's delicious.

 

Oh for summer warmth

 

It seems like a long time ago now, but over the summer we went to France, and this was typical weather. Specifically - beautiful sunshine!

Makes a change from frosty damp grey mornings...
 

Good to go

Got my car back!

Looks nice and clean at the back - all the dents and squashed bits are gone. So that episode is over, thankfully.

It's nice to be back in my own car. It was strange driving the loan car about for a couple of weeks, and while I thought it would be interesting to try something different, I'm glad to be rid of it.

For the inquisitive, I had a 3-door Vauxhall Astra SRi. Drove well enough, but there were a few things I didn't like. I really didn't like the controls. The indicators were a bit erratic; I don't like the main lights being on the dash (in particular, making the foglights difficult to get to is a bad idea); the heating and radio controls are very messy (and sufficiently obtuse to be quite dangerous, actually). The windscreen wipers and washer were pretty poor, and the CD player had a habit of skipping. Being a 3-door was very awkward - it was very tricky to get into the back, and the way the front seats tipped and slid didn't work well.

The Misguided Busway

It appears that the Cambridge Misguided Busway scheme has been given the go ahead.

For those that don't know, this involves the conversion of a disused railway line into a special trackway for buses, parallel to a very heavily congested trunk road. The claim, presumably, is that this will provide an alternative and relieve the congestion.

Unfortunately, what we are going to see is a horrifically expensive white elephant.

The best thing - and the obvious course of action - would have been to convert the disused railway into a used railway.

The fundamental problem lies in the idea that you can spend at least £70 million and convert a railway line into a successful bus route This simply won't work, because doing so combines the worst features of rail and road transport. The snag with railway lines is that - partly because they were built so long ago - they tend not to follow traffic patterns. Not only do they not follow the traffic, the stations tend to be in useless places. The misguided busway inherits these weaknesses.

The advantage of using the railway as a railway is that, while it suffers from these weaknesses too, it can give benefits in other areas. In particular, it can act as a feeder line, with commuter traffic a particular target - so you can go to a local station for a long-distance trip. Also, the line could be used as additional or diversionary capacity for other rail traffic.

Murky Motorways

Must have slept through the rather large bang from the exploding fuel storage depot yesterday, although we're probably in range and know people - usually slightly closer, it must be admitted - who did get woken up by it.

The knock-on effect was chaos on the roads. But not quite in the manner I would have expected. The A1(M) south was busy this morning between junctions 9 and 10, with traffic queuing back from Stevenage. But was otherwise pretty clear once I worked past that queue. It did seem a little busier coming the other way. Coming home this evening the usual delays at junction 7 were worse than normal, but I reckon that was due to a localized incident - half a dozen cars parked up on the hard shoulder was one clue, and also the fact that traffic was actually lighter than normal (presumably due to delays further south round the M25).

From my office I can see the plume of smoke, which is pretty massive. But from that distance the base is hidden so I can't see the fire itself. But I'm still amazed that an explosion of that magnitude didn't have much heavier casualties.

End of term concert

Both girls go to String Orchestras organized by CIMA - First Play Strings and the Cambridge Junior String Orchestra.

Every term they put on a concert, and we went along last week. The music was excellent - highlights included "Susanna and Polly meet Liza at the Races" and the theme from "Blackadder".

Not only that, but despite delays on the A1 I made it in time, and Melanie was amazed at being able to get from one side of Cambridge to the other, eat, and get back again in 50 minutes.

There seems to be some seasonal music being practiced at the moment, so we may get an extra private concert in a couple of weeks...

Dodgy Drivers

Driving on the A1(M), I see an awful lot of bad driving. (Not just people who run into the back of me, either.)

This takes a variety of forms. We're all familiar with the middle-lane moron - sitting there in the middle lane doing 50, effectively turning a 3-lane motorway into a single-lane queue. Then there's
the compulsive lane-changer, who will dart into any space in another lane at the first sign of delays, even if they lose out in the process. (This last habit generates a good illustration of the transition between laminar and turbulent flow.)

Often the root cause of much of the bad driving I see is sheer impatience. And the possible gains are infinitesimally small - usually you might move up one car in the queue.

But last night was just lunacy. Up the A1 there's a choke point where it goes from 3 lanes to 2. So at the merge point I'm letting a lorry into the space in front of me. All of a sudden this old banger in the inside lane swings onto the hard shoulder to pass the car merging in behind me, shoots between me and the lorry (almost at right angles), screeches up past the lorry, and swings at right angles again across the front of the lorry, back on to the hard shoulder, and disappears off to heaven knows where, with the lorry driver flashing his lights and tooting his horn.

Back in black.

After my recent unfortunate incident, my Toyota went in to be repaired today. It's going to take a few days, so I've got a hire car to get around in.

Not just any car, either. This is a black Vauxhall Astra SRi, which is allegedly pretty fancy. Still, I prefer the old Toyota - it has a level of solidity that is difficult to match. (And I'm not too bothered by cars that are bland or boring. It's whether they do the job that matters.)

Brrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's getting a little chilly round these parts. I think it was below zero all the way to work today.

The other snag with driving in winter is the glare from the Sun being low in the sky. There are a couple of places on my way to work where you're looking straight into the sun. It's essentially impossible to see properly, which makes it a little tricky to say the least.

The general opinion seems to be that it's going to be a hard winter. I really don't mind that. I would much rather see some decent hard weather than 3 months of dank chills.

Bells all day

Yesterday was a busy ringing day.

We started with a nice quarter of coldstream at Duxford, conducted by yours truly.

Then on to a new tower and a new method for me - stamford at Thriplow.

This was followed by an excellent lunch at the Star in Melbourn.

Then just down the road to the Cambridge District meeting, ringing on the eight at Melbourn, followed by an excellent tea and short meeting. Just a quick diversion via Foxton on the way home to round off a busy day.

That made three new towers for me, 2 successful quarter-peal attempts, and one new method.

Lower than low

There are some heartless morons in this world, including the one (or group of) who stole the pumpkin off our doorstep tonight. What's the point?

District Outing

We went on the district outing yesterday, round the Peterborough area.

First up was Fotherighay, a very impressive church in what is now a pretty small village. A nice (although loud) ring of 6, and we managed a lovely course of Cambridge minor.

Next up was the lovely 8 at Castor, followed by speading out for lunch so as not to overwhelm any of the local establishments.

After lunch, we went to the very light 6 at Wansford. Many struggled, but it was a good experience - visiting a variety of towers will help improve most people's ringing. Amanda grabbed the tenor, which is probably the lightest bell she's ever rung.

Off to Peterborough for some serious rings. St John the Baptist are a 25cwt eight, in stark contrast to a very light six. And then off to the Cathedral, to try out the twelve.

Unfortunately, we simply didn't have the ringers to do more than rounds on the twelve. I guess that many people on the outing had never been to a twelve before. Good experience, but not enough strength overall to bring anybody on.

Last week of the holidays

Time flies, and it's the last week of the summer holidays: school starts tomorrow or Monday (depending on which school).

The weather has been good too, so we've squeezed in a couple of trips.

Monday (that quaint and mindless British invention the bank holiday) we went to Felixstowe. Some hours on the beach, a picnic lunch, feeding the slot machines, and a swim at the pool.

Yesterday we went to Chessington World of Adventures. Those who know us will know that we're keen on theme parks, and we hadn't been to Chessington before.

It was hot, the park was busy, and the queues were long. That's only to be expected. But again, the park did a less than optimal job. To start with, the ticket sales at the entrance were excruciatingly slow - it took about 45 minutes to buy a ticket. Then the ride staff were doing an indifferent job of filling the rides. Few rides were full up - some only half full - which extended the queues even further. One of the major rides was closed all day, and another operating at partial capacity. On the plus side, they did let the rides run over the scheduled closing time slightly so we managed to get an extra ride and came away feeling happy.

(One hint to theme park operators: you're missing a trick here. It's a baking hot day, people are standing in a queue for an hour, and you have a non queue-jumping policy that means people can't leave the queue and join back. You could make a fortune by having roving ice-cream and drinks sellers working along the queue line - we would have bought something more than once.)

Fixing the plumbing

Plumbing isn't my strong point. Frankly, it's pretty weak.

Yet occasionally it has to be done. We had a leaky cistern, and after plucking up courage we changed a washer.

Didn't fix it. We still had leaks. Clearly more drastic action was called for.

So I ended up changing the entire valve mechanism for a new one. With a quick break in the middle to get some extra tools, and a second attempt to fit it correctly, it was eventually fitted.

And successfully, too. No leaks now!

Holiday Orchestra Concert

Another week of ferrying around ends with a successful concert.

The girls have been going to Holiday Orchestra again this week. And tonight they got to show off their skills at the concert. Both in the String orchestras and the choirs, and they both did very well.

Misrecommendations

eBay has this new feature called My Recommendations.

Frankly, it's useless. What it does is give you some more items that are being sold by someone you've bought stuff off recently. If they specialize in one particular area, then that's fine. Often, though, eBay sellers have an astonishing variety of goods on offer that bear no relationship to something you might have bought in the past.

Still, it's a bit of light relief to see what junk it's come up with this time. Do I want a Hot Pink Flowered Halterneck Top? Or an Adorable Baby Pink Poodle Bag with Handles?

I think not.

Ipswich at Cottenham

Took 2 attempts, but we just rang a quarter peal of Ipswich Surprise Minor at Cottenham.

I think it's the first time I've rung there. Nice bells, went well, but - at 15cwt - slightly heavier than most of the rings round here.

Bouncing in the rain

We've only got a small garden, but 2 children to play in it. We've just bought an 8ft trampoline, which takes up about half the garden!

These trampolines seem to be all the rage at the moment - a lot of friends have them, so our 2 youngsters have been feeling left out. The swing and slide are obviously a bit tame for them. And we were left a small amount of money earlier in the year so decided that a treat was in order.

There was a minor mix up in delivery. The company had an off-by-one error in the address, so they tried to deliver it to the house opposite. That wasn't ever going to work, because it was sold a couple of months ago and has been empty since. So we arranged for one of use to stay in, but nothing arrived. After a few phone calls, it finally got delivered to the right place.

It says that it takes two people to assemble. It's true that an extra person would be a help, as the trampoline is sufficiently large that you can't reach across it on your own, but I managed anyway. The safety net that surrounds it was a different matter - that was a game even with two of us!

So we have much less garden and a nice trampoline. How much time the kids will have to play on it remains to be seen - we've had an awful lot of rain this last week.

Warkworth at Littlebury

Just got back from a quarter of Warkworth at Littlebury. Nice bells - slightly loud, so some real effort had to be put into yelling the calls, but generally good ringing.

A few trips, and it was a bit longer than anticipated (1440 vs 1320) due to a slight miscall.

Overall, a good quarter.

It reminds me of why I don't ring peals any more, though, as my fingers locked up. In peals, they tend to do this after an hour or hour and a half, so a quarter is usually fine. It's like cramp, and not only painful but makes it difficult to ring well. I hope this is an isolated incident, as I'm starting to ring more and quite enjoying it, so I wouldn't want to give up again.

Wall to wall sunshine

Went to France on holiday last week.

Drove down to Dover through the rain. Had terrible rain for the first hour or so from Calais, then wall to wall sunshine as we went south. Sunshine all week. Drove back through glorious sunshine until we got to Boulogne, then it chucked it down with rain the rest of the way home.

Which is pretty typical really. I can understand why so many people leave the country to go on holiday!

We went to a beautiful farmhouse near Riberac, on the Dronne - near the Dordogne, inland from Bordeaux. A week relaxing, swimming, canoeing, visiting caves, and swinging through the trees.

Good fun was had by all. Now back to finding a job :-(

Signing On

Not having a job (temporarily, I hope), I've started the process of signing on.

For some bizarre reason, the UK government seems to think it's a good idea to give me money (albeit a pittance) while I'm looking for a job. This despite a generous redundancy package, and the fact that being temporarily out of work for short periods should be considered a normal part of the employment cycle.

Still, one shouldn't complain too much or look this gift horse in the mouth. After all, I've paid my taxes and NI contributions for heaven only knows how long so it's only fair to get some benefit back.

Thorpe Park - Thumbs Down

Went to Thorpe Park on Monday. The drive down was a bit protracted (the M25 was as bad as normal) and the weather wasn't too promising - but we were gambling that it would improve and that the park wouldn't be too busy.

While we had rain showers en route, some of them heavy, and there was a bit of rain in the air as we entered the park, it did improve as the day went on, so we won that gamble.

The first snag was that the park was supposed to close at 6pm, but on arrival we found they had changed to a 5pm closure. That's irritating, and very bad form.

Even worse was the reliability of the rides. Frankly, I was appalled. They were breaking down and being closed all day long. I've never known a theme park have this sort of problems before. We would go to a ride to find it closed, go to the next ride and queue up (and the queues on the working rides were longer than normal because there were so many rides not working), wait a while (sometimes getting close to the front of the queue) only for that ride to break down.

While we did manage to get on a few rides (and as many as we would have done on a busy summer day in peak season) it was a bit of a shambles, and some of the rides that we would have liked to try we didn't manage to get on at all.

All in all a frustrating day.

Cycle to work

So I was told The weather report says that there will be good weather for tomorrow morning, so let's all get out there and cycle!

Yeah right. So there was more uphill than I was expecting, there was a stiff breeze in my face, it was cool, and started to rain about half way to work. Generally, harder work than I wanted.

I was pleased to make it in as close to an hour as I could measure. Which was what I expected to take anyway. I could have pushed harder, but the idea was to be able to do some work once I got here.

Provided the wind stays where it is, it could be an easy trip home. What's the odds that it swings round 180 degrees though?

Cycling on the up

A decent ride out this afternoon. I haven't measured it precisely, but about 15 miles around Cambridge in about an hour.

That's pretty good. Not only am I getting a bit fitter and able to do longer trips, but I'm also not suffering afterwards. This ws easily my hardest cycle ride for many years, so I reckon that cycling to work is actually a viable proposition for me.

Just in time too. Next week is National Bike Week and wednesday is Campus cycle to work day.

Queues in York

An observation based on a (wet) week in York.

York doesn't seem to grok traffic queues.

(And, given that their idea of transport planning seems to be to throw a bunch of roads down at random and put a roundabout wherever the roads cross, queues are fairly common.)

What is odd is that it seems to be commonplace for drivers, upon joining a queue, to decide to try an alternative route and immediately turn round. Not just turn round - do a 3-point turn in the middle of a busy A road at that!

Several times, we were travelling in the opposite direction to the queue and had to break pretty hard to let some moron do a 3-point turn right in front of us.

Cycling

Cycling is something I ought to do more of.

I had a bad fall a few years ago. Just a simple slip, but broke my arm landing. More damaging was the fact that my knees are pretty well gone. I had to do a lot of physiotherapy before being able to walk comfortably, and still suffer a lot of pain and stiffness.

So, in order to get some decent exercise, I ought to cycle more. The point about cycling is that I don't put so much stress on the knees - they aren't having to support me, they aren't getting any impacts, and they're not in danger of being twisted. Which is all good.

The first time on the bike this year really hurt. The worrying thing was that it was only about a mile. But more practice and it's getting easier.

But on Wednesday I had the day off and we took the girls to school by bike, and cyycled over to the park and ride. About 10 miles in the day, and only slightly sore knees afterwards.

I reckon that with a bit more work I could feasibly cycle to work - it's about 10 miles in a straight line, but 15 by a more reasonable route avoiding the worst roads (and the odd hill). Good exercise for me; good for the environment; saves the expense of driving to work; saves the hassle of finding somewhere to park. All good things, but it's going to be a while before I'm fit enough.

Gardening

One day it's the middle of winter, the next it's summer and the garden changes from a bleak wasteland into a mess of overgrown bushes.

We hired an electric lawn rake yesterday. It sure beats the manual method!

We've only got a tiny garden, but on the first pass, simply taking it from one end of the lawn to the other filled the collection basket. We did 4 passes in all, and could probably have done more. The front lawn still looks in pretty good shape - the back (where there's less sun and the children play) is showing obvious signs of distress.

Mel sprayed the garden furniture today. So we'll soon be able to sit oustide eating and drinking and being pestered by the local insect population.