Act XVI- Teapots Make Excellent Gravy Boats

I skipped my last few weeks of blog posts due to the relative banality of the weeks' activities (a couple formal college dinners and an amazing Christmas fair- crazy that these have become nothing to write home about:)

 This last week however was pretty stellar owing to our Thanksgiving visit from my brother-in-law Lars and his wife, Sam. Our guests arrived late on Wednesday so Thursday saw our first adventures with these two. Lars and Sam are avid-museum goers making them very easy to entertain in Cambridge and we were pretty excited to show them as many of the town's offerings as we could fit in. Since Lars has a degree in archaeology and is currently working as a geo-physicist, I suggested that maybe the Sedgwick Muesum of Earth Science and The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology might be good places to start (Also they are located just across one beautiful courtyard from each other). We ended up spending so much time at the Sedgwick that we had to bail on the MAA in favor of lunch (which my stomach had been needling me very insistently about). Kurt, who had given a talk that morning to his research group, met up with us at The Senate, a lovely restaurant near King's College which sported a great picture window and mulled wine. Afterwards, Kurt took our guests on a few college tours while I went to pick up the kids from school (surprisingly the boys had made no fuss about having to go to school on Thanksgiving.) 
 We all met back up as the sun set at 4:00 (!) to prepare the last of our British Thanksgiving. The menu was a pared down version of what we have come to enjoy but we got most everyone's favorites in the mix. The 4-7 person turkey was probably a bit much (Sam and I are vegetarians and Klaus prefers the Quorn roast) but as Britain supplies such small turkeys I felt that we didn't really have an excuse to upend tradition.
   We did make one major alteration however to honor the host country which has been so kind to us- move over pumpkin pie, it is time for plum pudding! We bought the 1kg massive pudding at the Christmas Fair in Ely which was selling them as part of a fundraiser for their children's choir. After a near-hour in a double boiler we served the classic British Christmas dessert with some vanilla ice cream (not typical I think but close enough to the other cream-based accompaniment options listed on the web.) I think everyone enjoyed it (although no one went back for seconds and there is still a lot left) but I couldn't help feeling bad for all those little Victorian boys and girls who had this to look forward to all year. In a ranking of world desserts I don't know that this would make the top ten. Sorry, Britain.
 

On Friday, since the kids had school, we enjoyed a fabulous breakfast at the cafe down the street and then Kurt and the rest went to Ely to take the cathedral's magical tower tour and to visit the Peacock Tea Room. Sounded like they all had a great time although the tour guide was a bit less of a character and the weather was a bit grey. That night we ate at the pub across the street, the Cambridge Blue, so that Lars and Sam might enjoy another of the food options our street alone offers. Unfortunately it is now too cold to sit in the beer garden but the inside was cozy and the pies, as always, were great.  After dinner Kurt and Lars headed off to a gin tasting at the Cambridge Gin Laboratory (an early Christmas present from their mum) and Sam, the kids, and I went home to snuggle on the couch and watch Mary Poppins in preparation for our planned day-trip to London. To my delight the boys loved it (they are a little hit or miss sometimes with live-action) and it was fun to watch it now with my better understanding of history (the suffragette song was totally lost on me as a kid).
 

 On Saturday the whole crew engaged in as much museuming as we could fit in: First off all the gentlemen spent a few hours at the Center for Computing history while Sam and I headed to the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology with plans to all meet at the Fitzwilliam Art and Antiquities Museum in the afternoon. In compliance with my mother-in-law's directions (who very sweetly wanted to give Sam and I a similar treat to balance out the guy's gin tasting) after our glorious uninterrupted perusal of the MAA's exhibits, Sam and I headed to the lovely cafe at the Fitzwilliam for lunch and dessert. Just as we finished up, the Andresen boys arrived and we closed out the museum, enjoying most especially their collection of armor and their incredibly ornate entrance hall. Unfortunately their British art collection was inexplicably closed with no indication of when it would again be open to the public.
  Sunday, we cycled quickly through everyone's luke-warm showers (water-tank is a bit small here) and then hopped the next train for London with a few breakfast sandwiches. We arrived at King's Cross Station around 10:30 and though we had very little hope we went to check out the picture station at Platform 9 3/4. As expected the queue was long and moving very slowly so we did our best to stage our own Harry Potter photos:

 
  After that we took the tube (Klaus' old train affinity coming out in full force again) to the Museum of London. London, like D.C. has a ton of fabulous and free museums. This one our guide book had touted as "very interactive" though not very informative but, now having seen it, I feel like that was a gross miss-characterization. The exhibits and collections on display were great and we learned a lot. For instance now I know what the long tail on medieval liripipe hoods was for- it was a built-in scarf! Brilliant! I have plans to start this as a fashion trend again advertising it as a scarf for forgetful people.
  Having run out the lunch timer, we didn't get to spend as much time I would have liked in some of the latter sections of the museum but I think everyone got a good dose of London history.

  After a nice Turkish meze lunch we walked to Leadenhall Market, a beautifully preserved covered Victorian Market. Unfortunately all the shops were closed by the time we got there, but the ornate buildings were still sparkling with festive Christmas lights and we could pretend we were street urchins admiring the window displays but with no real prospects of ever owning the goods inside them.
  To appease the kids our next shopping experience was a little more modern as we headed off to the London Lego Store. As with all Lego attractions we were delighted with the company's ingenuity and artistry, enjoying a kid size London Tube car with Shakespeare and a Queen's guard as fellow passengers and a Harry Potter Sorting Hat Chair.

 Once we purchased our small lego sets (our suitcases are going to be ridiculously heavy) it was unfortunately time to say good-bye to Lars and Sam. Luckily it is that great time of year when we will get to see them again in under a month and at that point our U.K. adventure will be at an end as well.

 

Act XV- Alfonso-Reinbold visit Cambridge Edition and some holidays

Grandpa Harry Potter and Blonde Ron Weasley
with "large" pumpkins

October is the start of my favourite quarter of year: three months of low-angle sunshine all with fun holidays at the end of the month. Halloween in Britain, the land where many of our American-o-ween traditions were derived, felt very familiar and satisfied my seasonal need. I say this having spent a very dull Halloween in the Netherlands on our last sabbatical (Sorry Netherlands. I don't mean to bad-mouth you. Different strokes for different folks of course but Halloween is just very important to me. I am a costumer for goodness sake.) and fearing that England might not take up the holiday with the same zest that I am used to. In truth they are a bit calmer about it- no one decorates nearly as much and the costume selection seems to be limited to only scary things like skeletons and vampires. But there were carving pumpkins in the grocery stores (coming in surprisingly uniform sizes of "small" and "large"), roving bands of trick-or-treaters, and candy candy candy. Just like in the states, trick or treat began around 6 pm and participating houses were asked to indicate their participation with an exterior visual (in this case some sort of carved vegetable/candle combination). A lopsided ratio of houses not participating to houses participating was off-set by the fact that our neighborhood was built very densely with little to no space separating long strings of houses. In short, the boys collected healthy sacks of candy and we got to glimpse the vast spectrum of our neighbors. Since we do not have a front door I left our offerings in a bowl on the window ledge with a note that attempted to appeal to the good-will of the trick-or-treaters, requesting that they take only one piece. Not sure if it worked as the bowl was empty by the time we even started out upon our own collection. Oh well.

You can't take pictures at the pool so here is
a stock photo from the website

  Friday saw a reprise of our adventures in the UK with our friends Joe and Jenna and their kiddies, Isaac and Eleanor. In August they showed us around their digs in St. Andrews, Scotland and now we were to get the chance to reciprocate in Cambridge. Arriving just as our boys got home from school, we took our guests to Parkside Pools so that they might enjoy the thrill of its flumes. Unfortunately we could not convince Eleanor to try the slides but I think the rest of group enjoyed them (seems the original luster of this Cambridge feature is even dimming for my kids, who on our first encounter had spent two straight hours climbing the stairs and riding the slides and this time were content with just 4 rounds. Time to go home?) 

  On Saturday, after a delicious brunch at Hot Numbers, a perfect cafe at the end of our street, we trekked downtown to the river with a sack full of cans of Pimms. Since there were too many of us to rent one of the small punts of our previous river adventures we opted for a private punting tour on one of the guided boats. The padded and blanketed seats of our spacious punt and the complimentary hot water bottles were a luxurious upgrade (reflected in the price) from our prior Scudamore rentals. Our guide, a plucky Cambridgian whose father is a professor of biology, was, however, a significant step down from our customary punter (Kurt). It was not that she was not super-friendly, or knowledgeable, or a good presenter- she was all of those in spades. But her skills at maneuvering the boat left a bit to be desired. Now it could just be

Pole rescue. 

that this punt was nearly twice the width of the self-hire punts and therefore harder to control but she seemed to be zigzagging across the river, while most of her fellow guides kept their boats on a rather straighter trajectory. At one point she even lost the pole to a particularly mushy part of the river bed and another punting party had to come to our rescue. We, of course, tried our best to make her feel better about this as it really was not a concern for us who were having a great time on our leisurely ride but I'm not sure her pride was sufficiently patched by the end. It really is a ridiculous way to move through the water- the poor guides are set up for failure by decades of tradition.

  After punting, Kurt was able to take the whole party minus one (me) into Kings College grounds with the help of his college ID. Apparently the kids enjoyed the grandeur of the chapel but were more awed by the roomba-style lawn mower that was meticulously manicuring the college grass. For their good behavior we let the kids pick out some sweets at the Olde Sweet Shoppe across the street.
  From there it was lazy lunch at the Eagle Pub (made lazier by the long wait for the food- we let the kids eat their candy first as a result) and then the company split so that the kids could go play soccer on Parker's Piece and Jenna and I could check out another pub, the Pickerel Inn, where CS Lewis apparently spent some time. On the way to said pub we passed the famous Round Church, and Jenna being a professor of religion and I being a lover of old architecture, were naturally drawn in to check it out. This was actually
my second visit to the place but my first kid-free one so I reveled in the uninterrupted reading of the church's informational exhibits. The Nave of the Round Church,as one might guess from the name, is rounded, an
a-typical design for the Norman era in which it was built (most churches of this time were build in a cross-shape) but one that was inspired by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. That structure was built by Emperor Constantine on what was believed to be Jesus's empty tomb. Clearly the Cambridge church was meant to celebrate the Resurrection of the Christ and while its shape has changed a bit from its first days and services are no longer held there, it still serves as a shrine to the history of Christian faith in the city. Jenna and I spent so much time in the church that we used up our kid-free time and forfeited our venture to the Pickerel.

Street performer who plays a guitar in a public trash bin

  At home the kids tumbled around the house and yard while we grown-ups enjoyed a few drinks and
some catching up. The 8 to 1 bathroom ratio turned out to not be a problem for anyone but me who had children disturb her private time on no less than two occasions despite my attempts to dissuade entrance when I heard little feet plodding towards the bathroom (there is no lock on the bathroom door by the way). The sleeping arrangements too worked out just fine though as expected the kids took a bit of extra time falling asleep.
 

On Sunday, before the Reinbold-Alfonso's flight home, we managed to squeeze in brunch at Pembroke College, a visit to the Center for Computing history, and a quick football match at our favorite pitch. The plan was nearly derailed by my second flat tire of our stay here but luckily my smart husband had put on a gel filled tube the first time it happened so that I was at least able to limp the bike to the bike shop to get it repaired. Come on, bakfiets! Just a few more weeks.


   On Monday arrive another popular British Holiday (that is strangely not noted on my National

Geographic Calendar of England)- Guy Fawkes Night. Guy Fawkes was a seventeenth century English Catholic at a time when Elizabeth I's successor James I was solidifying England's identity as a Protestant nation. Fawkes and a group of associates hoped to push their religious and political ideas though a terror campaign that would culminate in the destruction of the Parliament building with the help of several barrels of gunpowder.  Before they could enact the plot, the conspirators were discovered on November 5th 1604, arrested, and later executed. To celebrate this triumph of justice

over terrorism, the English now celebrate the 5th of November as "Guy Fawkes Night" with large bonfires and fireworks. Cambridge even throws in a whole carnival to the affair, taking over the normally peaceful Midsummer Common with tons of rides and food vendors. Unfortunately the 5th fell on a Monday this year but luckily, unlike Gettysburg and its 11:00 Fourth of July show, Cambridge starts the fireworks display at 7 so we were able to take the kids to experience the truly epic show and ride a carnival ride or two without getting home much after bed-time.
"Remember remember the fifth of November, the gunpowder treason and plot. I see not reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot."