A la recherche Part lll

At least, I think it is part the third, it may be more. I'm losing count.

This time, to Cambridge, for L&M's wedding. We travelled down on Friday night so that we could have dinner at the Mussel and Crab which we found entirely by accident a few years ago and can't resist when the rare opportunity arises. It's a strange place - OTT "nautical/fishy" decor, including a real fish tank purporting to be the cistern of the loo in the gents (it isn't really, before you get too excited) and a wine order of "a lifeboat" - five small glasses of different wines, accompanied by the ringing of a bell and cries of "Man Overboard!" plus another part of the ritual later that I didn't catch. It sounds tacky but somehow isn't - the food is excellent and the service friendly but impeccable. Nice to have another visit.

Saturday, we wandered in to town where we both bought new mobile phones. He needed one, I didn't. Got seduced by the cheapness of camera phones and....succumbed. Watch this space. Then we stopped for coffee at a pavement cafe (they didn't exist in our day) opposite the Senate House....and it was Graduation Day. O, wow, time warp. Yes, you can warp back that far. And it was weird - everything just the same but different. More women, more overseas students. And the strange feeling all the time that, nearly forty years ago - that was us. Well, him doing the processing and all dressed up in gown and bands bit, me doing the gawping, but you know what I mean.

There was a lovely party in the evening, actually I think for me the best and most real bit of the wedding. A chance to chat to a few people, great food and wonderful music. Kind of country/blue grass/unique stuff, with musicians wandering in and out, playing or not as they seemingly chose. The unifying factor kind of head honcho, greasy stetson, ragged jeans, grizzled long hair and beard, definitely the kind one's mother wouldn't have approved of, turned out to be the Chaplain of Girton. I somehow think that the evangelicals of the north country wouldn't approve all that much, either......

We nearly managed to be late for the actual wedding on Sunday, I still don't know how, but we made it and it didn't matter anyway as everything seemed to run slightly behind time all day. Lovely setting, very pretty gardens running down to the river and a stately black swan

sailing up and down all afternoon. Not sure how that got there, or how long it will stay, one of the colleges (John's, I think) can still serve up swan on their menu on state occasions. The DSM was itching to get in a punt but I persuaded him that he might get blisters (remembering the last time) and that he was wearing his posh linen suit. He sulked a bit.....

That's the last of the gadding around for quite a while. Not sorry, really. The astute reader will have noticed a distinct lack of fibre in recent posts. Time to remedy that. The grey crocheted waistcoat is nearly finished, although I think there may be a tiny problem with it. I hope that can be remedied without resorting to massive deconstruction. I am not sure what will come after. I have a few purple beads coming together to form a tiny project, but need something more purposeful there, too. And it is, I suppose, dyeing season. First, I have an Alston class, then, to work.

Might catch a snooze, first though...

gw