Cambridge Weekend

Back from a not-long-enough weekend in Cambridge where we attended the Cambridge Science Festival, met up with the lovely PetitsHaricots and an online friend and her family, plus went to cinema and saw Davros arguing with teenagers.

We had an OK journey over on Friday but crowded, can't remember much about it now, but know we arrived in late afternoon and went straight to our apartment. Every time I look for holiday apartments it seems to get harder to avoid ones with leather sofas - which they clearly see as the height of luxury and I so do not. I moan about it A LOT in various places too. But imagine you walked into an apartment and there was a decorative 'luxury' severed human head on a stick by the fireplace - mmm, how relaxing, home away from home...

Anyway, I had managed to find one that was leather-free and they also provided us with soya milk instead of cow's milk in the 'welcome' offering, so hooray for being able to have a cup of tea before having to go shopping. Good location for buses and walks/shops too, would recommend the apartments there and others by the same company.

F and I went for a sunset walk, but pretty much missed the sunset, nevertheless a lovely view over river, then some shopping, getting cash out, etc. Back at the apartment, J ordered some Chinese food, which turned out to be really good and we watched some DS9 on his netbook. We were all quite knackered and generally in bed by midnight every night, with F konking out earlier.

Saturday got off to a rubbish start as I'd booked something - we failed to get to it and I wouldn't book a morning thing again, knowing us and our collective response to time pressure, particularly F (hoo-ha about wanting to talk about something with me, when we needed to be catching a bus, so I just got to the point of saying 'right - this is what happens - we miss the thing - we've missed it now' - as I think too often I do 'mummy makes everything alright' and we rush along and be late, etc, etc. 

So we kind of restarted the day and got going on the second go, headed for the chemistry building, in text contact and semi-coordination with the Haricots. We spent most of the afternoon doing hands-on chemistry.

Was fun to see F in lab coat and goggles and gloves. She particularly enjoyed taking a copper coin, zinc plating it to look 'silver' and then holding it in a Bunsen flame for a short while so that the zinc and copper form brass and it looks 'gold'. I loved seeing her do all the different things, she did really well at handling things and taking in what was happening.

After a couple of hours of that, we managed to catch up with the Haricots outside as they were lunching. Was lovely for me to have a good chat and a couple of hugs with H, though J and F were rather at a distance (J and I were in miscommunication mode All Day Long actually, was a weird one).

Back in the building we went to Smash, Crash and Flash (might not be the right order), where we saw things being frozen in liquid nitrogen and becoming brittle or hard (daffodils, banana, orange, apple, blu-tack 'nail' able to be hammered, etc.). Also looked at crystals a bit.

We then walked over to another building back in the city centre, where we went to Materials: me, this, that, all! which was also excellent. Lots more hands-on stuff about new materials - memory alloys, metallic glass, thermochromic sheets, etc. 

By the time we finished in there we were all quite knackered and headed home. F and J had pasta cooked by J in the shiny apartment kitchen, while I went out to a lovely Meze bar for Mediterranean food with a very good online friend, SW. Had a great evening, since we both love chatting and eating, pretty much equally and incessantly. Had delicious dolma, aubergine and rice and mushrooms, pitta, houmous...

Got the late bus back, which made me feel oddly youthful - buses in Cambridge were great, very easy and useful. In fact, we really loved the feel of the city generally, more like a European city, so much green space, beautiful buildings, river. We will definitely go back for the science festival again next year but will stay longer, to have more exploring time, as we didn't get enough slow strolling around opportunities.

Sunday we were able to have a bit of a lie-in, then went to look at a photography exhibition that was inexplicably closed. We waited around for a while, tried ringing the contact number, no luck, and lots of other people coming and going disappointed too. 

We went on to the Doctor Who display provided by The Hyde Fundraisers - fab, with a Sontaran welcoming us in at the door, and very startling when Davros and a Dalek suddenly moved through the crowd and Davros proceeded to hold forth in characteristic manner, getting into arguments with some of the young audience. Great fun! 

We were supposed to go straight to my friend SW's house after that, but J and F both needed food, so we quickly dealt with that, missing our bus in the process, and got there late, with the added complication of me tripping over a roadsign and falling on my knees, breaking my phone screen :(

Still had a lovely time with SW and family - she has 2 young boys - we all went over to their local park, where much climbing was attempted and eventually achieved. Lovely park, with play spaces, stream, ducks, trees, big open spaces, very good. Back at SW's house we had their homemade flapjacks and cookies and a nice cuppa. Was very proud of F, she was in very good form. Was a happy couple of hours. Although I've met SW twice, she is mainly an online friend so it was fun and a bit of a novelty to do real life stuff and bring our families together like that.

Back in the city centre, we went to the cinema and saw Rango, which J and I really liked a lot, but F more ambivalent about - but she did drink too much Sprite and had to go to loo twice. Recommend it for older children and adults, definitely.

Back at the apartment, we watched more DS9 (we're nearly at the end now - what on earth will we do when it finishes) and had Chinese food again (!).

Monday was just the journey home really. 

Was a very good weekend, photos here and here.