The intention for this last weekend had been to go to Cambridge to have lunch with Peter and Joan and to stay with Taffa and Gaz for playing purposes. Alas, Peter is not well, so lunch had to be abandoned. Playing, however, did not have to be and was not abandoned. We went down to Cambridge on Saturday afternoon.
We were up bright and early on Saturday morning, for there were things to do before we could go. The Builder went up to water the greenhouses on the allotment. Bang on 8 o'clock as forecast, it started to rain. He came back. It didn't really rain for very long, though. We passed the morning doing useful domestic things, had lunch, then took ourselves off to Cambridge, asking Jenny to take us avoiding motorways. It was quite a pleasant drive down. Not much traffic. No rain to speak of.
We arrived and found Gareth at home. A quick drink to fortify ourselves, then off we went to Tabitha's shop to meet her for a night out on the town. The area around Tabitha's shop is well serviced by nice pubs. We started out at the Cricketers' Arms and had intended to go on and have another drink in another pub - but the Cricketers' Arms is quite pleasant so we stayed there. And then meandered into town for a rather nice Greek/Turkish/Mediterranean meal in a new-ish restaurant opposite King's College. My lamb was wonderful. Then we went back to the house, via The Boathouse for a pit stop and another pint. Was a good evening. And only a little rain.
The Builder and I slept soundly, and even slept in, by our standards. I put this down to not having slept at all well (me, not The Builder ) on Friday night and having nothing at all to do with the amount of alcohol we had consumed!
It was a lovely day.
We had chocolate chip brioche with raspberry jam for breakfast.
We were pondering what to do for the rest of the day. There was the midsummer fair to go and play with. And where should we go for lunch? While we were pondering all this, Tabitha was watching an odd series of programmes where the characters kept shouting at each other. Eventually, I asked if we couldn't perhaps watch something slightly less yellsome. What to watch. I know - let's watch this programme about baby zoo animals. Which reminds me; Tabitha and Gareth must come up one weekend and we'll all go and check out Twycross Zoo, which we found on one trip to Salisbury. This reminded Tabitha that she and Gaz had found another Wildlife Park not far away. She was telling me all about it, when the thought crossed my mind: Why are we sitting here watching zoo animals on television when we could go out to a real zoo and watch animals in the real.
So we did. Shepreth Wildlife Park. It's rather cute and has loads of animals. I would give you the link to their website, only it seems to be down today. But there are loads of things. We went into the nocturnal house where large bats were flying about. I was a bit worried that one might decided to hang from the brim of my hat. Fortunately, none did. We went into the tropical house where there were two marmosets also wandering about at will. One of them ran across the top of the head of a small boy. Scared him witless, I think! I stroked the ears of a small deer - which got quite cross when I stopped. Gareth held a corn snake. I stroked it but didn't hold it. We were *this* close to a tiger. *THIS* close. Fortunately, it was behind a solid plate of glass. And it was asleep. But nevertheless - *THIS* close!!! There were bunnies and wallabies and black swans and emus and lots of things. So much better than watching a zoo on the television.
Lunch time. We had driven pat several pubs on our way to the zoo and stopped at the first one we came across on the way back. The Queen's Head in Harston. The food was absolutely fantastic. Really, really lovely. Mind you, it would have been very, very much cheaper for Tabitha and me to have bought a bottle of wine rather than having two separate glasses each!!
We took Taffa and Gaz back to their place and then made our way in a leisurely manner back to ours. Marlo was really quite pleased to see us. Especially since we had picked up some cat food for him in the morning.
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