Aaaaaarghh. I thought it was all going rather smoothly. Active Hotels have just sent me an email telling me that they have ceased their association with the place we’re booked into for the weekend of The Wedding and that the guest house may have trouble fulfilling our booking and that they have therefore cancelled our booking. About two weeks ago the hotel itself sent me an email saying they had moved us to a new location and would I confirm that that was acceptable. Which I did. Now I am confused. I don’t know whether we have a booking or not. I have spoken to someone on the telephone who speaks English with a very pretty Eastern European accent. She says I’ll need to speak to someone else and they will ring me. I have also emailed them. And I will give it until tomorrow morning before I cancel any booking we may or may not have and book somewhere else.

Anyone got some tents we can borrow? I’m sure no one will notice if we all doss on Jesus Green!

An update on the sausages. We had the apple and cider ones last night. And they were very nice, though they shrank alarmingly on cooking and had the texture more of a pork burger than a sausage. Next time I will put a higher proportion of fat in and less cider and perhaps a bit more grain. And I’ll keep experimenting. I’ll also buy another sausage book!! Tony tells me that he has a friend whose family he (Tony) in his youth used to “help” make sausages. He still has the friend but alas the sausage makers have retired to feed their wares to the angels and are no longer available to seek advice from. This is not in itself especially surprising, but Tony says that the sausages were lovely. It’s a pity there wasn’t someone of the third generation to take the sausage making over and proffer advice.

And an update on the accommodation. Had emails from Active Hotels cancelling our bookings. Took this to mean that our bookings had been cancelled. Seemed reasonable. So booked us all in somewhere else (quite impressed that I could get a booking at a week’s notice for five of us in the same place in Cambridge in August!) Then had an email from the first place we were booked into to say that our bookings hadn’t been cancelled; they were still with them only directly so and no longer via Active Hotels. A dilemma! Decided to cancel the second booking – it would have been quite a bit more expensive. Probably nicer but I am not expecting us to be in the rooms a great deal!

It’s all a bit too hard. I have been to the library and found another sausage book (it’s still American but at least its recipes aren’t full of additives which are completely unknown to me – are there NO British books on how to make sausages?!?!?). I’m going to go and sit on the Information Desk and answer questions (if there are any) and browse the recipes and not think about accommodation!