CAMBRIDGE

August 28, Tuesday

We had a leisurely breakfast with Margaret and Lionel in their bright breakfast room that overlooked the back garden. That room was always wonderfully warm, even on chilly mornings.

In the kitchen, right off the breakfast room, Margaret had an AGA cookstove. The AGA was there, hot and ready, in 1992 when we house-sat Sandlappers, and Margaret is probably cooking dinner in it right now as I am writing. An AGA is a cast-iron cookstove that is on all the time. Margaret's is black and huge. There are three ovens in hers, I believe, and a warming oven. There are four top burners with cast iron burner covers. The ovens and burners can be set for different heats and left. So if Margaret wants to boil beans, she sets it on a hot burner. If she wants to keep keep the beans warm after they've cooked, she just moves them to the warmer burner. The AGA heats the whole lower floor of the house. There are racks above it to hang dishtowels to dry, or wet socks. Cooking is fast because the burners and ovens are always at the temperature that you need.

Tuesday was a sunny day, though, and not too chilly, though we wore light jackets. We whiled away the morning with visiting and odd jobs. Shortly after noon we gathered our backpacks and walked the two blocks down to the Tostock Pub, the Gardeners Arms. We sat at a picnic table outside the pub and waited for Syd and Marian Rutland, who were going to meet us there.

On Tuesdays the pub puts out a meal for pensioners for just five pounds, which is a fairly good price for a big plate of food and a drink. Syd and Marian arrived, and in we went. They discovered some friends who came to the pensioner lunches frequently. We were introduced, and it was quite a jolly meal in the tiny dining room. Syd didn't think the meal was all that wonderful, but we did. American fast food can't hold a candle to it.

From lunch we drove to a Park and Ride near Cambridge Airport. There are several Park and Rides placed outside the city. It's much easier than to try to find parking in an old town of narrow streets filled with students. Also, that gave Syd and Marian a chance to point out scenes of interest along the way. Our destination was the Samuel Pepys Library in Magdalene (maudlin) College. Both Syd and I are Pepys (Peeps) fans.

Samuel Pepys live in the 1600s, mostly in London. From poor beginnings he rose to high posts in the English government. He was a prolific writer, turning out naval documents and political papers in reams. He also kept a diary, a very personal one. It's the diary that most people read. In it he shows us what society and everyday life was like at that time down to small details like what he had for dinner and when he kicked the dog.

He lived in London in 1676 during the devasting fire of that burned a third of the town. From him history has an eye-witness account of the disaster practically hour to hour. He told not only the progress of the fire, but the precautions and fears of his family and himself as the fire grew.

Pepys was a collector of books, in addition to his own publications. He had a library of matching bookcases built for his collection and personal works. He willed his library, just as it stood in his house, to his alma mater, Magdalene College at Cambridge. That was what we visited, Pepys' Library, now ensconsed and honored at the college.

We found Magdalene College and turned from a street dark with tall old buildings into a bright courtyard. We strolled through that courtyard and under an stone arch. We strolled on across a second courtyard and under an arch that read Bibliotheca Pepysiana 1724 in gold on a navy blue background.

The room that held the library was not particularly large. Pepys' glass-front bookcases were ranged around the room. The books were arranged as Pepys had left them, all nicely shelved by size. They were in elegant matching bindings in the fashion of his day. Pepys spared no expense in his library. There was also a desk with a student warden behind it to answer questions and see that we visitors did not breath too hard on the exhibits.

There were glass-topped display boxes ranged on tables down the center and around the walls of the room. Selected books, some of Pepys' papers, and facsimiles of the Diary were displayed there. Pepys wrote his Diary in an obscure shorthand, so you couldn't read the pages. But it was fascinating just to see how they looked. His songbook was there, and the songs on the displayed pages were pretty ribald, in keeping with a social man about town.

When we had soaked up the aura of the great man and read all we wanted to read, we took leave of the library to see more of Cambridge. Marian thought it was time for a tea, and we didn't object. We wandered around looking for a tearoom, and finally ended up at McDonald's. It was our American McDonalds, but over there McDonald's has a British cast. You can buy trifle in a British McDonalds, and, of course, tea. Their tea was cheap, too, just fifty pence.

After tea we wandered some of the old streets of town and down to the river. A couple of times we paused on bridges to watch the punters on the River Cam. They were young people, students, for the most part, out for a study break on the river. We walked along “The Backs,” a green with a walkway that flowed between the buildings of Cambridge University and the river. From there we could get a good view of Kings (Henry VIII) College Chapel, a huge elegant building resplendent with Gothic decoration.

The afternoon waned and so did we. We ambled back to the Park and Ride pickup point, ready to collect the car and head back home.

SANDRINGHAM HOUSE

August 29, Wednesday

Wednesday morning we walked out to the roadside on Grooms' driveway. Syd and Marian picked us up there for an outing to Sandringham House, a private home in Norfolk for the royal family.

Syd and Marian had a fairly new portable GPS from a company named TomTom. It was such a catchy name we just called it “Tom-Tom.” They were practicing with it on this trip, and it did a pretty good job. They had programmed it together, so when TomTom messed up, both Marian and Syd poked the touch screen. We peered between the seats and just enjoyed watching the maps flow on the screen.

First we drove to the village of Wells-next-the-Sea to lunch at The Globe Inn. The Globe was a large white stucco Georgian building that faced the park-like town square, a lovely setting. It was quite rustic inside, very period. We were taken to a table bathed with sunlight from high windows. Bob and I indulged ourselves with wonderfully rich steak and ale pies washed down with good English bitters.

From there TomTom took us right to Sandingham House. It's not a palace, just a huge, opulent country house. The Royal Family traditionally spends Christmas at Sandringham.
We were able to tour many rooms of the house and the docents stationed in each one were eager to share decorating and historical tales with us.

So it was a relaxed and interesting tour. Candid photos of the family were in frames on the tables and mantels. There were informational signboards with household details about such things as what the Queen has for breakfast and when they do their holiday gift exchange. I truly felt I knew Queen Elizabeth much more as a person when I left Sandringham, rather than the stiff formal figurehead I knew before.

We had a tea in a little garden at Sandringham. That was a lovely place to be on a sunny afternoon. It wasn't quite having tea with the Queen, but it was close. We had tea with the Queen's house. After tea we walked through the extensive park around the house. The plantings were beautiful in the golden afternoon sun. Down at the little lake, there was an interpretive sign showing Queen Elizabeth with her corgies. She was dressed in a jacket, a plaid skirt, grey knee-high socks, and brogues. No hat, no crown. She was a real person.

We drove back to Syd and Marian's home, Peacock House, in Bury St. Edmunds during late afternoon. Bob and I freshened up after we got there and then were on our own as Syd and Marian prepared a light supper. Marian's aunt, Doreen, and her husband Brian were coming over to meet us. We were looking forward to meeting them, too, as Marian spoke of them often.

I mentioned that Syd gave our kids a tour of their house in July when the family visited there. Rutlands live in an historic house with a checkered history. Heavy curved timbers are still visible in the room that is Marian's study. In fact, you have to be careful getting out of the tub in the bathroom next to the study, or you'll hit your head on an ancient low beam. In the dining room, a large rectangle of the underlying rubble wall is exposed, and a huge historical walk-in fireplace is opposite. Among other things, their home once housed Finsbury Arms, a pub of low repute. Syd sent me the following quote about it:

"the old inns and brewhouses of Bury St. Edmunds" by Gerry Nixon states
' ... the Finsbury Arms ... was near the entrance to a group of properties formerly known as Finsbury Square. '
' Apart from its bar it also doubled as a general stores. ..... In the late 1870s the licence was actually withdrawn for a short while after the house had been described at the annual brewsters' session as "nothing less than a common brothel". '

' The Finsbury Arms eventually closed in March 1922. '"

The big brewery of Green King beers is only a few blocks down the street from Ruthland's house. There is a popular pub down there, too. The Rutlands sometimes are disturbed by the local lads singing and shouting as they pass the house in the wee hours.

Doreen and Brian arrived, and we all sat down to supper in the lounge. We had a great time chatting and laughing over crackers and cheese. The evening, as such evenings do, passed quickly. Too soon Doreen and Brian took their leave, and Syd drove us back out to Tostock.