Last Wednesday just when I was about to finish work, my mate Goldie invited Ian and I to formal hall at Queen’s College, because some other people had pulled out at the last minute (may good karma go to you people whomever you are, thanks for the tickets).
I was slaving away at my publishing job and a lush Cambridge formal hall was just what I felt like. I rode like the wind over to Queen’s and we sat down to a great meal in Queen’s Old Hall – one of the most gorgeous halls I’ve seen yet. I’ve been to a few formal halls now but clearly I have a lot to learn, because about five minutes into the three course meal I got pennyed. Wikipedia can give you the details but essentially it meant I had to scull the whole glass of wine. Luckily it was a very small glass, because I was then subjected to a pennying attack. People were very generous with their wine, which I appreciate – but as soon as it was refilled I was pennyed again. I tried in vain to protect my glass, covering it with my hand and even the butter dish, but as soon as I took a sip and forgot about it – plop, I was hit again.
Needless to say, it was very funny for everyone else but I can’t for the life of me remember what we had for dessert, or much else between about 8 and 10.
Even though it was a weeknight and I’m beavering away in an office again during the day, in my post-pennied state when Goldie suggested we all go punting in the dark I thought it was a brilliant idea. So Ian and I dashed down the Spar and grabbed some beers, and a bunch of us punted along the Cam in the still dark. It was stunning. Cambridge was quiet, apart from Goldie’s drunken singing and our occasional laughter.
The water slapped gently on the side of the boat as we passed ancient colleges, dim apart from the odd lit stained-glass window. The occasional white swan passed like a ghost. We snaked through the dark green gardens, eerily empty. Quayside, normally busy with spruiking punt workers and tourists milling about, was silent, the boardwalk lit like an empty stage.
It’s a Cambridge I’ve never experienced before, which I won’t forget.
I’m very busy at the moment, finishing off various projects and starting new ones. There’s also the underlying stress of not knowing what’s happening next, like the subtle but irritating hum of Ian’s laptop.
Sometimes the best thing to do when you’ve got too much to think about is nothing. This is precisely what Helena and I did the other day. Helena is someone I met last time I was in Cambridge, who’s subsequently moved to London and is coordinating the London Design Festival. It’s coming up soon, so she’s understandably stressed also.
So we got together in London the other day with the intention of a quick lunch, which ended up being a long lunch (at the best Vietnamese restaurant outside of Vietnam), then some more drinks, then some tapas and more wine, then a journalist’s party I was going to in the evening. We spent some time putting together a good journalistic alias for getting her into the party (something about novels and National Geographic), but it turned out nobody cared.
Sometimes, that’s what I like about London.
On our second day in the Loire Valley we awoke to rain. This was not that surprising, it was forecast, but was nonetheless disappointing. Luckily we’d chosen a region that had more than adequate leisure alternatives. We traced itineraries amongst the artisan wine cellars and medieval chateaus, which seemed all the more grand and ancient amongst the rain and grey clouds.The weather was temperamental, and we had plenty of respites in which we dashed into the villages, weaving around the skinny streets.
The cold evenings gave us the perfect excuse to stay in our log fire cabin, eating fresh baguettes and soft cheeses, drinking red wines and playing cards. Given we were flying with the infamously stingy Ryanair, we decided to err on the side of caution weight-wise and drink most of the case of wine we’d bought at our favourite winery – that of Jacky et Fabrice Gasnier. This meant we overdid it a little and Chris and I in particular were worse for wear the day we flew out.
Luckily we had time to stop at a boulangerie and buy some satisfyingly fatty French-style pizza slices on the way to Tours airport, otherwise the flight home could have been quite messy.
