Sam and Brad come to visit

Sam and Brad arrived on Tuesday morning, all the way from Canada! It’s good to see them — it’s always good to see family. They are good guys too, easy to have around–and self-sufficient. We are the first stop on their three week tour of Europe. So they are off taking in all they can before heading off for the Netherlands on Wednesday.

We just found out about a punting membership for people associated with the University that is very reasonable! (It will be free for us to go punting, when Richard starts his JRF in the fall because he will then “have a college”.) So today we took the boys punting!

Sydney had been invited to a birthday party, so she missed the excursion. While Norah and I dropped her off, Richard took the boys (including Judah) up “The Backs”. After they had been out for an hour, we met up again at Mill Lane, hopped into a new boat and headed down river towards Grantchester. Apparently Richard got the hang of the punts pretty quickly, and if you ask me, looked pretty good doing it too 😉 ….but you might not want to ask me. Sam was another story. To be fair it is hard to steer as it’s counter-intuitive. You have to put the pole on the same side as the direction you want to turn and push off or drag the pole so that the boat turns, but you feel like you need to be pushing from the other side. He managed to hit another boat straight on at full speed. The poor guys in the other boat were yelling to turn the other way!

The little paddle you see Norah holding in the pictures below turns out to be pretty handy. As you can imagine the bottom of the river isn’t always firm so the pole can get stuck in the muck as you push the boat along. It gets stuck frequently, but irregularly enough that it’s difficult to be prepared. I almost fell in several times! My feet planted on the boat which I had propelled forward and the pole staying put! I managed to get it out just in time, but again Sam was not so fortunate. On Sam’s second try punting, on the way back home, he got the pole stuck in hard enough that he lost it to the muck! Thankfully he didn’t fall in after it (though that would have made a better story). But now we were floating away from the pole, and our driver with nothing to steer with! We all had a good laugh as we rushed for the paddle and made our way back to the pole. Thankfully it was stuck upright and not floating away from us!

The river is a totally different experience heading south, away from the city. There are no fancy colleges, and once you exit the city no bridges either and far fewer people. Heading south, the others on the river are not just punting, but canoeing and kayaking. The atmosphere is calm and easy. Light shines in through the trees and down onto the water. The edges of the river look like scenes from a hobbit shire, where green mossy grass rounds lushly down to the bank of the river. Trees cross overhead and the river winds and bends slowly along it’s path. Ducks, who are quite used to tourists with snacks chase your boat with the hopes of lunch. They are quite persistent too–like seagulls at the beach. Judah of course tried to grab them a few times, but I of course preferred him to keep his bum on his seat! Moms just love to get in the way of all the fun. Poor Judah.

It really was a fantastic afternoon. We sat and chatted while Norah and Judah played very happily. Judah absolutely adores punting, and did not want to leave the boat. At the end of the day he told us he was staying and tucked his head under the blanket. We will have to make punting a regular habit! Anyone want to join us?

dropping Sydney off

Norah and I walking to meet the guys. We met some goslings on our way

My hunny docking the boat

Sam

hanging out having a snack

Brad barely making it under the bridge… life is hard when you’re 6’5…

Steering

fishing

Norah and Judah busy doing stuff you normally do on a boat…

Sam steering us pretty straight actually

My love

Easter Monday

For Christmas my mom sent us tickets to go on a guided punting tour! Since they didn’t expire for a while we decided to save the trip for warmer weather. Today being a holiday, Richard had off work, the weather was mild, and the breeze not so bitter, we decided to take advantage of this super fun gift.
We set off late morning for the long trek over to the Cam…. ok maybe it wasn’t even long enough to justify the kids taking their scooters. If our flat faced the right direction we could make out Scudamores (the punting company) across the park from our window….

We were, however, not the first to have the idea of getting out on the first beautiful sunny day over Easter. Mill Lane was full of people sitting around drinking coffee, watching the river, passing through, or waiting to go punting themselves. Already the river was full of punters! You have the option of getting a punting tour or renting the boats and trying it out for yourselves. A lot of the colleges allow their students and staff to rent the boats for free so there are always people out. And on a day like today, with the possibility of sun and mild weather the river is full!

The back end of quite a few major colleges butt up to the river. They call this part of the river “the backs”. Some colleges are stunning, amazingly old, and look like castles. Some lucky students even get to live in what is practically a palace! I’ll take Kings and St. John’s and avoid the “atrocity” of Queens! Queens College has a new student residence (built in the 1960s – yuck) right beside Kings College. Polar opposites. One is old, beautiful and spacious, the other… well you’ve seen 70’s buildings before. I don’t remember nearly as much as I’d like of what the tour guide said, mostly because although I was trying to pay attention, there was just too much to remember. Maybe when we try out punting for ourselves, we’ll remember details as we pass through again.

Judah was a snuggle bug the whole time. He made sure he had a blanket and tucked himself in my lap and watched as we drifted along the river. Watching people try to punt is rather humourous. Apparently falling in the water while trying the steer your boat happens a lot, especially in the summer. We didn’t see anyone fall in today. Maybe next time 😉

Sydney and Norah loved it too. When asked what their favourite thing about the punting trip was, Sydney said “listening to the man talk” and Norah said “touching the water”. But at no point is one allowed to put hands outside the boat, especially when it’s so busy on the river, because fingers can get pinched off if another boat slides into yours. Boats often touch, and punting guides will help set another boat straight by bumping it back into the right direction. So alas poor Norah was not allowed to touch the water; but apparently she did sneak in a few opportunities when no one was paying attention. She is rather good at that. Little stinker.

http://map.cam.ac.uk/#52.201840,0.117009,16

On our way

watching the water while we wait

protecting her brother

Sydney made sure she was right with him so he wouldn’t fall in

Waiting for our tour

waiting for our tour

watching the boats

in the boat

going under one of the many bridges

weeping willow

my snuggle bug

Sweet Sydney

so many curious things to see, almost tempting enough to get out from under the blankets…

I love my love

Spring Saturday

This morning, Richard worked as usual and since I was not feeling 100% I stole away while the kids played happily together. When I plan to do nothing but read as the kids are playing outside, I sit on Judah’s bed and lean up against the window, watching and listening to the sounds of children at play. In such moments, the world is at peace. Judah wasn’t feeling well either so eventually he came inside, crawled onto his bed with me and slowly fell asleep. Since I couldn’t move anyways, I continued reading. Precious moments like that will not continue forever. I almost feel bad that I got nothing done today, but reading is work too, right? Even if it’s fiction. Well, to be fair (to myself) I did bake bread and contemplated doing some Latin. I even carried the Latin reader around the house with me – almost the same as reading it, right?

When Richard got home in the early afternoon, we had lunch and decided to take the kids to the park across town to shake things up a bit. There is a large playground up by church on Jesus Green equipped with a fenced-in toddler playground, various other swings and things and two pirate ships attached together with a rope ladder/lookout thingy (the crow’s nest, for those up on their pirate lingo), which captivated Judah’s attention for most of the afternoon. He even made it all the way up and back down by himself, and to my dismay continued to do so over and over again. I suppose it had to happen… though it’s nice when they just stay on the ground. Considering everything, we only had to get up and save him a couple times and of course make the obligatory rounds to make sure they were all still well. So Richard and I spent an idyllic afternoon reading in the grass on a blanket while the kids played happily. We only just returned now. Even now there’s beautiful evening light streaming through the windows. Everyone is happy. God is good. Cambridge is not so bad.

Time to get some work done. Dinner needs making, kids need bathing, the day needs to come to an end. Goodnight.

Syd

all hanging out

crows nest

ships ahoy!

My tired baby

Norah dancing with cherry blossoms.