Catching up

Spent our last morning in London in the launderette where the woman in charge, with some amusement, was letting one of her customers show us how to work everything. The women were all giving each other cheek and generally enjoying themselves.

Before we left London, we had a cup of coffee in a café run by a man who was more than a little off the wall. He sang, and he made ridiculous jokes, and claimed that the old woman assistant and the attractive young assistant were both madly in love with him. He had a voice like a door in need of oiling, and appeared to do far more talking than working. But it was fun to be there watching and listening.

Onto Northampton to see Celia’s two sisters and their husbands for a couple of days. This is the last time we’ll catch up with them and it was all a bit sad when we left. Watched the latest James Bond movie on DVD because my brother-in-law is a mad Bond fan, and has all the movies in his library. (When he came to NZ a few years ago he watched most of my son’s collection of Bond movies…!)

We also went to see Ratatouille, which Celia had been keen to see for a while – even though it’s an animated movie and she normally falls asleep during them!

Stopped off in Cambridge on the way back, a place we’d talking about going to see a couple of times previously but hadn’t ever managed to do so. It’s different to Oxford, which appealed straight away, but it has its own charm – and when we went exploring St John’s College (pretending we were students rather than tourists) we discovered just how pleasant it must be to attend University there. The buildings, dating from the late 17^th century, are certainly very pleasing to look at, and have been built to delight the eye. We didn’t explore a lot more (apart from a wonderful bookshop and the market) because it was getting colder and colder and a chilling drizzle was starting.

It's also a bit strange wandering around a town that has an area called Jesus.

And so back to Attleborough, by which time a cold that’s been hassling me for a couple of days decided to get itself into full gear.