Rainy Thursday

It rained today in Cambridge, and I had to cycle through it. That was an adventure. I think the wind was worse than the rain. You get all wobbly on your bike when a strong gust comes along. The rain just makes you soggy and you get this steady drip, drip off the tip of your nose. I was off to temporary employment agencies to see if I could get some on and off office type work to fill my time with 'til we go to Chicago. The proficiency tests took a while but by the time I got home they called to ask if I was interested in doing some office admin for the council in Bar Hill so it was worth it. We'll see how that turns out.

Anyway, I've been storing up some pics for the past few days and meaning to post them when I had some time at the computer, so here they are.

Okay, remember in one of the previous posts I mentioned the cornerstones at Wolfson? Well, here are some pictures. At Cambridge, they always make a big deal about not stepping on the lawn. People just don't walk across the grass, so it always grows thick and green. Now, according to one of the porters, who gave Mpumi a lecture when he set one foot on the lawn, the university has found that though they don't walk across the grass, people always cut corners. They don't like to walk in straight lines with 90 degree angles. If there's a corner, the will cut it and with repetition that usually kills the grass, like this. (See the corner of the lawn.)

So, anyway, their grand solution to this was the following - a triangular shaped paving stone, placed on the corners of each patch of lawn, or wherever there is a 90 degree turn in the path. With this in place, people can cut corners, and not affect the lawn. Maybe not such a great story but the way the porters tell it, it's a really big deal!


Anyway, more pictures. Here's one of a squirrel that lives in the grounds of Wolfson College. Well, I don't actually know if it's the same squirrel each time but I somehow think it is. This one is really brave and a bit nonchalant about people. I've seen him sit near the bike racks and watch as you struggle to unlock you bike, or sit in the path and watch as you go by. I got this picture only after following him up the path and towards the tree. He'd scamper forward a bit, stop to look at me, then scamper forward again. He eventually climbed about a meter or so up the tree, and then just stood there, vertical and Spiderman like, watching me until I walked away. I was only a few steps away from him at the time.

Oh, and then last night (or was it the night before?) we went to the clubroom and played Scrabble with the Sainsbury peeps. Except for Molebaleng, none of them had played Scrabble before so we had to explain the rules and so forth. Well, Sameer played and I just watched but it was fun except when we knocked a juice bottle over the board, that wasn't so good. Now it has a distinctly mangoey smell when you open the board. And then we played pool for a while.

Here's one of Kings Way in the late afternoon. I had to pull my bike over to the side of the road to take it and even then it didn't come out so good. It was all just so golden and glowy that I had to take a shot.



I also took some pictures of the market because, well I really like it there. The first is of a mum, with one kid in a baby seat on the back of her bike (don't know if you can see it so well) and another kid cycling alongside her on his little bike, with a big flag sticking up from the back of it so cars can see him. It's amazing how families get around on their bikes here. I've seen mum's cycling with a toddler in the kiddy seat at the back and the baby in a baby seat in the front. It's hectic! I'll try to get a picture of one of those bikes if I see one parked anywhere. They also have this other mechanism where the kids bike attaches to the back of the parent's bike so it looks like a tandem bicycle with a big and little part. And they also have this thing, it looks like a motorcycle sidecar except that it's attached to the front or back of a bicycle, and usually a parent rides the bike, and they put two kids in the sidecar, which has a plastic cover with little windows in it. That's also quite nifty. But, I keep thinking, that this only works safely in a place where people who drive cars respect and give way to cyclists and pedestrians.

Anyway, here are more pictures of the market. The first is of the little stalls in the square that constitutes the market. There are real shops, chain stores and such, on the streets that surround this, and even a little indoor mall. But the market stalls offer anything from fresh bread to flowers and plants, second hand books and clothes, spices, bags, and bicycle repairs. The second picture is of some bicycles (including mine) parked against and chained to the bars that surround St Mary's Church, which borders the market on one side. When I took this picture, I'd had my first experience of having to ride in circles looking for parking for my bicycle. That was novel. I couldn't help being amused by it. Also, another thing I find really interesting is the posters that people tie to the church gates with bits of string. They go all the way around the church, just like the bikes, and they mostly advertise plays, operas, or music recitals put on by the students at venues around town.



So anyway, here we are. I'm all out of pictures. The weather says it will be a minimum of -2 tomorrow and a maximum of 2 degrees. So Sameer's decided to stay in all day except to go to Jumuah. And I'll probably do the same, lie in bed with my book, a cup of coffee and copious amounts of biscuits.