Blast from the past - can you dig it?

Lazy blog post

Herewith enclosed, the lazy blogger's blog post.

I'm reading: Atonement. I know there's badness coming somewhere down the line but right now it's just really funny and really well written. Very good!
I'm listening to: Bear McCreary's Battlestar themes (Yes, I know, still...) You can listen to samples on the Amazon page.
I'm playing: Burnout Revenge when we can get access to the TV room
I'm watching: 30 Rock - Liz Lemon, you're my hero!!!
I'm shopping at: Next Just, you know, without actually buying anything. I just go in to look at and touch all the clothes.
In other news: We're doing a road trip to Oxford and Bath this weekend. I will be snapping away and blogging it soon after.

Walking tour of Cambridge

On Monday afternoon, the Sainsbury peeps (and I) got taken on a short walking tour of Cambridge by Roger Morgan, their supervisor at the Institute for Manufacturing. I was just too lazy to blog about it until now. :P Here are some highlights from the tour.


We started off at Queen's College, which is just opposite the Institute. Here's Roger pointing out an interesting sundial in one of the court's.

Here's the sundial. Also note how the bricks in the wall are really thin compared to modern bricks. This was how they used to make bricks in the mid-1400s, when the college was founded.


One of the court's in Queen's contains this interesting gallery, which used to be the Master's Lodge. It was built for the Master of the college and he used to live their with his family. Apparently, it's a good indication of what a rich, manor house would have looked like in the late 1400s and it's still standing and in use today. The heavy wooden beams that you see also date from that time. If you look at the bottom where those arches are, there are covered corridors that you can walk through, and there are doors at random intervals that lead to rooms for the professors.


Here's an example of a more modern building in Queen's. This is where the students stay these days. It has central heating. Tee-hee. They say the long, narrow windows on the building on the left are supposed to look like tree trunks when viewed from across the river, through a stand of trees but if you ask me, they still look like glass bits in a brick wall on an ugly 90s building. :P I think the architect dropped the ball a bit on this one.


And, here's a picture taken from the Mathematical Bridge, which is part of Queen's. (Remember that picture I took of it from my first day at Cambridge?) This is the view to the right, looking up the Cam to the next college over.


Then we crossed the Cam, and walked along the Backs, and came across this idyllic scene.


Then we went to St John's and Trinity but I think I will leave that for another post!

I has a Flickr account -- w00t!

I take a lot more pics than I post. I just put the nicest ones on here. But now I've started a Flickr site where I can upload everything, even the slightly crappy ones. :P The URL for my Flickr site is http://www.flickr.com/photos/faranaaz in case you just want to type it in, in future. Here's a shortcut in the meanwhile. So far I've just put up the pics I took on Monday afternoon. I haven't posted any of them here because I've been lazy but maybe I'll blog about it later today.

In unrelated news, I got another few days work lined up for next week. Datacapturing at an engineering company outside Cambridge. I can take a bus but to get there in time, I have to leave the college at about 6:25 for the latest, cycle to the bus stand in town, catch the 6:40 bus, arrive there at 7:01 and then hang around until 8 when I start! Bummer...

Look Out, Look Out, Jack Frost is about

Across the grass
He'll merrily pass,
And change all its greenness to white;
Then home he will go,
And laugh, "Ho-ho-ho!
What fun I have had in the night!"

Noticed that there was frost on the grass as I scurried off to breakfast this morning and decided to come back for a closer look. Frost makes the grass look grey and dull when you look at it at first. But when the light catches it, you can see the sun glinting off the crystals on blades of grass. It is beautiful.

By the time I managed to get back with my camera most of it had already thawed. But I spotted a patch that hadn't yet warmed sufficiently, interestingly because it was in the shadow of the pillar that holds up the main gate at Wolfson. Got down on my knees, face to the grass, and managed to get this shot. (Someone walked by and politely passed around me, probably thinking I was a bit daft.) It's not great but if you enlarge it (click it) and look properly, you can see all the lovely, frosty flakes on each blade of grass. It's beautiful. I could have knelt there until it melted, except for the crick in my back.

So I suppose I could leave it there because the only other thing I did today was answer email and chat to friends. Oh, I did look over Celiwe's literature review so that at least was one constructive thing. Kudos to myself. ;)

Oh wait, nearly forgot! I met Naseema's friend Ihsan very briefly. Alas, Intrepid Hubby was not comfortable meeting total strangers from the internet (fancy that Rabia) and managed to cut our visit short. But he was very warm and friendly, and really interesting and I do hope we get to meet up again.

On a final note, here's a picture of a little statue I stumbled upon today. I don't know what it is or where it's from but it was standing underneath a little bush in a dark corner off one of the squares I was walking through on my way to the Lee Library, and I thought I'd take a picture of it. It really is quite beautiful.