Tuesday 26 October 2010

Goring: walk by the river

Not our river, of course, but the mighty Thames. Although on such a warm still late-autumn day the Thames was looking rather placid - we could look down and see a diving bird underneath the water.

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That's Miranda by Goring lock - unfortunately the lock is a bit boring, because you can't actually go onto it, boo hiss, the Cam is better from that viewpoint. We were visiting Phil+Sarah and Helen+David. Though I saw little of David - he (and Sarah) didn't come for the walk, and when we were chez Moody David was in the other room. Helen however is practising to be a young lady and sat with us adults and talked politely.

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And here are M and E just before we left. That is E's flowery dress from a few years back - here she was, then:

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It is odd how time passes. Phil has been with Smiths / Detica for 15 years now - almost as long as I was at BAS. And Sarah is doing misc. We lose our connection, inevitably.

From Goring, MED went back to Marcham and I took the train home. It was a remarkably squalid experience, and expensive too: ~£40 for an off-peak journey. Why squalid? Goring waiting room was shut, of course. The little ticket booth there couldn't sell me the ticket I needed, so I had to get the continuation from Reading. At London, the crush at Waterloo and the traditional need to change at dirty Edgeware road. Some accident at Kings Cross meant no tubes there, so I had to walk from Euston. Coming into Cambridge no platforms were free, so we were shunted around for 10 mins. I'm all in favour of public transport, but it is all too obvious why the vast majority who can flee it do so.

And then, disliking taxis, and wanting to give myself some exercise and maybe try my knee out, I decided to walk home. It was a lovely crisp clear moonlit night, and only took 1:15.