We walked into the City Centre for a three o'clock showing of Star Wars at the Arts Pictureshow --very crowded --Kevin chose this film because of the last scenes shot in Skellig Michael where he has been although he never made it up the 800 plus steps to the top.
And then a cozy supper at The Rice Boat, a favorite restaurant near Wolfson. The lady proprietor is from Kerala in India and cooks delicious southern Indian food. You can see in the kitchen and see her cooking.
The next few days have been spent settling in--it is pretty exciting to be here as we love this place. We have done a lot of walking and shopping. I have taken two challenging yoga classes at a fancy yoga studio with a vegan cafe.
We are now settled in Morrison House to the right of Kevin carrying home groceries in his backpack. We live upstairs in a comfortable and roomy flat.
In November after reading a positive review, I tried to get tickets to a London production of The Winter's Tale starring Judi Dench and Kenneth Branagh. They were 100 pounds but were all sold out on line. I never bothered to call. When we were at Star Wars, I noticed that a screening was playing at the Arts Picturehouse and bought tickets. We went and it was a gorgeous production. Costumes were magnificent as was the acting and music. All have gotten great praise from critics. Seeing those upclose scenes between Branagh and Dench were powerful. I once saw this play with Helen in the open air theatre in Regent's park.
We have had many errands. We went to our neighborhood surgery and joined the National Health Services as we are here for six months. Kevin had a doctor's appointment and got his prescriptions. We have shopped almost every day. I was happy to find my favorite green grocer still in business and here is what I bought for under $10.
As most of you know, I love British food and here is an example of some of their wonderful veggies--the tomatoes are called cherry tomatoes but they are very small and round and taste like a sugar cube. The carrots are big and chunky and sweet and the peppers are also extremely sweet. The lettuce is called Cos, probably Romaine but much larger than you find in states, more like the kind that decorates the tables in Lebanon.
We had banking to do--the newspapers told a story about NatWest debit cards not working on the big shopping days after Christmas when there were big sales. I'm glad we bank with Lloyds.
Afterwards we stopped at John Lewis for lunch. I saw machines like this in the store! How convenient. I think some of those old red telephone booths may have these in them also. My little iPhone is a marvelous machine. I cancelled our phone service before I left but it still allows me to text with others who have iphones. Laura is in China and we have been texting every day!
We had packages here (most were papers we sent over) and the best was a Christmas package from our Polish family, full of goodies. My favorite was two Christmas cookies made by Ania and packaged carefully in this sweet box. I ate mine--it was a little hard but tasted of sugar and spice and delicious!
We have had all kinds of weather, rain (I walked 1 1/2 miles to my yoga studio one very windy and rainy am), beautiful sun with stunning and early sunsets, blustery wind, and lots of dramatic cloud shows. The temperature ranges have been between 37 and 45 degrees so it is not unbearably cold. Here again I am impressed with the wonderful iphone. It gives me the weather on the hour. One day it predicted five minutes of sun--this on a very rainy day! It is suggesting snow next week!
Cambridge is built on low lying and marshy swamps, called fens and there is a lot of water (but no hills to have to trudge up!) This time of year--I saw it referred to as the dark desperate time--is my favorite as you can see so much. The branches of the trees blow gracefully and these fens are full of birds at this time of year--I have seen pheasants, ducks, swans, rooks and jackdaws. Later the cows will come back to graze. When trees fall, they are not cleaned up but left for compost and for animals to use.
I enjoy walking through the college gardens. Here in Newnham, the gardener trims the hedge readying for the busy spring.
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