Workshop Underway

Colleagues started arriving for the workshop Tom has been organizing so that has meant many opportunities for dining out.  Sunday evening we went to the Castle Pub which is located near the highest elevation in Cambridge which isn't very high.  The beer and wine were good (can't remember the name of the beer) and not very expensive.  No mushy peas or soggy chips this time.

Since I have a whole week's experience in Cambridge, I was a tour guide for some women who have come to enjoy the sights while their husbands are giving or listening to talks.  I was able to see some new  locations as well as ones I walk by daily on my way to Sainsburys to purchase groceries.  Apparently a famous sight is that of cows munching away on grass with Kings College in the background. We found the cows but they would not pose for us in front of the college.  The "rough" grass is where the cows graze on the near side of the River Cam.  If you look very very closely you will see half of a body between the two kinds of grass.  The man is punting on the river, that is, steering a flat bottomed boat with a pole.  It's a popular activity in nice weather. The lush green grass on the other side is part of Kings College lawn and may be walked on only by fellows (lecturers and a few others in the colleges).  The gothic looking building is Kings College Chapel.  Every Christmas Eve a concert by the Kings College singers is broadcast live across the country.

The other new destination for me was Wren's Library.  What we were able to see was only one side of a four sided building. And definitely no pictures inside so I took a picture of the gates we walked out of.  A variety of manuscripts were on display: beautifully illustrated pages from Bibles, Shakespeare's folio, Newton's Principia, and A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh. Other than that, it was a high ceilinged room with lots and lots of old books on shelves.

Because Tom is one of the organizers for this workshop and because a featured speaker had given his talk during the workshop, we were invited to a dinner in his honor in the Mountbatten Room of Christ College.  The room was modest with a few pictures of famous people associated with the college on display.  Lord Mountbatten's picture and sword are on the far wall.  The food was good--roasted tomato soup, halibut served on something similar to seaweed (it grows in mudflats), vegetables, and perhaps the most interesting, tarte tatin with a scoop of clotted cream.  Clotted cream is almost like butter: very dense, slightly sweet, and most assuredly, very rich.  One attendee said we were to eat it only as a garnish.  I noticed there was none left on his plate.