Some Days Are Better Forgotten - Monday August 26th 2013

Have you ever had one of those days when every decision you take is the wrong one? Things start off well: we both took a leek in the field, ran peat through our fingers, and understood why the roads resemble roller coasters.

 Taking a Leek

The peat shrinks when the land is drained, the fields sink, the roads buckle. The duchess isn't fond of a bumpy road. She registers her objections by springing open the cupboards, sending loaves and fishes flying. That'll teach BB to drive at 10 mph as we set off for Cambridge.

Taking a break

We've both only the vaguest memories of this University town, and visions of idle hours punting on the river and photographic splendour draw us on. The outskirts aren't promising - the north of the county has beautiful sandstone houses, we are now passing red brick and low grade retail park. We encourage each other; the centre will be worth it. We'd packed and bungee'd the bikes to the Duchess's rear in anticipation of cycling the last few miles so we need to find somewhere to park up. The roads are uninviting, busy,  not as bike-friendly as we'd expected. A-ha! The Park and Ride looms ahead. We pull in... and pull out again. The Good Burghers of Cambridge have decreed they would prefer their inner streets be clogged with campervans, and have accordingly lowered the bar, not raised it. We are excluded from the joys of parking and riding. Feeling not a little miffed, but a lot, we have no option but to search out inner city parking. We grind on through industrial gloom, if we don't stop soon it won't be worth un-coupling the bikes. There is something very unappealing about these roads, I don't want to pedal through a hundred urban junctions, so on we go to the centre of town. It is uninspiring. We cross the Cam, drive along the meadows, peer through trees at King's College, at last an attractive building - but of course there is nowhere to stop, no campervan Mecca to be seen. So we don't stop. A bit baffled by the unfriendliness of this supposedly stunning town, the scarcity of parking and wondrous architecture, first we abandon all hope, then the city itself. Perhaps we could have done better, but we didn't.

You may be unaware that it's against the rules to take bikes for a weekend away and return home without a pedal, but feeling that this day is off to a bad start we don't hold out much hope for the rest of it. We make for Newmarket, hoping for breakfast. BB has fond memories of the place. Neither of us know why when we arrive, but the National Stud has a striking statue that calls for cameras.

A sign says its cafe is open, but the gate is not. Are we supposed to break in? By now, wishing we could find anywhere that might offer us some food, we are beginning to feel outcast. At last a Tesco offers hope. (Yes I  know that's a tautology). I ask a Security guard if there is a cafe for breakfast. "Yes, there is a Costa," he is as linguistically impaired as I am gluten impaired. He cannot understand that Costa is designed solely for cake-eaters. I ask another assistant where we can fnd eggs, bacon, beans. She tries to remember if they come in a tin, or are they frozen? I leave her pondering and since  it is now getting on for lunch we buy a box of creme brûlée ice creams to cheer us up. Be warned they come in threes, and one and a half is too much, but at that price you cant just throw it away. We recommend finding a small child or charity to donate to, or biting the bullet and feeling sick.
Somehow stopping in a Tesco car park to cook our own breakfast feels like an admission of failure, so turning to our trusty Reader's Digest compendium we locate the Hemingfords.

Only One wive at St Ives

They might sound like a posh family from Just William, and I wouldn't be surprised if we passed them en route, but they do provide an excellent bicycling circuit up the river Ouse from Hemingford Abbots to St Ives, and over the river, down the other side to Houghton Mill.



We had lunch, since breakfast has now disappeared over horizon until tomorrow, and we are seriously hungry. The Three Horseshoes Inn, has a hog roast, it sounds yumptious. I think the point of pork in a bap is that you pick it up and eat it like a sandwich. This bap disintegrated into crumbs so it was basically stuffing stuffing into our mouths with a bit of fatty pork. Won't be back for next year's Bank Holiday feast.

Old in the tooth

The Hairy Bikers had been down to the mill the day before, and fixed it, so now it was grinding wheat. Both of us very glad we have a lifetime pass to the National Trust, as it wasn't really worth the entrance fee, although nice to buy some freshly ground Hairy Flour.

Cogitating

BB Googled the map to find a river crossing when we got to the mill. He said we had to go all the way back the way we came, several miles uphill to St Ives. I said I was one of the seven wives that didn't listen to her hubby, and we could push our bikes over the mill bridge...
 Guess who was right?
Back up to Hemingford Gray, into the Duchess and off we go for Stilton.
A strange thing about this one-cheese street is that cheese has never been made here. It's all a bit of a con, but who cares, it is pretty, and anyway that's an interesting fact for a pub quiz. It's amazing what you can learn from the Reader's Digest Book of Towns, published circa 1973. On second thoughts, perhaps they do make cheese there now, our info is 40 years out of date. Forty years! Good grief whatever happened to the time?

Time grinder