Punting in Cambridge

We all went punting on the Cam on Friday evening (no trip to Cambrige is complete without a punt) and took a lovely picnic along. Here are some photos taken along the river. Good fun - The colleges in Cambridge always looks extra special from the river.

This duck was very inquisitive and came to say "hi" and ask to share some of our picnic. Mum and I had a little competition to see who could take the best photo and she won, despite the fact i took snapped five times more shots. Cute little fellow, isn't he. He swam around us for ages.

A stroll through Cambridge

Monday is a public holiday and since we have Kerry and Mum and Mike to stay (it's a wonderful, full flat!), we thought we'd go on a tour of Cambridge. We walked into town past the River Cam. Mike's got his handy rain proof hat on and it sure came in handy later on in thre day


A grand facade

Punting along

No tour of Cambridge would be complete without a shot of some punters!


Trinity College

We visited Trinity College. What beautiful lawns - though of course they're strictly out of bounds. Lawns in Britain are generally there to be admired, not walked on!

Trinity College

A pretty flower in Trinity College gardens

King´s College

Chapel always seems too lowly to decribe this awesome church. Catheral more like! The roof is my best part - absolutely spectacular. Ally and I loved watching the Choristers here at the Sunday service - brought back great memories of my own days in the choir.


Choir Pews

Inside King's College Chapel. This is where we came to watch the King's College Choir earlier this year. Brings back memories of my own choirs days thought the pews weren;t quite so grand. Nor were our voices if i have to be honest!

Windswept Ally and co

Ally and Mike outside the chapel

Taking a breather

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Twitching at Fowlmere

We went to Fowlmere Reserve just 10 minutes drive from where we live. It's a peaceful place with wide expanses of reed and lakes that attract lots of birds. Needless to say, I went armed with my bins and bird book, and was on the look out for megaticks to add to my life list. Did you know they call us birders "twitchers"? That's because when we see an exciting new bird, we tend to twitch so much we can harldy hold our binoculars. Birding is fast becoming a hot pursuit in the UK and is even starting to lose it's dowdy perception as little old ladies in tweed jackets peering at lesser spotted thingameebobs.

Hornet´s Nest

One of the birding hides had been taken over by a hornets nest. What a beautiful structure. Hornets eat wood and then regurgitate it to create a sculptured palace of warrens as thin as paper. Each warren contains a little grub that will later become a hornet. We were fascinated. This photo was taken behind the safety of a glass window.

A megatick



I was most excited (almost twitched in fact!) to see this lovely lesser spotted pink fairy wren. She was perched by tree, so close i didn't even need binoculars. A gorgeous speciment to be sure...

The thirsty bee

We decided to give the "macro" on my little camera a try and were very impressed with the results. When I was hunched over taking this shot, Ally suddenly started an emergency bout of murmuring and I looked up to see a bee perched on her lip, sipping at the juice from the apple she had just eaten. I managed to flick it away but it wasn't a happy bee. Ah, the dangers of an English country walk!

Red berries

Another challenge for our macro lens. Lovely red berries that looked like cranberries, but we're not sure. Looks a bit like a Xmas card.