The Rest of the Week

Winter Jasmine

Geranium

Snowdrops

It is amazing how many things are in bloom here, although this weekend we are under a "cold weather alert" (level 3!).  This seems to just mean it might get below freezing.

We have a very nice walk to the Engineering Building through a pretty residential neighborhood.  Although someone told us that our flat is in a bohemian area, it seems to get pretty ritzy a block or two away. Here is a house for sale for over 2 million US $.  Most houses have nice front gardens as shown in the photos above.  It is a bit of a treacherous walk though as the pavement (sidewalks) are sloped and very slippery when wet which is most of the time.  And the street lighting is really poor for our walk home in the dark.  Even at midday the sun never really gets high in the sky.

I went to the cinema to see The Imitation Game.  Turing in fact was a student at Cambridge.  At least in the theatre I went to, you buy a ticket with an assigned seat.  The pre-movie trailers and ads were quite different than at home.

Today we went to see a free organ recital by Jack Spencer, with a program that was unusual and varied and which we both enjoyed:

Litaize - Épiphanie
Karg-Elert - Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern (No. 64, Op. 65)
Buxtehude - Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern (BuxWV 223)
Messiaen - Desseins éternels, Les mages (Nos. 3 and 8 from La Nativité du Seigneur)
Dubois - Marche des Rois Mages
Reger - Fugue from Fantasia and Fugue on the Choral ‘Wie schön leucht’ uns der Morgenstern’ (No. 1, Op. 40).

The Chapel

The Organ

The concert was held in  Queens' College Chapel, which also gave us an excuse to see that College.  Mark had the excellent idea that we should attempt to visit all 29 colleges of Cambridge University in our 3 months here. Queens is quite lovely and spans the river.  The Cloister Court has a really old timbered building (the oldest building on the river), and Mark found that he has a namesake (a Sanskrit expert it turns out).

After the concert we went to the Fitzwilliam Museum to see Silent Partners - a show about mannequins that is about to end.