Monday -- a welcome day of sunshine, albeit chilly. Someone cracked a window or two in the English faculty library and created sweet-smelling breezes. Yum!
Tuesday/Wednesay -- clouded over again
Thursday/Friday -- frigid; I pulled out my down coat and picked a seat in the college library next to the heating vent.
Saturday -- gorgeous and cloudless, warm enough for a thin layer over a t-shirt. Just right for the BBQ a friend had planned. Students were out on the back lawn of Tit Hall (allowed this time of year), and the river was clogged with punters. Be-a-utiful.
So spring is slowly creeping in, two steps forward and one step back. I'll never see a daffodil again without thinking of Cambridge; they're everywhere!
I took the opportunity Saturday to check out something I cycle past nearly every day. I live up Cambridge's only hill, Castle Hill. There is a pub about halfway between me and town called The Castle Inn. Behind it, there is a grassy mound, which I've always suspected might be the remains of, well, a castle. Here it is:
It turns out that there has been some type of fortification there for 2,000 years: Iron Age folks, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, William the Conquerer, and Cromwell all built things there. Apparently this is the highest point on the River Cam that you can get a ship before it really becomes marshy fen, and it's the last good place to build a bridge for the same reason. Bonus fact: the county's administration is still based on the site, in a modern building about 50 yards away.
Anyway, there's not much to see, but you can climb the hill and look down at Cambridge. Here's a shot of me with King's College Chapel in the distance.I now have two days to finish the books I'd rather not schlep home, and then I'm California-bound! Verdict on Lent term: off to a slow start, middle weeks of feeling lost and sad, last month filled with friends, fun, and victory on several scores. Hurray!
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