A weekend in Eastbourne

Posted by on Oct 11, 2011 in Blog, Ramblers | 3 comments Our walking buddy Malcolm told me he didn’t join the Cambridge Rambling Club for our last weekend away as he felt too young to be spending it in Eastbourne Those of us who did join the trip discovered it was like home from home as a large group of very jolly pensioners from the Cambridge Co-operative group were there too, including a 99-year-old who outstayed me in their nightclub! We...
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Walking for health Jim’s way

Posted by on Sep 4, 2011 in Blog, Ramblers | 3 comments I have spent the summer working on a genome campus with no free time for my regular walks, but now I really must get into shape for my weekend away with the Cambridge Rambling Club next month to the South Downs. I expect the undulating landscape there to be much more challenging than the usual flat Fenland landscape where I live, and I hope to manage a long weekly walk before we leave. Today I...
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Judging our young civil engineers

Posted by on Feb 9, 2011 in Blog, Personal | 0 comments Congratulations to young civil engineers from Pick Everard in Bury St Edmunds office who last night won the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) East of England Communications Competition. For the second year I was invited to be one of the judges and we were unanimous in our decision. We were impressed with their presentation of an eco village designed to meet housing needs in a sustainable way...
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A walk around Barrington

Posted by on Jan 23, 2011 in Blog, Personal | 5 comments Today I put on my walking boots for my first trek this year to join doughty members of Cambridge Rambling Club. We met in Barrington, a village south of Cambridge where I used to once rent a cottage on its picturesque village green. It’s so gorgeous that it is the kind of place which locals find hard to afford to live in any longer as it attracts well heeled affluent commuters. My walk...
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Do I suit blonde?

Posted by on Jan 1, 2011 in Blog, Personal | 13 comments Here I am dressed to the nines as Kitty Killer for a New Year’s Eve murder mystery dinner party. Do I suit blonde? I felt very femme fatale, and it was great fun to have a whole new look for an evening which made me feel very vampish. I was not the killer, btw, but a spy disguised as an investigate journalist who was probing the life of the murdered man. What a dramatic entrance into the...
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Families and Christmas

Posted by on Dec 23, 2010 in Blog, Personal | 16 comments I can’t imagine a Christmas without family. It’s become a ritual that we spend Christmas Day with my sister in my home town of Wisbech and everyone visits me on Boxing Day. We try to gather as many of the family together as possible. But it’s each to their own as I have three friends who have decided against a family Christmas Day. One couple in London (with grown up children)...
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How alcohol killed my four friends

Posted by on Nov 1, 2010 in Personal | 4 comments Today we are told that alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack. As someone who has lost four dear friends to alcohol – but none to drugs – I can believe it. In all cases, these clever, witty and amusing friends around my age suffered from personal unhappiness and inadequacies. They turned to the bottle for comfort and couldn’t stop drinking themselves to death. When one...
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How did you spend 10/10/10?

Posted by on Oct 10, 2010 in Personal | 15 comments Today is 10/10/10 and is meant to be incredibly lucky for some. I spent the day visiting a stunning garden which is only open three times a year to the public. It is close to where I live and I can’t understand why I have never visited it before. I can thank one of my blog readers for alerting me to today’s open day, and I took my friend Wendy with me, an art conservator and...
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Universities and alcohol

Posted by on Sep 21, 2010 in News, Personal | 4 comments At the risk of sounding a killjoy, I totally support a suggestion by the UK’s accident and emergency doctors who want to end boozy Happy Hours for student freshers’ weeks which kicks off shortly.The alcohol consumption levels are worse for students who want to join a university sports team and find themselves virtually forced to participate in humiliating initiation rituals. I also...
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Our wartime heroes at RAF Tempsford and Bletchley Park

Posted by on Sep 13, 2010 in Ramblers | 15 comments I walked along an airfield runway yesterday once used by planes carrying our bravest wartime agents, including Violette Szabo, immortalised in the film Carve Her Name With Pride. I was with the Cambridge Rambling Club and our route passed a barn in the middle of a field. I stepped inside (there is no door!) and was astonished to see an extraordinary memorial for our wartime heroes who flew from...
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Have you climbed Snowdon?

Posted by on Aug 28, 2010 in Personal, video | 13 comments I have just returned from a few sunshine days in Wales and my trip included an ascent up Snowdon – the less strenuous way  with Snowdon Mountain Railway as we had my 83-year-old pa-on-law with us. I was impressed by the scores of determined walkers who trekked to the top, the fittest walking both ways, while others chose either to walk up or down, and take the railway for the other trip. I...
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Being the Soham Psychic – a year on

Posted by on Aug 15, 2010 in Being the Soham Psychic | 4 comments I saw a film on TV with other night about a young boy who kept seeing dead people and it reminded me about the book I was ghost writer for, Being the Soham Psychic, the life story of Dennis McKenzie. One of Dennis’ earliest memories was as a homesick four-year-old boy laying in a hospital bed and being “visited” regularly by a nurse in an old fashioned costume who comforted him....
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The enormous cost of teenage car insurance

Posted by on Aug 1, 2010 in Personal | 11 comments How can you not feel sorry for teenage drivers? As a mum of two teen drivers – the youngest who passed his test only a couple of weeks ago – I can understand why they want to take to the road and enjoy an independent life, especially living in a village like we do. David, my eldest, has just inherited my trusty Honda Max through necessity as his university internship year which...
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Heading for Wales

Posted by on Jul 30, 2010 in Personal | 11 comments This year is the first time that my husband and I will not be joined by our two teenage sons on holiday – our eldest will be with his girlfriend’s family in Majorca and our youngest prefers to work hard at his summer job to save for a car having just passed his driving test. However, we will not be alone as pa-in-law will be joining us. It will be his first holiday without Vera, the...
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A day of highly charged emotions

Posted by on Jun 2, 2010 in Personal | 4 comments My husband and I are heading for the smoke today to see the Grace Kelly exhibition at the V&A, whose elegance and beauty is still unsurpassed. The story of the Hollywood star and Princess of Monaco continues to fascinate us all and I’m really looking forward to seeing her clothes and learning more about her life. We have also booked tickets for the West End to see the five-star...
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My two home towns hit the headlines

Posted by on May 10, 2010 in Personal | 3 comments As I drove into Wisbech on Saturday to visit my mother, I had to take a detour as I passed the burnt out shell of a public house. An arsonist had struck, a serial arsonist, for the fifth time in six weeks. The people of this Fen town are naturally very nervous. The arsonist has struck twice along the Georgian North Brink which has been used many times as the backdrop for period dramas and films,...
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A walk with the bluebells

Posted by on May 2, 2010 in Ramblers | 8 comments I have an assortment of shoes in my car, including fuchsia pink wedges, leopard skin kitten heels, black patent peep toe stilettos and my sturdy Berghaus walking boots; you could call me the Imelda Marcos of Cambridgeshire! It was the stout, thick heeled boots that I laced up tightly this morning in search of an abundance of glorious bluebells in the historic Hayley Wood led by Cambridge Rambling...
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Congratulations to James and co..

Posted by on Apr 26, 2010 in Personal | 4 comments Congratulations to my son James and his fellow players from Soham for becoming champions of their Under-17s football league in effect yesterday, though there is one more fixture game to play. The proud dads spayed them with bubbly afterwards and the jubilant team went out for an Indian meal to celebrate. James was on great form and his hat trick helped ensure their 4-1 victory against Histon in...
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Some Cambridge culture

Posted by on Apr 25, 2010 in Personal | 4 comments I was one of tens of thousands from around the world who went to the cinema last week and linked up with a live performance of Alan Bennett’s “The Habit of Art” at the National Theatre in London. It was a sensational experience and our enjoyment of the play was enhanced by the fact that we had a great close-up view of the actors and could see all the close detail on stage; it...
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Happy birthday to the Bard, and the downgrading of Shakespeare in schools

Posted by on Apr 23, 2010 in 2010 general election, Personal | 4 comments I hero worship William Shakespeare for his wit and inspirational writing, for his use of language and his exceptional perception on life and events; his grasp of love, treachery, history, comedy and pathos.  A testament to his brilliance is popularity of his plays in theatres today, more than 400 years after he penned them. As I prefer to celebrate birthdays rather than anniversaries of...
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An evening of theatre and politics

Posted by on Apr 22, 2010 in 2010 general election, Personal | 0 comments I’m afraid I am missing the second of the leaders’ election debates this evening due to an invitation to see Alan Bennett’s latest masterpiece, The Habit of Art, at a special linked screening at the Arts Picturehouse in Cambridge. Understandably, it’s a sell-out. I’ll catch up with Brown/Cameron/Clegg on Newsnight later in the evening. I’m desperate to see how...
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Hang gliders, volcanic ash, and a view from a tomb

Posted by on Apr 19, 2010 in News, Ramblers | 11 comments The volcanic ash did not deter a hang glider from soaring high above Essex in its clear blue cloudless sky yesterday. My fellow walkers from the Cambridge Rambling Group looked up in awe as we meandered through meadows bursting with spring flowers and the first showing of bluebells along the banks and in shady woodland. Volcanic ash or not, I don’t think I have the stomach for those...
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On the road with James

Posted by on Apr 14, 2010 in Personal, updates | 8 comments I’m teaching my youngest son James to drive and must admit it is not nearly as painful an experience as first time round. When David first put his L plates on my car, we could barely speak to each other when we returned home; he was furious with me for yanking up the handbrake saying I had over-reacted, and I felt a bag of nerves at his casual approach when reaching a junction. We...
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A funny sort of Easter

Posted by on Apr 3, 2010 in Personal | 15 comments My friend Renate left today after a two-day visit. She is one of my pre-marital friends who I shared many happy singleton days with in Cambridge before she moved to Brighton and wed. I took her to Wicken Fen and we reminisced about our party days as we trudged along the boardwalk. Later in the evening we watched a recording of Micro Men and she reminded me how Sir Clive Sinclair once surprised us...
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My meningitis scare

Posted by on Mar 30, 2010 in Personal | 4 comments Petra Ecclestone, daughter of Formula One boss Bernie, describes in today’s Times her agonising experience when she contracted viral meningitis: “I was in so much pain I wanted to die.” She has now become a worthy ambassador for the Meningitis Trust, describing her illness as a life-changing experience, no longer taking her health for granted. I have also had viral meningitis,...
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