Cambridge 4

June 22, 2010

Graelin led us to a pub last night, the Saint George, between the river and Midsummer Common. It was farther than I’m normally willing to walk for a drink, but all was jolly and joyful once we got there. Most of my charges are 20 or under, a difference I notice only sometimes with issues of vocabulary, or when one of them is leading the expedition at the teenager death-march, at which time I can barely keep up. Though, now that I think of it, I’ve spent my life at the back of the clump. It is less time than genetics. Josh was approached by a desperate-looking man who, apparently, wanted to seduce him into El Quiada. Marcella spilled beer on herself, and I needed to escort her home lest she walk alone, and we had time to get to know one another.

I look from my window and see my kids spread out sunning or shading on the garden grass.

Evening. Gibbous moon in my window. Today’s adventure was a hike to Grantchester to take in Rupert Brooke’s ambiance, and the deeper presence at Byron’s pool. We did hit all the spots we were meant to hit, but the lack of planning (and mapping) caused the route to be very much longer than it needed to have been, and I came home, effectively, a cripple. Tossing down antibiotics against the infections I know must come. I kept walking, to pubs, this evening, so prevent my legs from seizing up. Watched a little of the world cup with Paul the Polish waiter, and then at the County Arms and the Isaac Newton. Grantchester was beautiful, and one understands why Brooke loved it, and even more (from his photos) why Grantchester loved him. We walked through fields–many, many long fields–of placid red cows. At Byron’s pool boys and girls were bathing, and each showed me a foot pulled into some deformity to show they were a true heir of the poet. The pool is not what one expects– larger, richer, not secluded at all, formed now (then?) by a concrete dam. By “richer” I mean in terms of the variety of wild life, ducks and moorhens and wagtails and every insect and flower water plant in the world. My students presented poems by and little dramas concerning Rupert Brooke beside Byron’s pool, and before we left we shouted in unison LORD BYRON to salute the great ghost. Snacks at the Orchard. Limping home then, me trying not to complain in front of them for whom I mean to be a tower of strength.

At the Waterstone’s music shop, I bought CDs of Palestrina, Dufay, Savall, Marais, Gombert, and am playing them one by one with shameless greed.

Every vista of Cambridge pleases me this time. From the castle heights the unfortunate tower of St; Johns’ squatted under the unshapely moon, and I cried out lovely!