Manuden in Hertfordshire and Cambridge University
Easter Monday – and we’re off again. Our last journey on the train from Amsterdam Zuid into the airport – it was a breeze getting there, 6 minutes and we were in the terminal. Not so fast after that though with an interminable queue for security and passport control – and we thought Auckland airport was bad!!!! We said a sad goodbye to Ben who was flying back to Singapore and then made our way out to the gate for our short flight to Stansted Airport, where my sister Julie works as a GM for Jet2.com. She met us airside and I had my second big reunion in a week!
Both Julie and her daughter Laura live in Manuden, a small village on the border of Hertfordshire, where they both own stunning Grade II listed, gorgeous, quaint medieval houses complete with wooden beams and doors with latches, uneven floors, and Laura’s even has a thatched roof. The village church of St Mary the Virgin dates back to 1143 and the village is surrounded by gently rising fields, currently full of daffodils and tulips, blossoms and the odd pig and sheep! Laura and her husband Dan, hosted us for a delightful lunch and afternoon tea with another birthday cake for me and a show put on by her 5 year old daughter Grace and 2 ½ year old son Harry!!!
Tuesday 11 April – Once again we were up early and off for a day trip to Cambridge. A perfect day for our adventure with sunshine and blue skies. Our first stop was the River Cam where we had booked a private punting trip. The word “punting” comes from the Latin word pontonem which means “flat-bottomed boat. Matt was our “punter”? and deftly guided us along the river past seven colleges belonging to Cambridge University, including Kings,Trinity, Gonville & Caius and St John‘s, and under nine bridges, all very different in architecture. I particularly liked the Bridge of Sighs which is a stone covered bridge and an iconic feature of St John’s College. Designed by the architect Henry Hutchinson in Victorian Gothic style, it was built in 1831 and is one of the most recognisable pieces of architecture in Cambridge. Since its construction it has featured in thousands of photographs and artistic projects as well as featuring in films such as “The Theory of Everything” featuring Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking, and “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”.
Matt was well versed in the arts of history, punting and tall tales and regaled us with all sorts of information and a few funny stories as well. It was a wonderful, and very educational morning, as we basked in the sunshine and drifted past all these incredible tributes to architecture, whilst hearing about the intellectual achievement of its students and scholars since the University was founded in 1209. Among the Cambridge alumni and affiliates are 121 Nobel Prize Laureates, 47 Heads of State and 210 Olympic medallists.
We followed this with a lunch at Fitzbillies a café that was founded in 1920 by Ernest and Arthur Mason using their “demob” money from the First World War - their initials are still visible in worn-out gold letters on the shop front. They were the sons of local baker “Ticker” Mason who was a bread maker so his sons specialised in fancy cakes, in particular Chelsea buns. No undergraduate tea party was complete without Fitzbillies Chelsea buns and in case you were wondering…… yes, of course we tried them out too. Delicious!
To complete our very British Day, we all enjoyed a traditional English country pub dinner at the Three Willows in Birchhanger, joined by Julie’s son Steve, we had a very convivial evening and a lovely end to our very short Hertfordshire visit.