Bleedin’ hell

I’ve been known to blip this view before. However original options are limited on sanity walks that follow a similar route each evening. The exciting development in these recent days of warmer nights and relaxed rules is that I’ve been able to grab a crusty bread roll and sit on a bench or grassy knoll. With the gruelling funding proposal this week, evening picnics have been an important tonic. This evening a cluster of youth I picnicked near was debating the meaning of nepotism. It never fails to amuse me to compare Cambridge teens to my teenage years in Stoke-on-Trent. In Stoke we’d go to Greggs for a sausage and bean pasty and try not to encounter the rough gobby lads at the bus station. Cambridge teens dip sourdough in homemade houmous and debate the meaning of the word nepotism. I’d not learnt this word until at least my mid-20s because unless you know Robbie Williams, Anthea Turner or an heir from the pottery industry, I’m not sure Stoke is a hotbed of the well-connected and influential.

Feline battles in the house rage on. When they’re not sniping at each other, they’re hissing at the neighbour’s cat or guarding what they view as their territory, which is nothing more than four square metres of overgrown grass; principally a carpet of dandelions. I was scratched twice today by Bene, who after drawing blood flounced off pointedly and shot disdainful looks from three metres away. Cats can be ever so peevish. I doubt we’ll ever be bosom buds.

I can’t recently recall a more gruelling week of work, and that’s saying something. Cambridge river scenes do the trick. They’re very calming.