Green space – The Cambridge Placebook

February 16, 2023February 16, 2023

Dinky Doors

Some of Cambridge’s most charming architecture is tucked away at ankle level. Since 2019, an anonymous couple has been working toward their mission of “Saving the World” by installing little portals to whimsical delight throughout Cambridge. These are the Dinky Doors. There are 14 so far—new ones pop up every few months—and I always make sure to point out a few of them on tours I give to visitors, or even to friends who have lived here a while and still haven’t noticed them. I must admit that I hadn’t made an effort to track down all of them until I was about to move away (and even then I missed one)!

A tour of all the Dinky Doors is effectively a tour of Cambridge—you can even buy a walking tour from the Dinky Doors website (and/or donate to support their mission to Save the World). There’s also a Youtube channel where the Dinky Doors couple appear (with red boxes on their heads) to update the world on dispatches from the Supreme Leader (a kindly extraterrestrial being giving Dinky Doors instructions on how to Save the World) and otherwise share their quirky humor and Dinky Door backstories. Read on for some highlights!

August 2, 2022February 22, 2023

The Swifts of the David Attenborough Building

Every summer in early May, bird-minded Brits start looking for the swifts. The birds come screaming up from Africa and southern Europe like arrows, filling the sky with a fantasy of speed. They’re here for just a few months to return to their mates and their nests and breed, the only time of year their little stubby feet will touch down. Their nests are high up—once on cliffs, now more likely in the eaves of buildings—so they can drop easily down into the air on their foraging trips for drifting nest-makings and insects and spiderlings.

For someone from the western U.S., Europe’s common swifts (Apus apus) are a treat. Before, I had only seen one other species of swift, the white-throated, a few times, slicing high around a remote cliff face—nothing like the daily sightings of acrobatic squadrons in the sky above my house in Cambridge. Learning about their yearly sojourns and heroic feats of continuous flying endeared them to me even more. And the David Attenborough Building swift nest boxes clinched the deal.

June 22, 2022June 23, 2022

A Cycle to Ely

Ely: a one-time swamp island, provisioner of freshwater eels, haven for malaria, seat of a Bishop and a cathedral. Between Ely and Cambridge: a river confluence, one or two single-road villages, miles of fen-turned-farmland, a sightline from the Gog Magog hills to the cathedral, a railway line, and a National Cycle Network route. A few months ago a few friends and I with a shared sense of bucket list found a semi-sunny Saturday to do the cycle to Ely. This would be the longest route I’d ever cycled. (Not so for one friend, Amelia, an avid cyclist-explorer who just the weekend before went on a multi-day cycle trip in Wales.)

March 1, 2022March 2, 2022

The Road to Longstanton

I have an elderly friend from church who I’ll call M. We bonded over classical music soon after I moved in, and our friendship was sealed when she invited me to come with her to hear Joshua Bell play in Wigmore Hall, her favorite concert venue in London. After the pandemic had kept me away for some time, she asked me to come visit her. She lives alone in a sunny semi-detached house in Longstanton, one of the many medieval villages orbiting Cambridge. Visiting her would entail a long cycle or a longer bus ride; I didn’t hesitate to choose the cycle route, not least for its tour of the countryside northwest of Cambridge. I’ve visited her several times now, thoroughly enjoying the ride, her company, and the stories gleaned from both.

January 4, 2022January 5, 2022

Byron’s Pool

Of all the romantically named Cambridge haunts, Byron’s Pool may be near the top of the list. I don’t particularly enjoy what I’ve read of Lord Byron’s high-flown poetry (except for the satire), and I don’t find the Romantic hero-personality of extremes and debauchery and drama particularly appealing—but I was as beguiled as anyone by the idea of a grove along the River Cam where the famous poet was supposed to have swum while an undergraduate at Trinity (this is what all the guidebooks and interpretive signs say, and not much more). It’s so very Cambridge. Most significantly for my interests, it’s farther up the River Cam than I’ve ever visited.

December 5, 2021January 4, 2022

Autumn Again

I was taking a retrospective look at my blog recently, and was stunned by how much I wrote last autumn. I kept a treasure trove of field notes on everything the season was giving me during a time of quiet and isolation. This season, the hustle of community is back, along with the haze of attempting to write up my thesis, and I’ve found it hard to get into the headspace of word-crafting my surroundings. Despite this, the season has given richly and I’ve been fed by warm earthy palettes, frosty mornings, flame and lemon leaves, full moons, mushrooms and chestnuts, sunbeams and sunsets. In lieu of words I’ve captured as much as I can on my often inadequate camera. I’m going to attempt to decorate the images with some remembered notes, because this autumn deserves all the attention I can give it, even in memory.

November 6, 2021January 4, 2022

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is like the cool cousin of London. I wouldn’t be surprised if its popularity as a quick holiday destination has only increased during the pandemic, domestic travel being a hot commodity. I’d only ever heard good things about it but hadn’t managed to get there, despite it being only a 5-hr train ride the length of England from Cambridge. I was determined to squeeze it in before the term got into full swing or any unforeseen disruptions *cough* Covid *cough* got in the way, so my friend Marie and I made a long weekend of the Edinburgh bucket list. Hills, castles, kilts, neogothic grandeur, bagpipes, haggis, hipster art—we fit all of it in.

October 3, 2021January 4, 2022

A Wander along the Thames

London is less than an hour’s express train ride from Cambridge. This has probably given me a bit of a case of “close enough to go anytime so I don’t.” Before the pandemic, I went occasionally to concerts and museums in London, always accompanied by a little wandering. But nothing like proper exploration (let alone top tourist attractions), which I could always do another time. Since the pandemic, repeated national lockdowns and Covid caution have kept me away until the last few months. It’s a shame, because London is like Cambridge on steroids for a place collector like me—nearly infinite nooks and crannies. The clock is ticking and I’m learning not to take London for granted.

The theatre district of the West End of London, comparable to Broadway in New York City, is one place I hadn’t managed to visit. So, recently, when TodayTix alerted me about a sale for West End tickets, I went for it, choosing the musical Come from Away on the next weekend. It also happened to be a weekend I was moving house, but like I said, London is so close you can do an evening or half-day and still get your money’s worth. So, another little wandering glimpse. Without any real plans other than wandering, I took an early afternoon train the day of the play. I had to go to London Liverpool Street Station because the slightly quicker route to Kings Cross Station was disrupted. This was a serendipity, because although it was several miles from the West End, it placed me close enough to the River Thames to do my wandering along the river. I’ve always been drawn to the Thames and its thoroughfares and bridges and waterfront skyline when I visit London—never mind its slight stench. So while the musical and West End were great, my walk along the Thames to get there ended up being an equally vivid highlight.

September 5, 2021September 5, 2021

Peak District

The day before the August Bank Holiday, my friend was restless to go somewhere and he threw out an invitation to a couple of us to go to the Peak District the next day. Having wheels to the Peak District, an England bucket-list item for me, was more than enough to outbalance any ideas I had about working on the holiday, and soon I was looking up walking routes.

It was supposed to be a three-hour drive, which we felt was reasonable for a day trip if we left early enough. As it turned out, a miscommunication with Apple Maps led us on a 1.5 hour detour (ending up, instead of in the heart of the Peak District, in the middle of a nothing town near Newark-on-Trent, which we should have been suspicious of before checking the map on arrival because there were no real hills to speak of). We grinned and bore it, took a detour back through Sheffield (an interesting glimpse of the industrial North) and got to the Peak District just before lunchtime.

July 17, 2021July 18, 2021

Cambridge Botanic Garden at 175 Years

Last week I volunteered as a “Science Explainer” for the 175^th Anniversary celebration of the Cambridge University Botanic Garden. I wore a bright (bright) orange T-shirt and lanyard and smiled at people as they walked by the chalk grassland and fen displays, trying to judge if they would be open to a chat about native Cambridgeshire ecology. I pointed out the pale brown newts wriggling between lily pads in the fen pond to children scampering over the fen boardwalk, explained how alkaline chalk determines what can grow in chalk soil and chalk-drained fens, apologized for not knowing where to get the next stamp on the Mystery History trail, and chatted about pasqueflowers and orchids. When there was no one around I watched bees on the meadowsweet and listened to the live music filtering through the trees and clashing with the one-man band (the “Pramdemonium”) wheeling around the Garden with bubbles coming out the horns. Festive, to say the least.

Whether or not passersby fully caught on to the reasons for the festivity, the celebration is justified—the Garden has been a dynamic center of botanical science, beauty, and public engagement for a good long while now, thanks to visionary and determined botanists and teachers. And how happy that people can gather here with music, food, kids, and curiosity again after last year’s hiatus!