French Escape

  What a difference a good walk makes.  I love to walk.  I am lucky enough to live near the river and green spaces in Cambridge and am able to take advantage of them. I walk every day, My walk covers the same stretch of river, I vary it by crossing the river over different bridges or going downstream instead of upstream. I walk simply to get my limbs working and a little blood flowing through my brain to ensure that I can function for the day, but a walk in which the only incline is on the footbridges over the river, simply feels like exercise. It can be like a treadmill, a hamster’s wheel. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my walks.  I’m not such a masochist that I would carry on going out if I didn’t. It calms my mind. The seasons change, but the people running, rowing, walking, cycling past me don’t. I know that a walk is going well when birdsong overrides my thoughts.      On Sunday I walked along the Cam to Baits Bite Lock.  Many others were enjoying the sunshine, cycling, walking, run

 Good things come to those who wait. Patience is a virtue, so they say, but I am tired of waiting.   This swan serenely waits for her young to hatch.  The graveyard is waiting for the council workmen to come with their mowers and strimmers. This weekend, we were all waiting for the rain to stop.  King Charles III had been waiting for 70 years for his moment!  I found the ceremony in Westminster Abbey moving. The music and the pageantry were wonderful, history in the making.  I watched it all with my mother-in-law, Margaret. We hankered after hats, admired (and criticised) the outfits, decided who had gained weight, wondered at the impeccable behaviour of the children... Margaret worried that Charles looked tired, that it might all be too much for him, at his age. But on the whole we just marvelled at the spectacle, all from the comfort of Margaret’s living room. It was the second televised coronation that Margaret has enjoyed and the fifth monarch in her lifetime: George V, Edward VIII