Midsummer punting

Midsummer punting

Madness, but we did it. Twelve hours after landing at Luton airport, I was in Cambridge where we took a party of twenty or so punting from Newnham Mill Pond, over the rollers onto the upper river, then for a picnic and a swim in Grantchester meadows. Enrico distinguished himself on his first punting trip. He may come from Milan, but the gondolier blood showed. Two punts returned downstream, while the rest of us continued to Grantchester and tea in the orchard before the long, lazy evening trip back to Cambridge. Truly a perfect day, and perhaps the best punting expedition ever.
» Candace had a different experience
» Clara has posted her pictures
» Francisco punted without us

Having spotted the folly of finishing the day by driving to Birmingham, I’d got us a room in nearby Saffron Walden, at the Saffron Hotel, my very favourite kind of English country hotel: a 2-star hotel in a building spruced up but too old to spoil. Creaking floorboards, odd-shaped rooms and twisting corridors.