Last-of-the-summer whine
Saturday 11th September: St. Neots - Cambridge C & CC site.
I drove to Canardly Bob's residence, a distance of about 80 miles, arriving around 2pm. After a bit of faffing, in which I carefully left my water bottle in the door of the car, we set off, heading east through the St. Neots park. We had something like 25 miles to do to get to the campsite, where AndrewC was travelling by train from Liverpool.
The weather was warm and sunny and the cycling was fairly easy and gentle. I had mentioned to Bob that I hadn't had lunch, so a stop somewhere appropriate would be appreciated. He assured me that there was a "greasy spoon" on the way, and that sounded eminently desirable.
We went through Abbotsley and onto Great Gransden, and still a greasy spoon failed to appear. I did like the thought of a Great Gran's Den, and all the exciting things there might be in there - crochet hooks, ear trumpets, mothballs, mismatched false teeth...
After Caxton, we skirted Cambourne (is Cambridgeshire twinned with Cornwall?) and eventually arrived on the old road that must at one time have been the A428, with the current manifestation of that particular road running pretty much alongside. "Not much further to the café now!" Bob reassured me, and within a few minutes Frankie's Snack Bar appeared.
There were no other customers and, it being after 4pm, it seemed as though Frankie was on the point of shutting up shop. However, he assured us that he would provide two lattes and a bacon sandwich each, and when the provender appeared I was a trifle surprised that the food was contained inside a paper bag and it consisted of just two slices of bread cut diagonally, which in my book is just one bacon sandwich. I wolfed mine down fairly rapidly and announced my intention of ordering another.
Bob got almost all the way through his but then put what remained of it down. "I suddenly feel really queasy..." he announced. My second one appeared, Bob said that he didn't want any more, so I ended up eating three times as much food as Bob had. We set off again pretty soon. About 3km further on, there was a right turn we need to take. I looked over my shoulder as I signalled right, but there was no sign of Bob. I waited at the junction and eventually he appeared, having regurgitated the merchandise from Frankie's Snack Bar somewhere along the way.
We'll gloss over the next hour or so, and it's not out of the question that the presence of Jeffrey Archer's house at The Old Vicarage, Grantchester (Poetical scene has surprisingly chaste Lord archer vegetating (3,3,8,12), as the late great Araucaria put it in a Guardian Crossword some years ago) added to Bob's unsettled digestive system. Eventually we arrived at the C & CC campsite, where Andrew had already paid for our pitches, and we slowly set about pitching tents and stuff. The camp wardens were very good and went out of their way to check up on Bob's state of health, ensure that we had the number for a doctor etc.
Fortunately, none of that seemed to be necessary, and a short time before sunset I strolled down the road to a small convenience store and bought some food for my evening meal - mostly salad and stuff.
We sat around nattering in the gloaming, and the topic of missing items cropped up. I mentioned that there were several possessions of mine which had seemingly vanished into thin air somewhere at home: a Panasonic Lumix camera that I last used when we were on our narrowboat trip almost two years ago; a lovely Aspreys silver carriage clock, not much bigger than a matchbox, which Phyllis had given me a few years back, and a Dennis Wick 6BS trombone mouthpiece, which I had recently been looking for.
"What are you doing with a trombone mouthpiece?" enquired Andrew.
"I used to play a trombone," I replied blandly. "It was one I borrowed from college. We pianists were encouraged to take up a second instrument if we hadn't already got one, and since there was a spare trombone knocking about and a brass teacher made a weekly visit to the college, it was suggested that I learn trombone. I was never any good, and I didn't carry on after we left college, but I had bought my own mouthpiece."
A passing camper had earwigged this conversation, and came over to let us know that he played in a band and was very interested in my brass-playing pedigree. I think he left rather disappointed but we did learn that he lived in Billericay (my birthplace) so it passed a few minutes before the inevitable happened, the daylight disappeared remarkably early, and we decided to call it a day.
I slept well, and much to my surprise I did not need to get out of the tent at all for the purposes of relieving myself, the first time that has happened for a long time.