London- day one

On the 14th we caught the train early in the morning from Cambridge to Kings Cross. From there we caught the tube. Mum, Elsie, Rebecca and I getting off at Piccadilly, and Dad and Lydia staying on until Green Park, from where they walked to Buckingham Palace. While Dad showed Lydia around Buckingham Palace, St James's Palace, Downing Street and Westminster, we joined a Sherlock Holmes tour that visited locations from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's life, his short stories about the detective, and places used for filming many of the movies and TV shows based on his works. The tour guide was clearly very knowledgable about Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle, and I learnt a lot. After the tour we met Dad and Lydia at the Foundling museum, once London's foundling hospital. Parents who did not have the means to look after their children would be forced to leave them in the care of the hospital. They would leave tokens with there children, so if they returned years later, they would know which child was theirs. For the children, their token was their only link to their parentage. At the hospital, the children would be taught practical skills, and be educated so they had a chance at getting a job after leaving the hospital. The children we're treated with what was then, advance  and groundbreaking medical techniques, and would be given good food to eat, even plum pudding on occasion. George Frideric Handel, the famous composer would perform his Messiah to the children every year, and even wrote a piece called "the Foundling Hospital anthem." He would also have fundraiser performances of his Messiah to raise money for the Hospital.
Next, we walked to the British Library, but in the way stopped at North Gower street, which was used as Baker Street in BBC Sherlock. The real 221b Baker Street being too far away. At the British library we saw many famous manuscripts of books, one of my favourites was Jane Austen's Childhood journal, which contained many short stories. Shortly afterword we caught the train back to Cambridge.

Bird Tour

On the 7th I took part on a guided bird tour, throughout the Norfolk broads. Here is a link to the tour guide's blog, where he discusses the trip.
https://norfolkbirdtours.wordpress.com/2017/01/08/7th-jan-2017-broads-in-the-mist/
Some of my highlights were:
Seeing the weasel
Watching the peregrines hunt
Watching the rare taiga bean geese
Spotting the kingfisher
Spotting a bank vole
Watching the cranes
Watching the marsh harriers, hen harriers, marlin and kestrel at the raptor roost
Watching the huge flock of pink footed geese fly over us at the end of the day.

Wimpole Hall and Anglesey Abbey

Across the 4th and 5th of January, our family visited the historic estates of Wimpole Hall and Anglesey Abbey. The first house we visited, Wimpole Hall, was a vast Stuart estate built in 1640. It reman she the biggest house in Cambridgeshire. We drove up from our house in Cambridge, through the countryside, to the immense and extravagant stables, with a tall clock tower and handsome red brick walls. We walked through the "naturalised" gardens of the estate, designed by prominent landscape designer "Capability" Brown to resemble a natural environment. Soon we arrived at the Home Farm, still in use to this day. We had visited the farm many times last time we were staying in Cambridge, and had celebrated my sister Lydia's second birthday here. She didn't remember anything,  but loved the farm nonetheless. The farm had horses, cattle, sheep, ducks, rabbits, and pigs. There were even some tiny piglets in the sty, that everyone found very cute. After visiting the farm we walked down to the stables again to meet our friends the Gathercoles for a walk through the estate's grounds, up to the folly and back. A folly was an expensive building built for ornamentation with no real purpose. In this case, and in many others, it was an imitation of a gothic style ruin. It was positioned on a hill overlooking the Hall, offering great views of the whole estate. The walk took half an hour, and at the end, we played hide and seek amongst the fake ruins. Soon it was time to leave, and we had hot chocolate at the cafe near the estate's chapel.
The next day we visited another grand estate, Anglesey Abbey, the 12th century priory, that was purchased by Thomas Hobson in 1600, and converted into a grand country house for his son in law. Thomas Hobson has been remembered in history as the origin of the phrase, Hobson's Choice, a so called "Free choice", where there is only one option available. The man used to take guests to his stable, and offer them the horse nearest the door, or no horse. It is unsurprising what the guests chose. Upon arrival we walked through the grounds to the wildlife garden, with a "nature playground" for Lydia, and a bird hide. After Lydia had climbed around on the logs and treehouse, we walked to the birdhide. At first we only saw ordinary birds, like robins and blue tits, but then Rebecca spotted a small mammal in the bushes across the frozen pond. I quickly identified it as a stoat, a small, but ferocious hunter resembling a large weasel. We were very excited, since none of us had seen a stoat before, and they were infamously difficult to observe. We watched it scurry around the vegetation for about 5 minutes, before it vanished into the undergrowth. On the walk back we visited the beautiful winter garden, and historic Lode mill, that still produces flour. Finally we had hot chocolate and scones at the cafe, before leaving mid-afternoon.

Wicken Fen

On Monday the 2nd we slept in after watching the first episode of the new season of "Sherlock" live to air. It was a good episode, but I will not discuss it here for spoiler reasons. After an uneventful morning at home, we decided to visit Wicken fen nature reserve, a beautiful waterland nature reserve half an hour by car out of Cambridge. We used to visit it occasionally when we lived in Cambridge. I had read on the website that at Winter, Wicken fen was supposedly the best place in England to see elusive Short Eared Owls. However, upon arrival, we learnt at the visitor centre that the owls could only be seen at the other side of the vast reserve, half an hour by car away from the visitor centre. However, the road looped away from the fen, the only way back to the other side of the nature reserve being a desolate lane. It was getting dark now, the sun was dipping closer towards the horizon, and the muddy road was leading further and further away from the nearby villages. A huge electricity plant loomed ominously on the Left, casting long shadows onto the boggy road. The road became uneven. There was a large risked of becoming bogged down on this barely used track. However, we soon discovered the road was not quite as disused as we thought. The road turned, and a shabby caravan, with a scratched and dented car loomed out of the dusk, blocking half the road. A strange pile of out of  place objects lay beside a ditch. Prams, machinery, and other things. A fire smouldered halfway down. A shady looking man strode out from behind the caravan, with a short, bristly beard and olive skin. He looked at us, then smiled, and hopped in his car, moving out of our way. We were all relieved that we had not been mugged, but soon discovered that the road became even more treacherous. Our parents began to panic. Had the strange wanderer drawn us into a trap? I remained mostly oblivious to what was going on, face pressed to the window as I watched a few deer graze placidly in a field. Eventually we made it through to the fen, with only 5 minutes until the sun began to set, and visibility would plummet. At the end of the road, a dozen serious looking men in camouflage gear, brandishing Enormous cameras, similarly coated in camo. They were professional
Photographers, all here to photograph the short eared owl. We were in the right place. It wasn't long before we saw an owl, swooping low over the reeds. I was ecstatic, never having expected to really see the owls. More and more owls circled around the fen, swooping to catch prey. Their feathers glowed gold in the setting sun, and their blood curdling shrieks broke the awed silence of the spectators. Soon the sun sank below the earth, and it was time to leave. Unfortunately, we did not manage to capture any satisfactory photographs of the birds. Thankfully however, Google came to the rescue and we found some professional wildlife photographs of short eared owls taken at the same part of Wicken fen we visited.

Short Eared Owl

Short Eared Owl vs Kestrel

On the way home Lydia asked us all progressively harder questions, from' "why does the sun set?" to "what is the meaning of life?" We were tired, and still recovering from the stress of the journey, but we had all enjoyed what lay at the end, and drove home smiling.

Bletchley Park

On New Years Eve we drove to Bletchley Park, where mathematicians and codebreakers worked during WWII, endeavouring to decipher German radiosignals, containing information crucial to the fate of the war. The Nazi forces had a special device known as enigma, that enciphered messages, that could theoretically only be deciphered if you had another enigma machine operating on the same settings. It was supposed to be unbreakable. However, using complex mathematics, ingenious techniques, and the world's first reprogrammable computer, Bletchley Park managed to crack the ciphers. Today, researchers estimate that if it wasn't for the men and women working at Bletchley Park, the war would have continued for two more years, and claimed 14 million more lives. Additionally, the machines designed at Bletchley to crack the ciphers developed into the computers of  today.

Us at Bletchley Park

At BP we visited the mansion, the museum, and the Huts where the codebreakers worked. My favourite part was the huts, I loved learning about the history of the place, and the people that lived there. All the rooms of Huts 1 and 6 were reconstructed to look like they would have during the war. Hut 8, where the designers of the reprogramable computer worked was full of interactive activities about how the people at Bletchley broke the German messages. Bletchley was a great place to visit, and I learnt a lot there.

Oxford

On the 28th of December we drove to Oxford, the other main university town in England. It was a cold morning, and everything was covered in a layer of frost. Upon arrival we entered a walking tour of Oxford, focusing on the colleges. I learnt a lot, but was disappointed that we could not go inside most of them, since they were closed for the holidays.
Next we visited the Oxford Museum of Natural History where we saw some amazing fossils, including the first formally described and analysed dinosaur bones. There was also the Dodo specimen that served as inspiration for The Dodo in Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."
Finally we visited Christchurch Oxford, the Largest college there. It was the college of many famous individuals, including Lewis Carroll, and the filming location for much of Harry Potter.
By then, it was getting dark, and it was time to return home.

Me at Christchurch College

St Andrews to Cambridge

Across Tuesday the 20th and Wednesday the 21st we drove back from St Andrews to Cambridge. along the way be stopped overnight at Whitby, as well as brief stops at interesting places. Our first stop was Scarborough, where we visited Anne Bronte's grave. Ann Bronte was one of the Bronte sisters, 3 famous authors from Yorkshire, who wrote under an alias due to publishers believing it improper for women to write novels of the sort the Bronte sisters wrote. They all had short, tragic lives, and died young, Anne and Emily of TB, and Charlotte during childbirth.

Anne Bronte's grave

Later we stopped at Hull, to visit the house of William Wilberforce, the abolitionist. Wilberforce was a key part in the abolition of the slave trade in England, and across the world. Thousands of African men, women, and children were captured, packed so tight in boats that they were lying over each other, drowning in their own filth, suffocating in the stinking air, shipped over to America. It was said that you could always smell slave ships before you saw them as they drew in to port.Upon arrival in the new world, the slaves would be exchanged for cotton, which was then shipped back to England. The captured slaves would then be auctioned off, and forced to work in horrible conditions for the rest of there miserable lives. The whole practice was barbaric.

Statue of Wilberforce outside his house

Wilberforce was a graduate of Cambridge University, where he was very popular amongst the student's, smart, witty, rich, and a great public speaker. As a young man he became an evangelical Christian, and soon afterwards decided to join the campaign for it's abolition. Using his great voice and speech-making skills, in 1807 the inhumane trade was finally banned.