Tea in Grantchester.

Short post for Tuesday, June 19 2007.

For class today, Dr. Diller's good friend Tim Pedley, who arranged for us to come study in this facility, came and spoke to us. He is a professor of fluid mechanics here at DAMTP. He is an extremely brilliant man who is arguably the leading expert in in biofluid mechanics in the world. He's a pretty funny guy and gave an entertaining talk about the flow of blood, particularly in giraffes and brachiosaurses. Smart guy.
After class and lunch, we headed over to Studio Cambridge to meet Layla for a group outing. Today we went to Grantchester for tea. It's a small rural area close to Cambridge. It's more on the country side near the river. The walk over was long, but very scenic. It was also fun because we brought the frisbee along to throw through the fields.Now there is something in England, I don't know where else, called Stingy Nettles. This plant sucks. It basically stings your skin when it comes in contact with the plant. So the frisbee got away a couple times. 

Looking for the frisbee: Ani and someone.

Everytime we went to get it, we got stung. It's not unbearable, but it does irritate quite a bit and forms bumps. Layla, the native medicine woman, knows of this plant called duckleaf? that counteracts the pain given off by stingy neetles. It really does make it feel better.

Over a random bridge on the way there. The group + Layla Evans.

So the walk is about 45 minutes long, and we finally get to Grantchester. There is a place called the Orchard in a grove of trees where people come to have tea, scones, and ice cream. It's very hidden away, like you wouldn't expect it to be there. 

The secret garden.

There are lawn chairs and table everywhere. It's actually very peaceful and relaxing out there. It feels good to sit outside. We set up a big table and had tea and scones. It was delicious. 

The beautiful Layla

Diane close up.

For the scones we had this really good jam and this stuff called clotted cream. This stuff is like butter but better, and I'm not talking about Parkay. I could eat it straight. 

Mrs. Diller joined us for tea as well. Everything was so delicious. I also fell asleep.
We left at around 5 pm and headed back.  We lost the frisbee a lot on the way back too. This is the Ani and Michelle totem looking for the frisbee. We also had many encounters with the Nettles as well.

This was a funny sign that we encountered 

Then I realized that I had no dinner. I mistakenly had told Simon that I wouldn't make it back 

for dinner because I thought we were eating at Grantchester. This is because they also used the word TEA. Tea apparently means dinner, snack, or tea. This is really confusing. So when Layla said Grantchester for tea, I thought dinner. This is not my mistake, it is England's. So I went to Jack's Fish and Chips and got jumbo cod and chips. Good.

Then we met for homework.  Study Study Study: Garrett and Susannah.
Then Kacie, Jennifer, and Laura came over to use the internet.

Then I passed out trying to blog.

Peace,
James