Swaffham Bulbeck

Swaffham Bulbeck is a small Cambridgeshire village, about five minutes away from our home in Burwell and yesterday our son, Sam, played his last 'home' match of the season there for Burwell Tigers. It was a close game against Great Paxton who went into a 2.0 lead, but Tigers came back to win a thriller 3.2 with just two minutes remaining.

They play on the village green at Swaffham Bulbeck, which is an idyllic setting in which to play football, though the ball does keep running off the side of the green and over the road, necessitating frequent halts in the road traffic - something even Premiership players can't claim when their shots go wide!

For a long time I've thought about putting together some pages on Cambridgeshire and other parts of East Anglia that I've visited or which mean something to me. I saw it as a kind of personal map in words and pictures. I've put the first page together this morning, featuring Swaffham Bulbeck.

I've also loaded a different image of St Mary's church on my photoblog

Spring

I was told yesterday by people in the office - who had 'Googled it' that it was the first day of spring. When I was younger, March 21st was always the first day of spring so I thought then that maybe time was moving backwards rather than inexorably forwards.

Apparently there has been a major debate and it seems that the compromise is the night of 20th/21st March - a bit like the actual time of putting the clocks back or forward?

Returning to reality for a second - or has that already passed - the sun is shining and Josh, or big black cat who is terrified of his own shadow - is running about on the lawn trying to catch flies. Must be spring...

Finally, Thomas Cranmer was burnt at this stake on this day in 1556. Now, if time is moving backwards, perhaps there's still time for him to escape?

Purely water

A water main burst in our area yesterday, meaning that the supply was cut off in Burwell and Newmarket for about four hours in the afternoon. Michelle and I wrote Post-it notes and stuck them on taps and toilets around the house so as to remind the children not to use any water (apart from one flush each in the upstairs toilets) in case we drained the central heating system and damaged the boiler. I spent every 30 minutes or so dialing Anglian Water for updates (they were very good and kept telling me they knew there was a problem, as did I). Eventually the water came on and the children and I breathed sighs of relief and turned taps on and used the toilets as if under the insane illusion that it could go off again at any minute.

In the evening we watched the Comic Relief programmes on TV and witnessed children in Africa suffering and dying through malaria bites - often through being too close to stagnant water swamps where mosquitoes bred - or through water-borne cholera epidemics. There was no proper water supply to begin with and most likely won't be in the lifetimes of those who survive the very real dangers of childhood. There was nobody to 'phone for updates or help and no sense that there would be pure water today, tomorrow or ever.

Purely water but it won't ever cleanse the impurities in our minds - apart from perhaps once or twice a year when we 'phone help in on their behalf's.

Wash your hands

we had a beautiful, sunny morning here in Burwell today and my wife and I went for a walk through the village. It's lovely to be able to call on all of the local traders and reminds us what a traditional village Burwell still is.

We always have to queue at the butcher's on Saturday mornings and it gives us the chance to observe and listen to the local news and stories, often from older people. However, Peter, the butcher, told us today that he'd just had a young boy in his shop, entrusted with buying some sausages for his mother. Apparently he had a really bad cold and, when asked how he caught it, he replied in a serious voice: "because I didn't wash my hands after going to the toilet!"