retiredmartin

August 2023. Cambridge.

A Sunday in Waterbeach, with Mum saying “Don’t you want to go out for a walk with Christine ?” by teatime, which says a lot about how little there is to do when I “go home”.

We took the train into Cambridge, a once seven minute journey that now routinely takes twice that now there’s a stop at the mysterious Cambridge North and the inevitable “wait for a platform” as we pass under Mill Road bridge.

I don’t suppose the impending GBG24 will provide too many new thrills in Cambridge, or even the county, but in the absence of micropubs you can still enjoy the town’s Greene King pubs. Said no-one ever.

I took Christine on a walk down memory lane into the area mysteriously known as Central Cambridge,

a short block of mixed housing between the Universities and the Botanical Gardens.

More importantly, below on the junction of Coronation and Panton Street is the VERY spot where I failed my driving test a fourth (4th) time in 1988.

How was I supposed to know what “NO ENTRY” meant ? It was either that or smash into bollards,

or, I guess, turn right, a third option which would have been the correct guess. Multiple-choice accountancy exams were much easier than driving tests.

I was surprised the Panton Arms hadn’t marked that exact spot with a blue plaque, but it’s not a pub I ever frequented much in my very short-lived GK IPA phase before I gave up beer until I met Mrs RM.

“Shankar Balasubramanian first discussed his ideas for colour-coded, solid phase DNA sequencing with colleagues here.” says What Pub, showing what an intellectual lot Cambridge CAMRA are.

I’m more interested in the fact that Greene King have (seemingly) sold it to Metro Inns (Suffolk), about whom I can tell you nothing at all.

That probably explains the absence of award-winning Abbot on the bar, which slightly dulls the joy of two Waterbeach beers.

Quite a pleasant unfussy pub in the Cambridge style, great staff, just a bit too quiet on a summer Sunday.

But the garden is gorgeous,

and so (unexpectedly) was the Milton Pegasus.

Thirty years, at least, since I last visited, and the beer was better than it was in 1988. Just like my driving.