retiredmartin

November 2023. Cambridge.

Staying in Waterbeach this last month my main respite has been the occasional couple of hours into Cambridge. It’s hard explaining to people who (almost literally) never leave the house that it’s only leaving the house that keeps me sane, and what I really need each day is to see something completely new.

But the walk from Cambridge Station into the Kite area will have to do, furiously searching What Pub for a pre-noon opener and a bank.

Oooh, the Kingston is 11:30, just in time for my noon return.

I carried on through Gwydir Street,

slightly relieved I wouldn’t get distracted by the Blue,

and then stopped to admire the not-at-all suspicious looking “Roll On Blank Tapes”.

And then I’m at Burleigh Street, the pedestrianised shopping lane of my youth, where Dad once brought me in a child on his veg deliveries and forgot me and I had to walk home.

Burleigh Street, home to Jay’s Records and hairdressers and a noodle bar we took the Southworths and a bar where Oasis once played.

And now ?

It’s home to nine (9) charity shops. And a Primark, which is much the same thing.

And I went in half a dozen of them, from RSPCA to Red Cross to Oxfam, looking for some brass band CDs for Dad.

Instead, I ended up with this;

two quid from Oxfam. Mum would be delighted, I thought.

Nine charity shops in one street, a symptom of the need for thrift, the culture of recycling and the business rate relief. But not a pub, or a bank, in sight.