On Thursday night we headed towards Tampere to get on Ryanair flight to London Stansted.  Ryanair airport is small, no shopping, just one cafe but parking is excellent (by the door 4 days just 25€).  Departure was at 11pm, flight time just under 3 hours. So we were tired. Getting out from the airport was quick and Ant was waiting for us so we didn't need to hire a car nor drive ourself.  We still had an hour's drive to Gt. Staughton. Very tired before getting to bed at 3:30am Finnish time.  Weather was great, +17C and humid. Ant's Castle was excellent Bed&Breakfast. We all got own bedrooms, well Jouni and me still in the same and breakfast was served as we wished, just excellent hospitality.  Big thanks to Ant!

Waking up on Friday morning was slow but at reasonable time - we were all still on Finnish timezone.  Plan was to get to Cambridge.  Girls wanted to see where we used to live so that was the first thing to do.  It was just 10 years ago when we moved to East Anglia, girls were then 2 and 4 years old!  Not much changes in the neighbourhood, trees a little bit bigger.  The steam train had been removed from children's playground which we used to call Steam park (Höyrypuisto).  After a short walk in Chesterton we went to city center.

Cambridge has not changed - well how good it in 10 years if not in 500 years as the oldest colleges have been there.  We walked by the colleges to a pub called Anchor where we checked the possibility to go punting on the river Cam.  Decided to have a guided trip after lunch.  Lunching on the terrace in Eagle where we met our friend Anne.  Weather was warm and sunny.  Tuuli ordered juice called J2O (like chemical sign for water) which she then ordered in every pub we visited during the trip.  We had long awaited Guinness' from tap and traditional fish&chips and jacket potatoes to eat.  Punting is very special for Cambridge. The boat is flat-bottomed ("ruuhi" in Finnish) which moves by pushing with a "stick" (can't remember what they called that :).  We had a 45 min tour under the bridges, one was the famous mathematical bridge designed by Newton.  Built without nails or bolts. Well they added those quite soon after the college students had broke down the bridge to prove they can do it again - they couldn't.

It was freezing cold on the boat even with blankets around us, weather had changed quite rapidly from the sunny morning to less than 10C and windy.  It was time to get something warm inside so we headed for cream tea in Grantchester Orchard.  Lovely scones with clotted cream (60% fat) and jam.  We were stuffed!  Then we drove through the English countryside to Newmarket, to Anne's and Simon's new house. House is big and garden full of lovely plants.  Anne had prepared us excellent curry. Before eating (again) we needed a bit of excercise - girls went for a walk through the village, by the fields where we saw lots of horses, guys had something else to raise the apetite. It was really nice to see Anne and Simon, thanks again for the invitation and great meal!