Springtime sunshine

Whenever I go to Audley End, the sight of the local community coming together for a game of cricket in the evening sunlight reassures me that England's heart still beats. The Botanic Gardens meanwhile are a treasure on the edge of the city centre that I squandered for all my time as an undergrad, but thankfully have now discovered and enjoy. 

Beer is coming.

Just over a month a way now, the Cambridge Beer Festival will be back. I went for the first time last year, due to its clever positioning during undergrad exams. Fingers crossed for a week of great weather spend enjoying fine beers and cider in the evening sun!

A wee dram or six

Joe managed to wrangle PT, me and him some last minute tickets to a whisky tasting last week. Johnnie Walker were being hosted by the Cambridge Wine Merchants at their store on Cherry Hinton Road. We were walked through a brief history of Johnnie Walker and then guided through the tasting of six different whiskies from their colour codes range: Black Label (very passable)
Double Black (strong, perfect for a bothy in a hoolie)
Gold Reserve (sweet, ideal for a beach at sunset)
Platinum (spicy)
Blue (tasty)
Blue label King George V (replicating a turn of the century blend, including malt from the closed Port Ellen distillery, complex flavour with coffee notes).
These were accompanied by smoked salmon, mature cheddar, oatcakes and crusty bread.
I think my favourite dram was probably the Gold Reserve, which is just as well as it is certainly much more in my price range than the King George V (at ~£550/bottle). Normally I would pick a smokier scotch but the Gold Reserve was something a bit different and I think I will try take a bottle on a sunny holiday at some point. Typically I would write off blends as inferior to a 'real' single malt, but this evening opened my eyes to the possibility of complex and balanced flavours in blended whisky. It's something I will be much more open to in future!
A final note, Cambridge Wine Merchants was a great venue. They do a wide variety of tasting events including a fantastic sounding sherry and tapas evening in mid-May which I will be endeavouring to attend!

The KGB is in town...

By which I mean, King's Graduate Bar. With permission to open during term 'Vac Bar' had become a bit of a misnomer, so with new management and a new look, it was time for a rebrand. Though I've got a feeling that Vac Bar may stick around in grad parlance, in the same manner as Cindies and the Cellar are preferred to Ballare and the Bunker, for a while yet.

Being a practical guy (BEng bestowed by James Taylor), and also the owner of a cordless power drill, my DIY skills were called upon to help with the refit. I had to sit on a bunch of photos and keep schtum about the new look until after the relaunch but as it has been and gone I can finally publish these:

Say "Cheese!"

Jacob, sporting giant, culinary god and my housemate, turned 23 the other day. Being a top chap, and playing to his strengths, he decided that the best way to celebrate was through the medium of cheese fondue!
Having grated what was frankly a atherosclerotic amount of gruyere and emmental, Jacob took to the stove adding wine, cornflower and seasoning to make a deliciously cheesy concoction.
Once we had eaten our fill and more, we took a couple of hours off to recover then completed the repast with a light cheese board with grapes and crackers. Remarkably no weird or wonderful dreams were reported the next morning- possibly due to some sort of fromage-induced coma replacing sleep.

Spring's here! (Maybe...)

Has spring finally arrived? I certainly hope so! Spent my Saturday giving my bike a good wash (it definitely needed it after some foul weather over the last month)! Got it looking shiny and beautiful. James brought his new steed over, a beautiful white framed monster with fixed gears and only one brake. I gave it a quick test, not sure the frame was big enough though and I don't think this fixie lark is quite to my taste! Anyway James took me out along his infamous Chapel Hill training route. Flying along fenland roads through the villages to the West of Cambridge followed by a steep climb uphill (in Cambridgeshire?!) then a coast back down the other side and back in to town along the A10 from Foxton to Trumpington and the guided busway. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos (this was serious cycling) so you can have some flowers from back home instead. It was a great ride though (I'll publish the map when I make it later) and the hill exposed my lack of fitness nicely- more training needed! Thank goodness the light evenings are back.

Science festival!

Busy day at the science festival, making edible cells (digestive biscuit, icing, giant chocolate button, strawberry laces and raisins since you ask), demonstrating how T Cells kill using our giant papier mâché model (making of post still to come) and displaying Yukako's great compilation video of live microscopy images. The kids seemed to like it and the parents appeared to be genuinely interested. We were all blooming tired at the end of the day, so I definitely wasn't happy when I came home to watch England throw away the Six Nations!