Bookshops

When I first came to Cambridge about 50 years ago, there were far more bookshops than now. The biggest was Heffers with several shops scattered across the town. Heffers is now owned by Blackwells of Oxford I think. I guess many people buy their books on the internet instead (in the main, I do), although browsing through books is still a pleasure.

In 20 years' time what will we do?

There are still a few independent second-hand bookshops around. One of these is David's shown in the photo. This has remained much the same over 50 years.

Westgate, Canterbury

The Westgate Canterbury is the oldest city gate intact in the country and dates back to 1379. Very impressive. It’s the last surviving gate of the original seven medieval gates in Canterbury. 

We stayed near here earlier this week.

Canterbury Cathedral is covered in scaffolding.

Old Lapthorn?

This "photo" is probably about 160 years old. It is on a hand tinted metal plate found when clearing my mother's house when she died some years ago. I had no idea it existed. She looks like a distant relative - maybe my great great grandmother. She certainly looks like a Lapthorn.

Some years ago I met a Lapthorn who moved away from South Devon (where most Lapthorn's are found and where I come from) in the 1700s: he looked just like my uncle!!

UK Earthquakes

Thankfully, we get few serious earthquakes in the UK. Big ones are rare. The website below keeps records of those that have occurred recently.

See https://earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk/earthquakes/recent_uk_events.html

Homelessness in Cambridge

In recent years we seem to have seen an increase in rough sleepers on the streets of Cambridge. For a fact, some are "on the make", tapping in to the many tourists we see here. Some are mentally ill people who seem to have fallen through the cracks and are rough sleeping.

With so many jobs locally, people should not need to rough sleep. "Can you spare a few pennies please?", is the call. Rather than give directly to people who may spend the money on drugs, I prefer to regularly donate to a homeless charity. This way you know the money is really helping. There is little doubt that, for whatever reason, there are some genuine people who need help.

Speech and Language Evolution

At one time I would have been appalled by the overuse of "like" and the fact that younger people tend to go up at the end of sentences. 

Then I realised that speech and language are always changing!  You have only to observe how much speech has changed in the last 100 years. I expect if we heard speech from 500 years ago we would struggle to understand it.  

And to think how languages have evolved in the last 1000-2000 years! No, we have to accept that speech and language will be forever changing.

2020 Kitchen Poster

Since 2012 my wife has made a kitchen poster summarising the previous year.

It is surprising how the grandchildren change.