Monday, December 11, 2006

Has it rained?

I had the day off today and it would have been easy to have pulled the duvet up this morning but no!

It was horrid so I went to Cambridge to do some book shopping. I didn't get all I wanted so I'll be on amazon in a mo ;)

Cambridge is often regarded as our second university city. Oxford has more fine buildings than Cambridge and the latter doesn't feel as ancient as Oxford. Oxford has a fine set of college buildings and chapels (one of which is a Cathedral) but lets say one thing Oxford has nothing to compare with

King's College Chapel.



It has a fine collection of 16th century stained glass by Barnard Flower who worked on Henry VII chapel at Westminster Abbey and it has a MAGNIFICENT fan vaulted roof. I'd love to take you inside but entry is £4.50 and anyway you can't take photos. Please take my word for it it is magnificent.

Across from the chapel is Great St Mary's a rather nice parish church (which I have ticked) totally overshadowed by its collegiate neighbour.



Well it was still raining so I went to Welney. There was a sign saying the road to Welney was closed but on I pressed and the road to the WWT centre was this side of the flood - phew.

But the floods had affected the reserve!

From the back of the observatory....



Only the observatory was open. As you can see the rest of the hides were inaccessable.



The Sparrows were after shelter!



In front of the observatory the odd the Pochard. They are a very pretty little diving duck.



There were a few Whooper Swans.



There were Mallards, the odd Tufty, Wigeon (in the distance) a few Pintail but mostly...





There were Kestel about and flying over Lapwing.

Very quiet. One of the volunteers said that the reserve had not been so flood for 3-4 years.

5 comments:

Cherrypie said...

I went to the Christmas Eve Carol concert in Kings College Chapel a few years ago. It was magical.

Did you photoshop those ducks? It's just one really that you repeated, I bet x

Cherrypie said...

Meant to add...

ANOTHER DAY OFF? No wonder you civil servants all have to wear name badges. None of your colleagues see you often enough to remember your names.

The Quacks of Life said...

you're just jealous cp. ah the joys of flexitime

not had a day off since october.

still got 7 days holiday unused (I get 27 days carried 5 over)

Ally said...

I've been inside the chapel - it's amazing - awe inspiring.

Equally amazing - those ducks look like they've landed with military precision, exactly the same difference apart :).

The Quacks of Life said...

each need their space to dive!!

there's not one female pochard in the pics. There were 2 or 3 there.

generally the males shoot off and leave the females to bring up the young. the males come here and most females end up further south

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