An unusual weekend in Cambridgeshire!

How many people can you sleep in a 3-bedroomed house in Cambridgeshire?  We certainly found out on the weekend of 23rd/24th January.  Inger and Bill, members of our Group, moved to Cambridgeshire some years ago, and kindly invite the Group to visit from time to time.  In the summer, some can camp in the garden, but in the depths of January, that is not such an inviting prospect!  We ended up with 13 of us (and one dog), plus Inger and Bill, sharing the whole house - with one bathroom!  There were camp-beds and sleeping-bags in nearly every room in the house.  Such is our Group that everyone mucks in together, queues patiently for the bathroom, helps with the washing up, and can still have a good laugh about it!  It was a fantastic weekend.

The view from Welney Hide - illuminated swansThe view from Welney Hide - illuminated swansWe started off on the Saturday morning with a walk.  Cambridgeshire is flat fen country.  After all the snow and rain, many fields had turned into lakes, and the paths were thick with mud!  We plodded on - at least it wasn't raining!  Back to the house for lunch, and on to Welney Wetlands Centre in the afternoon.  At this time of the year the Whooper swans have migrated here to join the Mute swans, and if we could have seen further afield, the Bewick swans had also arrived.  The Whoopers attack the Bewicks, apparently, so they stay back from the hides.  The Whooper and Bewick swans travel great distances to get here - the Whoopers mainly from Iceland and the Bewicks from Russia.  The Pochard ducks were there in abundance, too - most of them male.  We were told that the females have the sense to migrate to Spain, leaving the males to continue here on their own!  Thousands of birds - what an amazing site that is!  At dusk the swans start to fly in from the fields.  It is wonderful to see them landing in groups on the water.  They were fed while we were there - not a necessity as there is plenty of food around for them, but to attract them to the hides for the visitors.  Some of the cheeky Pochards seemed to take great pleasure in nipping the swans on their backsides!  Most of the swans seemed oblivious to this!

Back to Inger and Bill's to rush off to a quiz in the cricket hall near their house in the evening.  Oh dear - a great quiz, but the mud on the walk must have befuddled our brains!  We won't be applying to go on Mastermind!  Lovely food during the evening, most of which was prepared by Inger - and a bar there, of course!

After a much-needed night's sleep, we were given an amazing breakfast at the Inger/Bill "hotel" - cereals, porridge, boiled eggs, toast.  Just the thing to set us up for another day.  We drove into Ely for a walk along the tow-path (even that was muddy!), and back into Ely for tea/coffee and cakes.  A visit to the beautiful Ely Cathedral finished the day.

Our thanks to Inger and Bill for their wonderful hospitality, and for putting up with us all for a whole weekend.  It was great!


Maz.  27th January 2007