Country Garden

Walking up from the river to the town centre makes it quite clear how, when the sea level was higher and the Fens were less drained, this was once the Isle of Ely, rising out of miles of flatness. The cathedral is huge and it wouldn't surprise me if all of Ely's 18,000 population could squeeze in and still breathe.

Nearby we visited the Old Fire Engine House, now a café and gallery, with so stereotypical an English garden, being used by such stereotypical English tea-drinkers, that I had to steal a record. Very bad-mannered of me but I'm sure they wouldn't have demeaned themselves to protest.

At Downham Market we found a fabulous example of an old coaching inn as an excuse to tell the students about travel when we did it by horse.

We moored on the Great Ouse Flood Relief Channel and, as night fell, went for a walk on the narrow bank between that and the tidal Great Ouse, running parallel but much higher. As the last of the day's light shone on the Great Ouse we could very clearly see the tide running in.