Our Garden of Eden

We're just back from a long trip to the U.S. and as we recover from friend, family and food-overload, I'll borrow a post from a local Cambridge picture of the day blog. See this entry for a pretty picture of some houses near us and a nice explanation for the biblical themes of streets in our neighborhood (We live on Paradise St and a colleague used to live on Eden St).

In case you don't want to see the picture and just want the info, here's the main point:

Orchard Street is one of several in the my area that have either botanical or biblical names such as Elm Street, Adam and Eve Street, Eden Street and Paradise Street. This is because they are all in an area that used to be the Garden of Eden allotments - small vegetable gardens and orchards grown by locals.

--JT

Birthday cake, lambs, punting and more

My college friend Karlin, her two boys John and Thomas, and her husband Todd just paid us a visit during their long vacation in England and Wales. The three days went by fast but we crammed in a lot--walks through the city, fun on the local playgrounds, a fiercely contested soccer match in the park, a tour of King's College Chapel, a sunny punting trip on the river Cam, a double birthday celebration (amazingly Karlin and I were both 39--again!) complete with yummy toffee cake and a candle blowout, delicious visits to Hotel Chocolat, and a nice afternoon at the Wimpole Hall estate and farm, where we saw lots of newborn lambs and piglets. And did I mention the stroll through the cemetary to the pub and lots of SpongeBob Squarepants? Whew, I'm still tired. See what you all are missing? Come visit!--JT