The Artful Engineer

It is somewhat ironic to spend the Thanksgiving holiday in England when, at some level, Thanksgiving is a celebration of having survived escaping England in the first place. But we had a wonderful day with my friends Rob and Shirley, who kindly met us in Cambridge and showed us around. My phone tallied the day at over 16,000 steps that covered 7.5 miles, and since Rob sets a brisk pace, we definitely got our exercise.

That day in Cambridge was one of the better-weather days of our entire trip. As the images above and below demonstrate, the skies were blue, but nicely textured with thin clouds. At that time of year and latitude, the sun is close to setting by mid-afternoon, so the clear skies allowed wonderful golden light—contrasty but not harsh—to reach the buildings:

Since I like windows and drainpipes, there was no way that I was going pass on this next image. This drainpipe layout must be the result of a malicious pact between the three parties that made the roof, the window, and the sidewalk. But their attempts to antagonize the drainpipe maker were in vain, and he countered with bright cheery paint:

Unlike the previous wall, where the drainpipe was as orderly as possible given the circumstances, the vines below cover the bricks in pure chaos. It is nice that most of the leaves have already fallen, revealing the structure of the parent vine:

The first place we visited in Cambridge was the botanical gardens. Given the season, the only flowers were in the greenhouses and autumn color had long passed, but the grounds were still pretty. A higher vantage point would have been handy for this next image, but I still managed to show the pattern of shadows across the lawn:

This last image is of Corpus Cristi College. The silhouetted archway seems like the perfect shape to frame the view of the chapel. When you visit a place for only one day, you have no choice but to deal with whatever the weather gives you. I was fortunate here, because the warm light on the slightly yellow stone contrasts so nicely with the blue sky. Again, it is nice that there is a little bit of thin cloud to give the sky some texture. That red clock provides a focus, too, so I am glad that the shadows had not yet risen to obscure it. Such a strong framing with the arch risks being a little heavy-handed, but since the shape echos those of the chapel windows and it fits so nicely around the spires, I don’t regret it at all. (And I think it looks a lot nicer than it would with a bunch of superfluous blue sky in the the upper corners.)

Another highlight of this trip to Cambridge was visiting King’s College Chapel. I didn’t include any images of it here because I am planning to show one or two in an upcoming post of church/chapel/cathedral interiors.

Thanks to Rob—easily my champion commenter!—and Shirley for spending the day with us. It was nice to reconnect in person after Andalucía almost two years ago.