With Sandro in Cambridge

 I took advantage of the beautiful bank holiday Sunday weather to drive up to Cambridge to see my son and watch him perform his filial duties of setting right various problems on my laptop. That is why us old folk have children these days. What to them is simple logic, for us is a mysterious and hostile wilderness full of traps and obstacles to ensure we cannot write what we want or provide the pictures we need in the right place, especially when wormholes appear that can swallow up a text on which we may have been working for half a day.

Sandro Marcus Moszczynski is 32, a python programmer (for those who know what that is), working for a cutting edge of technology outfit in Cambridge which somehow links computer images with photography. For all I know, he could be taking civilization forward in the science of morphing images or be in the forefront of providing fake news. He has just had his 33rd birthday which he celebrated with his old university friends from Sussex. He graduated from there with an MSc in physics but more recently took a course at UCL which earned him a second MSc in  (wait for it) quantum technology. He is a number cruncher, in contrast to an airy fairy weaver of words like myself. He gets that more from his mother. 

He is renting a 3 bedroom house in a Cambridge suburb along with his long-standing Finnish girlfriend Liisa Kontas. They are happy enough and she seems to be a calming influence bringing elements of order and common sense to his hitherto chaotic approach to life. He has little sense of attachment to his Polish heritage, though he can hold a conversation in Polish, and did eventually apply for a Polish passport once it was clear that the UK would leave the EU. He seems to identify more with Finland than Poland. Neither of them seem to have any plans for progeny yet, much to Albina's disappointment. Probably by the time they decide to have children, we will be too old to enjoy them or to influence them.

Sandro sorted out my internet blips and we drove out for a proper roast lunch at a pub in Grantchester. We had an enjoyable walk along the Cam and passed the extensive land around a pictureque property called the Old Vicarage, with a statue of Rupert Brooke in the front garden. There were images of farm animals, including a magnificent horse visible in the gardens and the river bank. "It must be a rich guy that owns this," commented Sandro. Checking on Google, I found that this was an address that Brooke stayed in on a number of occasions before he went to the front. And yes, the current owner is apparently rich. It was Jeffrey Archer. 

Amazing how Google can give a context to everything we experience, if we have the energy to check our facts at each step. We discuss something in the abstract? Ok, let me check that bit of information. However, I normally prefer our imagination to fill in the gaps to what we see around us. Will I be googling everything when we are on our cruise next year?