May Bumps and June Cygnets

On June 13, 14, and 16 we turned out to cheer on the top Newnham College rowing team in the Cambridge "May Bumps."

The "May Bumps" race is, I'm told, the world's largest intra-collegiate sporting event. Since the river is too narrow to race side by side, the boats start a length and a half behind each other. If they bump into or otherwise catch the boat ahead of them, the two teams switch places in the next heat. This means that the race never ends, as the starting line up for next year's Bumps is set by the standings at the end of this year's series of races. The men's race has been on-going since 1887, the women's (because Cambridge), only started in 1974. In this heat, Newnham is about to bump Emmanuel (College), I believe:

This year Newnham's top team moved from 4th to 2nd place in the first division. In the final race, they came a close second behind Jesus (College):

If you are wondering why the "May Bumps" are held in June, the short answer is "Because Cambridge." The longer answer is that the race (and associated festivities) interfered so much with final exams that the university moved the race to Mid-June when exams are over. Cambridge "May Balls" are also held in June for the same reason.

While we were waiting for our 5 minutes of boating action we also kept our eye on THE swan on THE nest in THE middle of THE Cam:

t. came home from a jog scouting expedition on Thursday with the news that at least one of the cygnets had hatched. Today, on our family outing to Waterbeach, we encountered several swan families:

Since swans abandon their nests within 48 hours after the eggs hatch, we expected THE nest to be empty, but we were surprised when we finally found THE swan family with its three young cygnets past Baits Bite Lock:

Our Accidental Coronation Day

On June 2, at the end of S.'s mid-term break, we made our way to Buckingham Palace with a workaround plan in place to catch part of the changing of the guard despite the inevitable large crowds, long waits, and poor views. When we arrived at Wellington Barracks we were surprised to find that something more grand than we expected was already happening:

We caught two or three marching bands like this one:

We then watched the cavalry line up in front of Buckingham Palace:

Eventually horse-drawn carriages emerged from the palace and everyone except the spectators and guards trooped off.

Since we had such a good view and the changing of the guard evidently had not occurred, we dutifully put in our time waiting for the real event. An hour or so later, we gave up and made our way to the other side of St. James's Park for our appointment at the Churchill War Rooms.

There we found the real action was happening--a magnificent spectacle--at the Horse Guard Parade grounds. All this, I now realize, was part of the Colonel's Review, held one week before the Queen's birthday celebration. Although as far as I know no members of the royal family were present for the rehearsal, June 2 was also the 65th anniversary of the queen's coronation.

I'm not sure whether to be annoyed at myself for not doing my homework in advance, or glad for the surprise--if we had known there was to be a major event we would almost certainly have canceled the trip to avoid the crowds. For her part, s. was terribly disappointed to miss the changing of the guard--which, it seems, never took place that day--but the variety of water fowl in St. James's park almost made up for it:

The Churchill War Rooms were worth seeing too.