December Reflections 19: I said goodbye to…

… this lovely stretch of river. If you were to walk along this path and follow it around the bend, you’d see the railway cross the river on a big green-and-white painted steel bridge. If you were to leave the path just before you got to the bridge, turn right at the road, turn left just before you got to the level crossing, take the first right, and walk until you got to the first street light, you’d find yourself opposite the flat we lived in for almost six years.

It wasn’t meant to be that long. We hoped it was going to be the last place we rented before we bought somewhere, but I’m glad I didn’t know back in 2014 that it was going to take us that long to save up a deposit. That’s what comes of living in a place like Cambridge. That’s why we don’t live in Cambridge any more.

But six years of this wasn’t so bad. Six years of walking or cycling alongside this stretch of the Cam to get to the station or the shop or the pub or the church. Following the river upstream into the city, or downstream just for a walk.

I miss the river. I’m not that far away from it, really: the Cam flows into the Ouse, and the Ouse is about a half hour’s walk from where we are now. But it’s not there, the way it used to be. I’m glad I enjoyed it while I had it.