7 St Margaret’s Road
Girton
Cambridge
CB3 0LT

Greetings from Cambridge

Dear Alison,

Our shipping container arrived last week so we are delighted to be reunited with all our furniture and household effects. We’ve also established reliable internetness. It also means I’ve got my hands on the splendid book Spirit of the South and UC pen and tie again so it’s a really appropriate, if belated, time to write this letter to thank everyone for these gifts and for such a lovely send-off. Here’s an update on what we’ve been up to since leaving Christchurch.

Now we have furniture we’ve just moved into a lovely rented house in Girton, which is about a 25 minute cycle ride from the Scott Polar Research Institute. My route takes me down a newly created cycle path, via the Bridge of Sighs, which spans the River Cam and affords a view of more punts than you can shake a stick at, then through the historic centre of Cambridge and past Kings College. Cambridge is the most bike intensive city in the UK and there are certainly bikes everywhere (and the students haven’t returned yet so goodness know what it’ll be like when they do!) There are plenty of bike parks but they’re not as elegant as the ones I’ve grown used to at UC.

SPRI is a lovely place to work and, following our strategy Away Day in Jesus College, which I’ve scheduled for November, I’ll be initiating some projects. A major refurbishment and change in service provision will be needed as currently entering the Library is like teleporting back to 1975. There are two card catalogues in the foyer and the electronic catalogue for materials purchased post 1985 is a standalone one. My first task is to ensure the project to migrate this standalone catalogue to the University’s Voyager system is completed successfully this year _ I’ve just arranged cataloguing training in using Voyager for my team. This is a fairly short term aim as the University is planning to move to either ExLibris’ Alma or Proquest’s Intota in 2016. Next sounds like it’ll be an exciting one – I’m also expecting to be able to meet up with other Polar Librarians at a conference in Fairbanks Alaska in July.

My family are happy to be back and have now, I think, caught up with some of the things they missed in NZ (mainly family but also an absurd fondness for Pizza Express!). We’ve sold our house in Loughborough and are now looking for a house in buy in the catchment area of Impington Village College where the girls have just started at school. Their new school has a very international feel, probably linked to the international drawing power of the University of Cambridge, and I’m confident Emma and Freya will settle in well there. Their school mates all seem intrigued by Emma and Freya’s experience in Christchurch.

We have had an interesting journey from Christchurch to reach this point. The family loved spending a few days in Auckland – we went up the Sky Tower and were fortunate to meet up with one of my Dad’s cousins who lives in a residential home in Rotorua. We hadn’t been able to see her in Rotorua in the four years we were in Christchurch so it was lovely to see her and to hear her Yorkshire accent so far from home. I also managed a few beers with Brian Flaherty in Parnell. Our next stop was Singapore where we enjoyed the Gardens by the Bay, afternoon tea and cakes in Raffles Hotel, a bus tour of the city and walk through Chinatown. Once we arrived back in Britain the first thing we did is buy a car and, no doubt influenced by four years driving in NZ, I seem to have acquired an all black, four wheel drive VW Tiguan, though I doubt I’ll make use of the 4WD to get to any skifields. I do however aspire to take the family skiing in France or Italy next year in the event that buying a house near Cambridge doesn’t soak up every penny we have. For Cambridge think Auckland prices!

Home access to the internet has been patchy over the last couple of months but I’ll be updating my Facebook account with some photos of our recent life changes very shortly. Other contact details are below. It’s probably best I sent this off now as this week the All Blacks are heading this way and I hope to be devoting my leisure time to watching Richie and the boys on the telly!

I trust that all is well with everyone at UC Library.

Best wishes

Peter