Camping in Wicken Fen

3rd June:

Yesterday before choir I sat on the sofa in the vestry drawing a series of map images. Turn right onto High Ditch Road. Go under the A14.  St Mary's Church. Lode Way. I was charting my route to the Wicken Fen wild campsite, where I'd be sleeping the night.

Except after choir I left the maps in my music folder and blithely begun my cycle, only realising 20 minutes in as I searched my bag for the maps. So I decided to follow my memory and google maps. which meant only 3 wrong turns. Road, path, village, field, I cycled singing at the top of my lungs, a reaction that wide open roads and a feeling of adventure seem to create.

Near the end of my cycle it begun raining, and my rain coat begun to let the rain through onto my skin. And then, as if my top half weren't wet enough, I cycled through a field and the rain drops clinging to the wild grass seeped into my shoes and socks.

But that brought me to the camp site - a fire, a veggie burger, a girl I'd danced with in Romeo and Juliet, and songs around a fire accompanied by Rory on the guitar and Natalie on the violin. I had three smores and dried my socks by slipping each sock onto the non-marshmallow end of a stick and holding them over the flames, occasionally being told by the woman beside me to lift them 'higher' to avoid singing.

There's something about clear air (with the occasional whiff of camp fire smoke) that makes you feel so alive, and I stayed singing and talking and laughing with these new stranger-friends until midnight, then I had a quick wet-wipe wash in the makeshift toilet, and slid into my sleeping bag.

In the early morning, I heard the birds singing through the veil of sleep. I was transported back to the remembrance of a time when I lay with Grandma on the floor of her room, after she'd fallen off her bed. We talked and as we talked the birds began their dawn chorus, except Grandma couldn't hear it when I asked her, and that made me so sad.

While the rest of the group took a coach home I cycled back in my pajamas, thankful that my knee wasn't hurting, that I knew the way, that it was a light and blue-sky day, and that I still had the campfire smell on me. (which Alex promptly noticed when I knocked on her door when I got back!)

How to have better conversations

On Saturday, I went for a talk titled 'Where is God in the abortion debate?' Before the talk I milled around the room and talked to a few people.

'So, what are you stats?' (Stats is Cambridge-code for your name, year, college, and course.) They rolled off my tongue, and the rest of the conversation nervously floated on the surface of superficial understanding. I can't remember his college or course, much less his name now. I had a couple other conversations, some similarly light and meaningless. It was a good talk, but I left quickly afterwards, not wanting to keep talking about nothing. Then that evening, I came across this video: 'How to have a good conversation?'

It pinned down so many of the flaws I display when I talk to people - pretending everything is fine, not prying into emotional lives, not persisting in seeking out or offering vulnerability.

The next evening, I went for a formal dinner after the final evensong of term. I sat across from Jacob and Rob and next to Nic. Conversation started, and after probing and asking more I got into an amazing conversation about music and poetry and how non-religious people can still have a spiritual experience out of traditional religious music. And it was possibly one of the best choir formal conversations I've had - most of the conversations go along the lines of 'If you were a type of bread, what bread would you be?' which is fun but not always a way to get to know what people really care about.