Well, well, well.

Well, like I said, I really don’t have much to report this term. I’m spending way too much time on footnotes and a bibliography. I have gone to several lectures, mainly just to get out of my room. The sun is low. It’s hardly winter, just a nasty Fall. I overheard some students refer to this time of year as “suicidal term.”So, when another walk-about was announced for last Sunday I was ready to leave on Friday. Our destination was to be Nine Wells, the source of Cambridge’s potable water in days of yore.
It was quite long walk and muddy, and the scenery was rather non-descript and muddy; we crossed chartered fields and railroad tracks and mud.
But the company and conversation were wonderful. None of the locals really knows much about Nine Wells. They think it’s sort of yonder, like the Gog and Magog hills which are “not far” but not clearly “there” either.
I had dreams of trekking upstream to the haunted fountainhead of some Brythonic mere.
Not so much.
We realized we had arrived at Nine Wells only when we found the small sign. Our ultimate destination was quite literally a whole in the ground. . .and muddy.

Hardly the “fontanone del Gianicolo.”

The sun came out on the way back. Lunch was simple and convivial. And then back to my still flowing flood of footnotes.