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Heading back to Cambridge from Ely, we spotted a sign to Wicken Fen National Nature Reserve. Ever since reading about Hereward the Wake as a child, I had been fascinated by fenland environments. (At the time, I sided with Hereward, little realising that my genome has a powerful Viking and Norman signal.)

Later, when I was on advisory boards for the old Nature Conservancy Council and, later still, for Anglian Water, I heard a good deal about Wicken Fen, without ever quite finding my way there.

So we were initially disappointed, having found our way there as the day wound down, to see a sign saying that the reserve closed at 17.00. We had arrived at 16.59. But the women manning the visitor centre said that, while the centre itself was closing, we could wander at our heart’s pleasure (or is it leisure?) through the fens. So we did, with dazzling cloud displays all the while.

Joy.

Across to Ely for the first time, where we visited the Cathedral. Perhaps it was the mood I was in, or the glorious weather, but – despite my deep-seated mistrust of religions – I felt profoundly welcome here.

The building is exquisite, particularly the Lady Chapel, where the historical damage (including great windows that would once have featured stained glass and friezes of headless figures) enhanced the effect.

Was moved by the Bomber Command window, with its depiction of the geodesic-framed Vickers Wellington bombers – and, further around and from some 950 years earlier, by the tomb of another long-ago hero, Byrhtnoth.

After the Cathedral, we wondered into Topping & Co’s wonderful bookstore, on three floors. On the top floor, we were offered a tray of coffee and biscuits an, browsing still more seriously, came away with almost more books than we could carry – including a 2-volume Taschen work on Dalí. The previous (Abrams) volume I bought in the 1970s collapsed, probably through over-use.

Given our involvement in the work of the Sustainable Eel Group, I was particularly interested in the celebration of eels in the city – with an eel trail and a sculpture (shown in one of the photos above) and mosaic en route to the River Ouse.

En route back to Oliver Cromwell’s house, we were walking through parkland, with lots of rabbits enjoying the afternoon sun between us and the Cathedral. And then there was a hare. At the time, I was walking backwards up a gentle slope, as I sometimes do, talking to Elaine. The hare seemed transfixed. It stood up to its full height, its ears extended. It seemed to be trying to work out what exactly I was. I sometimes face the same challenge.

 

We drove across to Cambridge this afternoon, to stay for a couple of days at Duke House, run by Liz and Rob Cameron (he’s an Executive Director at SustainAbility).

With the sun blazing, we took a wonderful walk around the city, including the grounds of Jesus College, to explore the latest iteration of Sculpture in the Close.

One installation that caught my eye was composed of railway sleepers – not sure what the theme was, but put me in mind of Communist sleepers and the Cambridge Spy Ring.

Still adore the Corpus Clock, which I discover was developed in memory of the clock-maker John Harrison, winner of the original Longitude Prize for his chronometer. His work was the subject of a school project that had a huge impact on me in the early 1960s when I was at Bryanston.

I love the idea that the designers decided that Harrison’ grasshopper mechanism was both so important and so unknown that they turned the whole thing inside out, with the grasshopper – chewing its way through time – known variously as the Chronophage, Rosalind and Hopsy.

If time’s going to be eaten up in this way, I can think of few better ways to do it.

Talked to an interesting couple from Palo Alto, also staying at Duke House. She drives a Tesla, he a Boxter. Different worlds – particularly when compared to our 15-year-old Volvo V70 parked outside. Still my favourite car ever, however.

Drove Stefan Koch, who I first met via Bayer MaterialScience (now in the process of becoming Covestro), across to the Royal Geographical Society early this morning for the 10th anniversary event organised by the gloriously Quixotic Cloud Appreciation Society. (Elaine has also been a long-time enthusiast and member.)

London was looking its best in brilliant autumn sunshine, with a cloudless (whoops!) blue sky. Since Stefan had given me a small painting of a heron (my totemic bird) last night, it was wonderful to see an almost incandescently lit heron on the Thames foreshore as we crossed Hammersmith Bridge.

Struggling to shake off the cold that has dogged me this week, but buoyed by the extraordinary B Corp UK launch event in Camden Town on Thursday evening, the invitation to join the Board of the Social Stock Exchange (where I have been, and will remain, Chair of the Admissions Panel), and by the Ethical Corporation Lifetime Achievement Award, covered separately.

But it is in conversations with people like Stefan that I am powerfully reminded what extraordinary people are drawn into this movement of ours. And now, as the sun fades in the west and the clouds build overhead, to sketch out my next round of columns, no doubt linked to such ongoing stories as the VW scandal, the launch of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the amazing buzz around B Corps, and the like.

More or less out of the blue, I was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at this evening’s Ethical Corporation Responsible Business Awards ceremony in Marble Arch. Sadly, I couldn’t be there, but promptly began to hear via email and Twitter from people who were.

The first comment (excerpt) came from Sylvain Guyoton of EcoVadis, where I have been a member of the Advisory Board for many years:

“I was at the Ethical Corp Award ceremony (London) tonight with my colleague John Rees, and I was surprised to hear that you were the winner of Ethical Corp life time achievement award … You are way too young for this 🙂 … I hope you are not going to retire … Just joking!”

Most of the comments were to the same effect, that people couldn’t imagine that I knew what retirement was – and, most bluntly, that I wasn’t allowed to stop.

If I had been able to attend and give an acceptance speech, it would have been to the effect that I’m only just beginning to get some sense of what it is that I’m meant to be doing down here on this little planet of ours – and that I also feel strongly that the next decade (what we call the ‘Breakthrough Decade,’ from 2016 to 2025) could be the most challenging, exciting and productive of my life.

On verra!