Part II

1 October 2010

Because Dianne from Holiday Vacations is a genius, Lucinda and I woke up

to a charming (really) scene out our window. This was the back garden (remember, this is Oct 1) full of flowers and RAIN. Lots and lots of rain. And ducks. And a river rising steadily while we had breakfast in a lovely little skylight room–the white roof you can just barely make out in between the trees.

Love the “whilst.” Just do.

Ominous, no? It was serious. Lucinda almost took an ear off unwittingly in the shower. Nice to have the warning, though, even if we thought it was poppycock.

Once clean and fed, we trotted over in our overcoats (and over-plastic-poncho) to Salisbury Cathedral. Here are the grounds. It looked a bit like an Oxford Commons to me.

But that similarity ended pretty soon. I’ll be posting more pics of the cathedral proper in a bit (the internet is a bit wonky and this is the fourth time I’ve tried posting these pics.

This is the spire, as a model split in half. Note the extra fiddly bits around the outside AND around the inside. The extra reinforcement was necessary many years ago, but that created a new problem which I’ll mention in a bit.

I thought of the boys and how they would have loved looking at this model. It was like a David Macaulay book come to life.

This is the only working medieval clock. It was keeping time while we stood there and I took a video I will continue to try to upload. It didn’t SHOW the time, but it would chime the hour.

Nifty!

This is the most amazing baptismal font. I think this impressed me most about Salisbury. The way they unabashedly blended the modern art (like this reflecting pool) and the ancient (Like the floor and ceiling, below pic, as viewed in the font).

If you look at the pic below and think you’re losing your mind because the marble pillars seem to be bending–you’re not losing your mind. They are. The new spire (see above) which   was placed there many years ago (I’ll look it up and add in later) was HEAVY and is listing. The whole thing is quite off kilter now. Not falling down. Not Pisa. But off…and it bent the supports.

In another brilliant move by Henry VIII–there were so many–this little chapel was vandalized. The colors have been restored somewhat, but you can still see where damage was done. Lovely little place though (below left, right).

It was a very dim day and hard to see, but this is a commissioned 1980 Prisoners of Conscience window. The lack of light made it harder to see, but there is a definite head at the top of the center column and two “hands” in the side panels, outstretched and…dripping blood. Any patches of light you see below the mid point are faces etched. Faces of Prisoners of Conscience.

This tomb has been cleaned so that you can see the remnants of it’s original state (see below). The dude had quite the hapnin’ tomb.

After Salisbury, Lucinda and I returned the car (no blood, no harm, no foul) and hoofed it back east. I stopped in Basingstoke to have lunch with old SOAR buddy, Meg, then went into London, Waterloo. Then back to Paddington to get my luggage out of hock. That’s when I discovered this taxi queue.

But it was efficient.

Then I realized that adjusting back to a humid (if cool) environment had left ALL of my clothes beyond the pale, I decided to put the whirlpool tub to use.

With a little laundry soap. (Video pending)