In and Out the Post Code III
It's a good thing to have visitors, because you end up doing stuff you otherwise wouldn't get round too. Partly, I guess, it's making sure you don't run out of things to do - but I still haven't done the Abbey, Roman Museum or the Canterbury Tales (the experience not the pub). I had an email from NHW, artw and family that they were staying just down the road, and did I fancy meeting up? I was busy that night, but could give them a city tour if they fancied it. As is my wont, I rather anal retentively provided them with three different transportation options, and we rendezvoused outside the Castle Street car park. (Everyone tries to park in Watling Street or Whitefriars, which is closer to the shops but so much busier.)
We began with coffee and juice at The Coach House, which remains my favourite cafe, partly because it isn't part of a chain. The back garden is an oasis, a sun trap, and I could sit there all afternoon. I used to sit at one of the tables out front, and read the paper on Saturdays - this is a habit I've lost and must recover. NHW and I talked projects, and he mentioned that they were going to the Roald Dahl Musuems, and I tried to remember if I'd actually been to the one in Aylesbury when I was living in High Wycombe for three years. You need visitors.
We went up to Mercer Lane, and to the staggering view through Christ Church Gate into the Cathedral. It always gets me - I remember the first time I walked up the High Street and looked left at it - Wycombe had nothing to remotely match that. Sadly, the cathedral is ridiculously expensive to get into - although I usually blag my way in and I need to apply for a precincts pass - and you don't even get a free pardon these days. The church has been a major business for centuries. of course, but with York Minster you can get close and, if really bloody minded, sneak in for free (or you used to be able to). Late afternoon you can sneak into the grounds, but at eleven or so it's too busy.
Wandering a bit more - over the mighty River Stour and past the Marlowe - we headed down the high street to the West Gate. This has a small museum inside, and again I'd not yet been in it. For a nominal charge you get to see the old cells of debters and reprobates, but even better is the view from the roof. It's obviously not a bird's eye view, but it must be the highest accessible point in the area, and you can take in the whole city. I was aware of the historical division of the city into quarters, but it was not until this point that I'd realised that each quarter has its own order: the cathedral with the cloisters toward the abbey, the white friars, the grey friars and the black friars. I'm not sure if it was deliberate, but it perhaps makes political sense. It easily swallowed an hour, with a rather over earnest keeper who could clearly talk for hours if provoked.
Then we went to the castle - which has clearly seen better days (and I don't seem to have ever photographed it - must remedy that). As much as anything it's a place to hang - it's moreorless a shell. I suspected it's another one of those places where they stored weapons which went bang - more prosaicly they demolished bits in 1817. There's one surviving staircase which goes most of the way up one corner, and a shorter one opposite. It seemed to keep the children happy - until the oncoming rain cut things short. And that rain cutting things short seems to be the refrain of the summer.