Winchester
We had a day trip to Winchester on Saturday. Reasoning that it was just a city trip, I'd just worn my normal day-to-day shoes. I should have remembered the Itchens. All The Itchens. Getting anywhere in Winchester involves - or can involve, if you want the scenic route (and of course we did) - walks along one or more of the many branches of the Itchen. Within minutes of getting out of our car, mud was involved, all experienced to a soundtrack of splashing dogs.
Mud-drenched and apologetic, we wiped our feet assiduously on the doormat of St Cross (which, as saintly relics go, is not one of the best), apologising profusely. "Don't worry!" said the (very) chatty lady on the desk. "We're 900 years old! We've experienced worse mud than you can give us." (Spurning our mud! Hmph!) The Hospital of St Cross is an excellent medieval almshouse, founded in 1132, and is the oldest charitable institution in the UK. 25 needy chaps are still housed there, and the place still observes the tradition of "Wayfarers' Dole," by which anyone who asks will be given bread and beer - although only a small token quantity nowadays. We've never asked, though.
There is a pleasant church, one of the earliest examples of Transitional architecture, when the makers of solid rounded Norman arches were beginning to entertain the daring concept of pointed arches, but hedged their bets by putting nice safe round ones inside them.
I felt that the church looked rather fierce.
The lectern was a strange beast: an eagle with the head of a parrot. Is this a thing, I wonder?
Unfortunately, upon entering the hall, I was robbed of the opportunity to play my "how many seconds will pass before Pellinor says, 'ooh, you could run a LARP / hold a LARP banquet here,'" by the simple fact that he had already read online that the place was hireable and had made enquiries at the porters' lodge.
One day I really need to visit these gardens in the summer...
Walking back to town along yet another bit of the Itchen, I saw a heron standing perfectly still. Now, I have been caught out too many times with "herons." A village pond I walk past occasionally has a fake one, and it took me several visits before I stopped thinking, "Oh! A heron!" So with this one, I was cautious and dubious and determined not to fall for the cunning wiles of fake herons crying wolf. But it was no model. Naturally, I discovered this fact JUST in time to pull out my camera, take aim... and end up with THIS picture. Gah!
I suspect that the SAS was lurking in an Itchen, cunning disguised as reeds. Either that, or two passing Hawaiians had shed their grass skirts.
Back in the city, we headed to the pub for a longish lunch. An estate agent that we passed had thatched poodles. Presumably there were reasons.
We considered the City Mill or the Great Hall, but accidentally ended up wandering into the city museum, which was full of Romans, for some reason, some of them looking slightly chilly about the knee. The 16th and 17th centuries did not appear in the museum, having been banished to another museum across the town, giving the museum - which claimed to tell the history of the city - a slightly random feel. The best thing, though, was the enormous model of late 19th century Winchester. A retired town planner donated this to the city, having spent over ten years making it. "Thank you so much," said the city. "It's just what we've always wanted," privately thinking, "oh, help, what on earth can we do with a model of the city that's big enough to fill an entire room?" It ended up in storage for some years, but now has a proud new home.
It's great! I loved it! I want to make one!
After the museum, we went to the cathedral tea shop, where their menu advertised "The Great Winchester sausage roll," and "line and pole caught tuna melt." Who knew that tuna melts swam in the sea? And what happens after the Great Winchester sausage roll has been ordered and eaten? Do subsequent customers get lesser ones?
Then to the cathedral. While queuing, I saw that their welcome board said how lucky we were to visit at such an exciting period of their history. "Oh dear," I said, pointing this out to Pellinor. "'Exciting period' means that it's going to be half closed and covered with scaffolding." It was indeed. We couldn't get to the choir, home of excellent choir stalls - my favourite bit - and various other bits were inaccessible or a building site. They're busy putting in new exhibition space which will house an exhibition of illuminated manuscripts, which is good, but the cathedral's not at its best at the moment.
After the cathedral, we headed back towards the car, passing a tennis club where a large banner advertised a nearby pub: "helping tennis players need the exercise." We quickly found the vicinity of the car. Finding the car was harder. It turns out that our apparently simple, small Park and Ride carpark was actually a massive car park full of different sections and terraces, some of them separated by near vertical slopes and deep ditches. But we found it eventually, and returned to Southampton for a few drinks and a snack in a pleasant pub.