In Hampshire – 2 July 2008
Bub drove me down to her home in Hampshire in the late afternoon after we left Pip and Mike. She and Martin live in a beautiful Georgian listed house situated quite close to Winchester, which makes for a wonderful environment in any circumstances (can you just see one of the croquet hoops on the lawn?)
although, of course, it can present difficulties with renovations and the like. Martin had been up on the roof of one of the outbuildings for several weeks, retiling, and he did a fabulous job (the best they’d ever seen according to the people who came to remove the scaffolding). Look at the size of the task!
I stayed with Bub and Martin (and their lovely son Jack and golden retriever Asali) for 17 days which were full of a huge variety of activities and lots of fun.
I visited Winchester Cathedral and it’s amazing Bible - which one isn’t allowed to photograph of course. A church in Winchester dates back to 648. Work started on the Norman Cathedral in 1079. The Cathedral was consecrated in 1093, St Swithin’s bones were solemnly transferred there on 15 July that year, and the old Minster was demolished. The nave was remodeled in the 14th Century and is said to be the longest Cathedral nave in the perpendicular Gothic style – approximately 520 feet. It is absolutely beautiful.
The Cathedral has many claims to fame. Jane Austen’s grave is there. There are six chests containing the bones of bishops, a queen and early kings including Canute. The quire is the oldest of the great medieval quires in England to survive substantially unaltered with beautifully carved characters, beasts and foliage.
We shopped in Winchester (this is the High Street).
Bub also took me to try and find the croquet club but organizing a game with anyone proved just too hard so we gave up on that idea. We kept hoping that Martin could mow their lawn and we could play at home but the weather for the whole time was quite dreadful and it just wasn’t possible to mow.
We went for a wonderful day out in and near Milford, visiting both her sister (who also been at Sherborne) and brother, and had a spectacular drive through the New Forest both ways
where there were so many horses and donkeys and so many beautiful trees.
I helped Bub to pick some of her soft fruit crops of gooseberries, raspberries, red and black currants
and found a Rotary club right in the middle of Alresford! Once again I struck gold – they had three events in one week so I joined them for two normal meetings and a new members’ night – all of which were really enjoyable.
One evening Bub and I, with three of her friends, visited the cinema in Winchester and watched Mamma Mia. It was so good to laugh uproariously and it’s a must for anyone of our vintage who likes Abba music and outrageous good fun.
Another evening, we went with other friends to one of the offerings of the Winchester Festival – An Evening with Maureen Lipton – which was very funny and most enjoyable.
One of the potential new members of the Alresford Rotary Club had talked to me about a recent purchase she’d made of an electrically assisted bicycle. Talk about serendipity! I’d been thinking of making such a purchase myself and she invited us to visit her home and try it out! I loved her description of her house when she and her husband had purchased it – 'a wreck with a view'! It certainly isn’t a wreck now, just a few years later and Bub, who’s an avid gardener, couldn’t resist taking a tour!
Riding the bicycle was a delight and I now have a retail contact in New Zealand and look forward to following that up on my return. It isn’t that I’m becoming lazy about riding my bike – it’s just that a little assistance might be nice when riding into 120km head winds! That is, of course, if someone doesn’t come up with an affordable electric car in the meantime!
And so, it was time to move on again!