August 15, Wednesday

It was a sunny day interspersed with quick showers. The winds still blew freely.

We spent a good share of the morning shopping in a Tesco supermarket and in Marks and Spencer. In Tesco we bought peanut butter and crackers for our nightly teas. In Marks and Spencer Bob bought some thinner socks. He had got a sore spot on his foot that he thought might be caused by the heavy socks he had worn all summer. Now that it was near seventy degrees most days, the heavy socks were too hot. He also picked up a pair of nice leather walking sandals that would be cooler.

Shopping done, we walked back into the historic town center. Familiar sounds echoed off the buildings as we neared Buttermarket Square in front of Christ Church Gate. Sure enough, George and his didge had followed us from Bath. There was an odd contrast between the primeval aboriginal booming and the sophisticated soaring spires of the cathedral.

We were thinking lunch and hunting for a teashop as we walked along High Street, when we ran into the boat tour we had wanted to take. Tour company hawkers were on a bridge pulling people in. A boat was just loading, so we grabbed the opportunity. We were sent through the Weaver's Restaurant and through its outdoor seating garden beside the river and down some steps into what was essentially a large rowboat. It held about a dozen people.

Our guide and rower, John, sat at the end of the boat and delivered a clever commentary as he pulled on the oars. We first learned that we were on the River Stour, which meant “fast-flowing waters” in Anglo-Saxon. The Weavers Restaurant, which we came through to get on the boat, was in a grand leaning Tudor half-timber building. It was a big building as it ran along High Street, and it also hung over the river. The Weavers House was originally a workplace and home for weavers who prepared their own wools. The river location was necessary for dying and washing the wool.

After the Henry VIII Reformation, French Huguenots (Protestants) fled religious persecution in France and came over to England to work as weavers. At one time a third of Canterbury was French-speaking spinners, dyers, and weavers. The cathedral ministry built a chapel for services in the French language. The chapel is still there with the name “French Chapel” above the door. I saw it as I toured the cathedral and wondered why. Now I know. Services in French are still given there twice a week. The Weavers House has hosted many families and businesses through the hundreds of years, including a house of ill repute, or, as John put it, “Ladies with negotiable affections and economically-driven morals.”

The River Stour was lined with buildings facing the river in the heart of the historic district. Ancient, low-arched bridges crossed the waters. The arches were so low that we had to almost bend double to get under them. In some places houses were built across the river, and the arches were just a means for the water to get through the building foundations.

Kids in kayaks filled the river ahead of us at one river bend. John said the rowboat was like a tank, and the kayaks wouldn't be a problem. Most of the kids saw us coming and got out of the way, spurred by a fellow on the bank yelling at them to get out of the way. A woman instructor jumped into the shallow river and pulled some other kids out of our path. Our boat just brushed past the kayaks whose kids couldn't get their kayaks and paddles coordinated to go anywhere.

We boated past the Greyfriars priory site. Most of the priory was wiped out in the Reformation of Henry VIII. Two buildings were spared and sold for secular use. Some of the priory lands are now lawns and gardens. We could see the riverside flowers from the boat. John told us that if we turned at the Post Office onto Stour Street, we could get to those gardens. They are not advertised, so as to keep them a quiet retreat. If we went to the gardens, we could also see the third building that had been spared. It was a chapel that was built as a bridge. That bridge was needed over the river in the 1500s, so the chapel stood.

When we came back downriver, there was no semblance of learning in the kayak crew. Instructors were tipping over kids' kayaks, kids were tipping over each other's kayaks, and mayhem and merriment reigned on the river.

Following the boat trip, we stopped for lunch at Chaucer's Medieval Café. Well, not stopped. It was more like a girl pulled us into the restaurant with promises of unique and wonderful food in medieval costume. Bob had excellent “medieval recipe” beef barley soup and a huge granary bun. The soup choices of the day were beef barley, lamb and lavender, and pheasant and red wine. I had a toasted teacake with jam. Large framed lithographs of characters from the Canterbury Tales decorated the walls. The gal did her best to try to sell us one or more of them. They were very nice. But the price was 'way out of our budget, of course.

While we were eating in the Medieval Café, I looked out the restaurant door and saw that a magic shop across the street advertised internet access. After lunch we went over. They had just two computers and charged three pounds (six dollars) an hour. There was no room for laptops in their tiny shop. The young lady kindly sent me down to BoHo café. We found the café and I made inquiries. They had free internet for the price of a cup of coffee. The computer came to town with us the next day.

We ambled down the pleasant street to the West Gate. The Gate is a double round Norman tower guarding a bridge over the Stour. Across the street from the tower is a long lawn bordered with yellow flowers that runs along the river. We sat on a bench in the warm sun. A punter came down the river and lovers walked hand in hand on the gravel walkway. We hoped to see a tour rowboat, but none came our way. After a while we resumed our stroll around town. When we came to the Post Office. I remembered about the priory gardens. We turned right down Stour Street. At what looked like a gate into the yard of a private house, there was a little sign, old and faded. “Priory Gardens,” it said, “Come in and enjoy them,” or something to that effect. We went through the gate, past the house, and found ourselves on a winding path under old, low-hanging trees. There were others on the path, including a woman with a stroller ahead of us.

In a few yards, we were at the River Stour. An arched red brick footbridge crossed the river and ended practically at the door of an austere stucco house. We had boated past that house. John told us that one remaining Franciscan Greyfriar monk lived in that house as a token remnant of the priory. He watched over the land and gave services in the chapel that was a bridge, named Greyfriars Chapel.

We followed the wide stone-paved path beside the river without crossing the bridge. The woman with the stroller abruptly turned left onto a dirt path under the trees. I thought she must be local and taking a shortcut to somewhere.

On the left of the perfect green lawn and flowerbeds leading to the chapel, there was a swath, maybe fifty yards wide, of Queen Anne's Lace and purple asters. It was a wild counterpoint to the formal gardens. I wanted to run through that meadow with my arms outstretched and hair flying in the wind. But I walked into it and took pictures, instead.

Across the meadow we could see the woman with the stroller. A white wall ran along the far side of the meadow, and there were houses behind it. It looked as if there were garbage cans standing against the wall. The woman had parked the stroller and was doing something with those cans. I figured she was picking up rubbish and straightening the cans up on her way home, and went on with my picture taking.

We strolled on to the chapel cum bridge. The paved path ended and footsteps cut into the grass led us there. The building was in wonderful condition, straight and sturdy. It sat on two pointed arches over the River Stour. From the outside, you would never guess its age.

Inside, a hall led through the building to the other side of the river, making the bridge. On either side of the hall was a room. These rooms were a museum and gift shop. Always the museum hounds, we spent some time there. Then we went upstairs. Inside, and particularly in the stairway and upstairs, rough stucco between heavy, crooked timbers gave the age of the building away.

A Byzantine icon hung in the stairwell. It fit so well with the aged architecture, as if the whole scene was a painting from the past. Upstairs the single small room was set up as a simple chapel. There was a little bench and two chairs. That was all the seating. Candles burned in a metal holder and in glasses on the floor in the center of the room. Behind the candles was a small altar - just a table covered with a cloth. Once a week, on Wednesdays at 12:30 p.m., a service was held there. Otherwise, it was a place of pilgrimage and prayer. The intimacy and simplicity there felt as sacred as the soaring arches of a cathedral. It was a beautiful place.

As we were walking back from the chapel, Bob said, “Do you suppose that woman is homeless?”

I looked across the little meadow. The stroller was backed against the wall. The woman sat beside it with her head on folded arms. It was too far away to see if there was anything in the stroller for sure, but it looked empty.

Now, when I remember the little meadow, I can see across it to the woman with her head on her arms and the stroller beside her. And I wonder.

August 16, Thursday

We walked into town in the morning early on purpose to get into the Canterbury Tales attraction before it got crowded. When I first saw the ads for the exhibit, I wasn't interested. It looked to me like some touristy thing best to be avoided. We passed the building and gift shop every time we walked in and out of town. But more than once we saw mobs of school groups packing the entrance walk, so I asked Joe about it. He and Valerie, who helps him out with the guest house, said it was a great educational show and that they bussed in groups from all over Kent for it. Well, we saw the school kids. So we put it on our To Do list.

The staff at the attraction was young people, all dressed in medieval costume. That certainly helped set the scene. The show was a series of life-size dioramas illustrating scenes from some of the most popular of Chaucer's tales. The dioramas were well done with good characterization and nice settings. We were given audio earphones that told the tales and gave background as we went along. They had scenes from the Prologue in the Tabard Inn in Southwark, London, The Knight's Tale, The Miller's Tale, and the Wife of Bath's tale. It really was a great introduction to Chaucer's tales, especially for kids and for adults who never read “that kind of stuff.” It takes away the musty high literary reputation avoided by many, and shows that older literature is really just good stories.

After the show we walked up to the BoHo Café to use our computer. The first table we chose was too drafty. At the second table we couldn't get a network signal. So I went up to the counter and asked about it. The server behind the counter said that the tables by window the best for computer work. Their network server had to be in another building or upstairs right over the door. We squeezed into a little corner against the front plate glass window of the café. The table was at least eighteen inches across. I had hot chocolate; Bob had tea. Whoever was working on the computer got to put her/his cup on the table. The other person had to sit and hold his/her cup, the table was that small. We worked there until after noon.

Work done, we packed up the computer into my backpack where it always rode, and went back to Custard Tart Café. We climbed up the steep narrow winding stairs to the homey little tearoom. That was part of the fun of it, climbing those old, steep stairs. I had the custard tart I had wanted. It was as delicious as I had imagined. Bob had jacket potato with chilli. Two “young ladies” (our age) came in and sat at the table next to us. They were merry and friendly. These gals were definitely among the Young at Heart. They had taken the bus to Canterbury from Dover on a whim. Since they were over sixty, they could take buses free all over County Kent. So they just set out for the day. They said that in a year they would be able to go free all over Britain. They're planning to pack a little overnight bag and climb on the buses from area to area to see how long it will take them to get to Scotland. Sure wish I could go along!

After this extended social lunch, Bob and I split up for a couple of hours and each of us went our own way. We were to meet at the Custard Tart for tea at 3:30. I just enjoyed strolling around town. I did buy some postcards. The skies clouded up around 3:30. It was sprinkling when we walked home after tea.

August 17, Friday

Sunny again, with a cool breeze. Warm in the sun, but cool in the shade. I wore in my red fleece jacket most of the day again.

A ways down the street from Wincheap Guest House was a large Norman ruin. It looked like mostly just some walls with window holes in them. We decided to take a look at it, since we walked past it every day. It turned out to be the remains of Canterbury Castle. The fortress was originally built in 1086 by William of Normandy to solidify his holdings after the battle of Hastings. At that time it was probably just a deep ditch around some wooden buildings. Twenty years later a stone keep was built there. What we saw was the remains of that keep, much altered over the years.

We climbed some new cement spiral stairs to look through the wall openings. There was more to the building than met the eye. In several places new stairs had been put for access to corridors inside the ancient walls. There were well-done signs and interpretive exhibits, and a nice large lawn surrounded the ruins. We played in the ruins for quite a while. A castle built just after the Battle of Hastings was, to us, an historical find! We wondered that such an interesting attraction didn't have a large sign on the lawn. We had no idea what it was until we found some of the interpretive displays. The ruins are at the foot of Castle Street. That made sense.

At breakfast yesterday Valerie told us how to get to Dane John, a different way to walk to town that was through a park. So after the Norman ruins we followed the path she told us to take through a car park, and up onto a high walkway along the top of the old city walls. On our right, over the parapet, traffic sped along on the A28 circular bypass of the old city. On our left, below us, was a long park with fountains, walkways, play areas, and a tea take-away. There had been an open green in that area since at least 1105.

Along the edge of the high walkway were historic stone gun gates with interpretive signage. The gun gates were ten or twelve-foot high half circle walls with gun apertures that once had roofs. One still had part of a roof. We'd never seen anything quite like that before, and stopped at each one.

A tall mound, originally a Roman burial site, sat in the park near the city wall. Though the walkway and park are called “Dane John,” they take their name from the mound. That is Dane John. There is a memorial obelisk on top. Memorial obelisks are a favorite English outdoor sculpture. You can find them even out on hilltops on the heath and moors.

Dane John Park and mound were first landscaped in 1790, and have often won awards for their flowers and lawns. We climbed a path that wound around and around to the top of the mound. From it we had a great view of the park and the city, though the Cathedral was hidden behind trees.

We got off the city wall walkway at the bus station and cut through the modern stores to the old section of town and BoHo Café. I sent out a Postcard from Britain07 and we caught up on all our email. It took an hour or so. I sipped another hot chocolate as I tapped away. Hot chocolate in British shops is served in tall glasses. The chocolate is silky and creamy. Most of the time it is topped with fresh whipped real cream. It is so rich that it's a meal in itself.

We walked back home and past Wincheap Guest House to Joe's neighborhood pub, The King's Head. Inside, it was nicely decorated, warm, and comfortable. Bob went up to the bar to get our drinks and had a good time chatting with the old boys loitering there. We enjoyed a hot lunch at the pub. I took pictures of the homey fireplace wall with its hanging copper pots and dried plants. We just needed to see Joe's pub before we left, he talked about it so much. He was on the pub lawn bowling team and had a game one night we were there. They lost.

After lunch we went back into town by way of Dane John again, but this time we strolled down on the walkway through the park. The green lawns and flower gardens were beautiful. We shopped around town and picked up some more souvenir gifts. For tea we had an ice cream sundae, which we ate sitting on a ledge around a small flagstone courtyard. Then we went home to pack. We were leaving the next day for Tostock, our favorite village in Suffolk.