2 June ’05, Thursday. Who’s In The Pillory Now ??? …
We were going to do yesterday that we ended up doing today…Why ? RAIN !!! I’m sorry, but sometimes you just don’t want to get out in the wet, and besides, Lou wasn’t feeling so good. She was suffering from a wave of nausea that flowed in a wave from her stomach to her head, and then back. I think it was the red wine from the night before… Anyway, today we packed up, drove to Chester (about 5 miles away), and spent the day as tourists. Chester is a walled Roman city on the Welsh border and they say the “Romans still rule the roost here”. Something that wasn’t Roman, was the beautiful black and white Tudor-style architecture of the “Row”. These were particularly in the shopping district and are the half timbered, two level structures. Chester has been occupied since the “stone age”, but really came in to power as a trading settlement for the Romans about 1 AD. We felt the best way of getting our bearings and finding out what makes this town tick, was to walk the city walls. I don’t know just how far we walked on the walls, but by the time we were through, I was just about through…you know, worn out… tired… wanting to quit… The books, say it is a 40 minute walk, but I’d like to find that person who wrote the book. I don’t know, maybe it was the red wine from Tuesday… I guess it wasn’t just the wall, as every time we came to a place that looked interesting from the wall, we had to leave the wall and check it out. The first exit was when we arrived in the center of the “old town” of Chester. The main shopping area was filled with the “Row” buildings, throngs of people, and more sites that drew us in. One thing we did find, was that we were just in time for, the noon time messages from the Town Crier. The Town Crier for Chester is David Mitchell, and a Town Crier he is… He put the messages out to us and took the time to invite us personally to his town. Fact is, he asked me if I wanted to find a way to keep Louise from spending too much money shopping here in Chester…”of course”, I said, and with that he had Louise step forward, and he strapped her into “leg clamps” with a sentence of: “The stores close at 6pm and I’ll release you at 6:10pm”… and then he turned to me and told me “Of course, it will cost you 15% of what ever I would save by Louise being in “clamps”… We also had stops at a couple of internet cafes, three different Roman ruins, the Roodee racecourse, the city clock tower, and the Chester Cathedral, among other stops along the way. Our self-guided audio-tour through the Cathedral was a real highlight. Construction started in the early part of 1100 and continued with additions until the late 1300’s. In 1190 it became a Benedictine Abbey, and a new Church in the Norman style. One thing that sets this church off from many in England, was due to the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII, the Abbey was closed in 1540, but the next year it became the Cathedral of the newly created Diocese of Chester.
We were going to do yesterday that we ended up doing today…Why ? RAIN !!! I’m sorry, but sometimes you just don’t want to get out in the wet, and besides, Lou wasn’t feeling so good. She was suffering from a wave of nausea that flowed in a wave from her stomach to her head, and then back. I think it was the red wine from the night before… Anyway, today we packed up, drove to Chester (about 5 miles away), and spent the day as tourists. Chester is a walled Roman city on the Welsh border and they say the “Romans still rule the roost here”. Something that wasn’t Roman, was the beautiful black and white Tudor-style architecture of the “Row”. These were particularly in the shopping district and are the half timbered, two level structures. Chester has been occupied since the “stone age”, but really came in to power as a trading settlement for the Romans about 1 AD. We felt the best way of getting our bearings and finding out what makes this town tick, was to walk the city walls. I don’t know just how far we walked on the walls, but by the time we were through, I was just about through…you know, worn out… tired… wanting to quit… The books, say it is a 40 minute walk, but I’d like to find that person who wrote the book. I don’t know, maybe it was the red wine from Tuesday… I guess it wasn’t just the wall, as every time we came to a place that looked interesting from the wall, we had to leave the wall and check it out. The first exit was when we arrived in the center of the “old town” of Chester. The main shopping area was filled with the “Row” buildings, throngs of people, and more sites that drew us in. One thing we did find, was that we were just in time for, the noon time messages from the Town Crier. The Town Crier for Chester is David Mitchell, and a Town Crier he is… He put the messages out to us and took the time to invite us personally to his town. Fact is, he asked me if I wanted to find a way to keep Louise from spending too much money shopping here in Chester…”of course”, I said, and with that he had Louise step forward, and he strapped her into “leg clamps” with a sentence of: “The stores close at 6pm and I’ll release you at 6:10pm”… and then he turned to me and told me “Of course, it will cost you 15% of what ever I would save by Louise being in “clamps”… We also had stops at a couple of internet cafes, three different Roman ruins, the Roodee racecourse, the city clock tower, and the Chester Cathedral, among other stops along the way. Our self-guided audio-tour through the Cathedral was a real highlight. Construction started in the early part of 1100 and continued with additions until the late 1300’s. In 1190 it became a Benedictine Abbey, and a new Church in the Norman style. One thing that sets this church off from many in England, was due to the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII, the Abbey was closed in 1540, but the next year it became the Cathedral of the newly created Diocese of Chester.