Introduction to the Fens

[shewhomust]

Three days of sunshine: short days and not warm, but sunny while they lasted. Correspondingly, our excursions have been brief. On Christmas Eve, as I said, a quick visit to Ely, on a bus driven by Santa Claus: when he stopped for a cigarette break, we got out and walked down to the river, then back across the meadow to the cathedral (saving a proper, fee-paying visit for a more leisurely occasion) and home. Then across the fens to Whicken for lunch.

We ate our Christmas dinner in the evening, so there was time to go out in the afternoon to Bottisham, which is where durham_rambler's father always said his family came from. We didn't find any obvious evidence of this, but a pretty church, some attractive buildings (with plenty of scope for discussing what their original purpose might have been), plenty of people walking purposefully between the different stages of their Christmas. Under D.'s direction, we took the scenic route home, through more pretty villages with thatched cottages and tall churches catching the low sun (Swaffham Prior has two chuches adjacent to each other, one with a striking octagonal tower). We bumped down narrow lanes across the fens, all right-angled corners and little bridges. There are windmills everywhere: some to grind corn, says D., but some to power the pumps which raise water from the drainage ditches and pour it into the rivers - the Cam and the Great Ouse.

This morning I accompanied D. to collect the newspaper, and a guided tour of the immediate locality - the building which is a barn from one side and a medieval chapel from the other, the distant view of the cathedral, the two medieval hospitals which a now a very private house, shielded from profane eyes by a high wall and an even higher hedge. They do serious hedges in these parts: it's very windy, says D., which may explain why a farm standing alone in a vista of fields is surrounded by a high square of hedge, but not why it is so neatly trimmed.

A not unduly leisurely lunch meant we were late going out this afternoon, to Rampton this time, where we noticed a yew tree so savagely clipped it looked like a giant darning mushroom. Also more thatched cottages, a thatched church and 'Giant's Hill' a moated mound which is all that remains of an Anarchy castle (I hadn't met this use of the word, for a castle built during the conflict between Stephen and Matilda). The sky faded from sunshine to dusk with no perceptible sunset, and the field of leeks (probably) which I had noticed on the way out glimmered silver grey.

In other news, I was disappointed in Doctor Who: all that build-up, all that sound and fury, all those faces from the past and - what? No logic, no plot, just emotional manipulation. And not enough Peter Capaldi.

I have started re-reading Mary Poppins. sartorias, gillpolack, ookpik - and nineweaving, please join us - ready when you are!

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Lovely! Probably tomorrow . . . today has filled up, alas.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I hate it when they do that! But tomorrow's good...

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Done!

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

I'm collecting it from the library on Sunday (for the library is closed today - it's the annual public service day off). I'll join you then.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Splendid!

[sovay]

And not enough Peter Capaldi.

Oh. That's damning. I hadn't watched it yet!

That's a beautiful picture of Ely.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Not so much a spoiler, I hope, as rescaling your expectations. It's perfectly possible you will find more to like in it than I did.

And thank you.

I hope you are both as recovered from your excitements as is consistent with interestingly fractured limbs...