Welcome to the Wakey Races 2: Race around the north - Salisbury, Andover, M25

9 July 2026

The holiday is over, but there is still a day to enjoy, so we decided to travel back via Salisbury and Andover. We arrived in Salisbury late morning, and walked to the Cathedral.  It is a magnificent building, one of the most imposing I've seen.  Inside, we are told that the Cathedral is closing early, and that we can join the last tour, which started about 15 minutes ago. Our guide was, sadly, one of the worst I have ever had.  Far too willing to discuss irrelevancies with a vocal member of the tour, and starting talking as soon as they arrived at the next location, without checking that all members of the tour have arrived.  We may have done better going it alone.

Indeed, we did exactly that, so we got more time to see the Magna Carta.  The Salisbury version is so much clearer than the Lincoln Version. We saw the Lincoln Copy here, but didn't come away with a picture.  Nevertheless, what I said there still applies.  If you live in the Western World, this is one of the most important historical documents. It is protected from direct sunlight; it is dimly lit. Photography is forbidden.  My picture comes from the plaque outside the display chamber. The Cathedral restaurant doesn't close part way through the day, so we enjoyed lunch in the courtyard, undercover and in shade. Then it was on to Andover, less than 20 mile onward, but a pretty drive.  Jo said she had never been there. I said there was nothing much to see.  Now she has been there, and enjoyed some refreshment in a little café that just says 'old English ladies' (Miss Marple) in its style and presentation. Then onwards to the dreaded M25.  We had avoided the 5-mile queue at the tunnel, to sit in slow moving traffic for about 40 minutes and travel less than 2 junctions.  The remains of the caravan, apparently destroyed by a collision with the concrete wall that separates the north and southbound traffic, told us why we had waited so long.  The nutters abounded, overtaking on the inside, weaving through the traffic like their lives depended on it.   When the jam freed, the worst offender was still only 2 cars ahead.  Just as we got going, we were stopped again by a second incident.  For about another 20 minutes.  With less than half a tank of fuel, and the consumption display telling me 2.5 mile per gallon, I was starting to get range anxiety. We stopped at South Mimms for Dinner (a snack really), and arrived home mid-evening.

A lovely holiday.

Lincoln - City Break - Castles, Kings and Dragons

28 May 2024

We are being 'tourists' as well as friends, so we will get to see some of the city that we usually would not.  Today we visited the castle.  There's a lot more info here, https://www.lincolncastle.com/.  We had a very entertaining and informative guide, that we followed around in the drizzle. They have some very large dragons. I'm not too sure of the significance of them, but they are impressive.

More importantly, they hold one of copies of the most important documents in the world - the Magna Carta ("Great Charter of Freedoms").  Originally, it was simply a treaty between the king and the barons and was soon broken, but it encompassed an idea - the king is not all-powerful. From that idea, all our personal freedoms have evolved, most particularly that everyone (yes, really everyone) is subject to the rule of law.

The document is held in a special room.  When we were last in Lincoln, it was held in the Cathedral, and access to it was closed. I'm very please to say I've seen it.  I can't read it, of course, it's in Latin.

The castle, itself, is an amazing place, partly because of its size, but also because of some of the construction that has happened.  It now holds the Lincoln Courts building inside its walls, and at one point also had a prison.

The Picture shows how the prisoners were allowed to attend church services.  One per cubicle, and all you can see from there is the pulpit.