ST PAULS

Another wet weekend so we decided on a trip to London. The local rail service is called c2c -why? It runs from Southend on Sea to City- see!! Anyway they have just increased the fare from 9 to 10 quid for a day return which includes all travel by bus or underground in London so it's not too bad.

St Pauls Cathedral was our main target today and, despite my reluctance to pay to go to church, I have to admit that this was one of those times when my parsimony was unfounded. As it happened we had a "two for one" offer in conjunction with our c2c ticket, so I actually got in for free! On the basis of this largesse we decided that we would pay for a guided tour and made a very wise choice.

St Pauls is so much more than just a Cathedral. It is an architectural masterpiece,a repository of English history and tradition and an overwhelming experience irrespective of religious feeling.

We sat in the Chapel of St Michael and St George where holders of the KCMG have name plates on the pews and in which they are entitled to have their family weddings/baptisms and funeral services. There is also an OBE Chapel which gives similar privileges to holders of that award.That's the Order of the British Empire (not the Over Bloody Eighty club!!)

The tour took two hours and I think we could easily have spent another two hours looking at the various plaques/monuments and tombstones. Our guide,Michael, showed us a plaque dedicated to those men and women, who, in WW11 went up onto the roof of the cathedral during the blitzes and, in the cold and darkness of the blackout then prevailing, guarded the building from the incendiary bombs which fell quite constantly. The Cathedral did suffer some damage during the blitz from high explosive bombs, but to no great extent. It was said that the Germans deliberately avoided damaging St Pauls because it was such a significant landmark to tell them just where they were over London!!

We climbed several million stairs up to the Whispering Gallery which is at the base of the rotunda and offers superb views of the transept below. Carol ventured further upwards leaving the poor old man to recover, and the picture above is one that she took from the roof of St Pauls. It was a pity that it was such a shit of a day.

Lunch in the crypt was crap! But with some sort of revived stamina we staggered off to visit the Handel House Museum in Brook Street. I had not realised that Handel had not only lived in England for some 36 years, but became a citizen of the country and wrote his Messiah here.

One of the volunteer ladies took us in hand and we were given a fascinating talk about those times and the associations which Handel made during his years in the house. Well worth the money (two for one again!!)

On Sunday we drove to Lakeside and saw a beautiful movie "Miss Potter". Absolutely perfect entertainment although we were two of only three people in the cinema!A quick visit to the Farmers Market there (it is held on the 1st Sunday of each month) where we bought two large punnets of strawberrys for a quid. It was nearly closing time and the vendor gave us the last two for the price of one. A great two for omne weekend.