Just another day in England having a pint in a pub built in 1370 and roaming around in a 1000 year old cathedral. Yesterday started with a stroll outside of town to see St. Martin’s church, reportedly the oldest English-speaking church in the world (“built before 597”). It was early in the morning so the church was closed, but it’s got an atmospheric graveyard around it that I shared with only one other person, an old British fellow who probably expected to be alone while he did his morning tai-chi.
From there it was back to Canterbury Cathedral, where I asked one of the volunteers about the shiny black stones used for building many of the walls on the grounds. He didn’t know, but unbeknownst to me he apparently activated the Canterbury volunteer network bat signal, and from that point onwards any time a volunteer saw me they asked if I was the gentleman who wanted to know about the stones (they are flint, which is one of the few hard building stones found in the local chalk deposits). I ended up chatting with a lot of elderly British folks on this visit.
Thursday was the choir’s one day off, so a group decided they wanted to go punting, which is British for “ride on a boat”. The river here is crystal clear – the chalk formations act as a massive filter – and four of us took an hour ride, gondola-style, through a small nature reserve and under ancient tunnels in the city; life could clearly be worse.
After a bit more roaming about on the city’s ancient Roman walls and through the narrow streets, we finished the day at the Parrot, a pub located in a building that was built in 1370. In America that building would be some sort of national monument, but in England it’s simply a good place to get a pint and some sticky toffee pudding.
Always wanted to try the sticky toffee pudding. Was it good?