I think that what we enjoyed most about our
UK trip were the walks in the countryside. There seem to be so many public
pathways with such easy access. I found the walks through and beside open
fields fairly easy going. Forested areas with the accompanying tree roots and
branches were a little more difficult.
On one day we made a tenuous beginning on St. Michael’s Way, an
extension of the pilgrimage to Santiago in Spain. I’m not sure if we were at
the beginning or the end of the trek and where the earlier pilgrims crossed the
sea to the European mainland.
There were lots of churches scattered
around the hamlets, villages and towns and we often stopped to look around,
sometimes venturing inside the buildings and sometimes just wandering around
the adjacent cemetery. Lyle would read the dates on the older headstones. The
very old ones were usually located right beside the walls of the church and
mostly the markings on these were obliterated by age and weather.
I have included two pictures with this
post. Both were taken in Chipping Campden but they are fairly typical of the
churches we saw in other areas.
The first picture shows the steeple of St.
Paul’s Anglican Church. The tall steeples and high buildings were truly an
architectural feat for their day and age.
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| St. Paul's Anglican Church |
The second picture looks out over some of
the gravestones to the field beyond where a flock of sheep are grazing. It is fairly
typical of the peace and tranquility we encountered in our explorations and it
is one of my favourite pictures.
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| Sheep graving beyond some gravestones |
On the night before our flight back to
Canada, we stayed in London. It was a Sunday and so we caught the train into
the city to attend the organ recital and evening prayer service at Westminster
Abbey. The organ was both thunderous and magnificent. Although the church
service was attended mostly by tourists, it was an eerie feeling to be sitting
in a building with such a sacred and historic past. As Lyle commented, our pew
was only feet away from the resting place of the remains of Sir Isaac Newton.
It was a perfect way to finish our travels
and with All Saints Day just around the corner, a fitting time to be writing
this post.
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