Meg's & Lon's Magnificent Adventure: Peterborough, England

Elona typing

The drive to Peterborough was just beautiful – passing some amazing landscapes and of course more sheep!!! To get to this town you need to pass through Sherwood Forest and we have to say we were very tempted to turn off and have a look but due to time restrictions we decided that we needed to keep going and to arrive as on time as we could at Lin and Keith’s place.

We were warmly welcomed by these lovely people whom we met on our transatlantic cruise from Brazil to Portugal; Keith was the orchestrator of the Cruise Olympics that Megs and I ‘participated’ in J They were also part of the team for Trivia and just such a wonderful couple that we spent loads of time with either around the pool or dancing, drinking; you name it!!

Lin knew that Megs and I had never tried mushy peas and so they served us up the traditional Fish and Chips with mushy peas. Fabulous start to our stay!! Lots of catching up was done and Lin informed us that we had Keith to ourselves as she was working. He had stuff planned – of course he did!!!!!! Mr Organiser that he is we had a fabulous day biking around a local park called Ferry Meadows. There were numerous bike and walking paths that you could take to enjoy the lake views and beautiful scenery. It was such a beautiful day too – sunny but not too hot – just lovely and after a couple of hours we stopped to have a drink at a café. This place had everything!

After our adventure in the park we headed of to the town centre and were very surprised at the size of Peterborough; much bigger than we thought and with some very interesting history – especially surrounding the cathedral.

So a little bit of background first -

The origins of the Cathedral can be traced back to King Peada of the Middle Angles who founded the first monastery on the site in 655AD. The monastic settlement was almost entirely destroyed by the Vikings in 870 and rebuilt as a Benedictine Abbey between 960 and 970. The Abbey church then survived Hereward the Wake’s attack on the Abbey in 1069, and remained intact until an accidental fire destroyed the second Abbey here in 1116. It was rebuilt in its present form between 1118 and 1238. It became the Cathedral of the new Diocese of Peterborough in 1541 and it is now known as the Cathedral Church of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew. It is unusual among medieval cathedrals in Great Britain because of its triple front (dominated by the statues of the three saints) and overall asymmetrical appearance.

It was the burial place of two Queens - Katherine of Aragon and Mary Queen of Scots. The former English queen Catherine of Aragon was buried in the cathedral's cemetery in 1536. In 1587, the body of Mary Queen of Scots was also buried there, but was later removed to Westminster Abbey on the orders of her son, King James I of England.

Now what’s really interesting (well to us anyway) is the fact that this is one of the oldest monasteries and one of the last to be abolished by King Henry VIII. Yeah get that – the bugger realized even though individual monks took a vow of poverty, monasteries were usually very wealthy because rich barons gave them land and endowments. To add to that the monks often experimented with herbs and plants which they made into medicines that they sold as they did with wine etc as we know from the Dom Perignon information from France. These monks in England were no different and due to the fact they actually did VERY well financially the King decided to get rid of them because they were getting too powerful due to their financial status.

Keith did a fabulous job of showing us around – we had an easy lunch of burgers and hot dogs as we were going to be greeted by the beautiful Lin with a curry when we got back to their place!!!! YUM!!!! We had such a wonderful time with Keith and Lin meeting their girls and enjoying many laughs. Make sure you check out the famous shot of Keith; let me explain… Keith not only is an ex Grunt but also an Ex Cop and in the toilet – where as we all know; families keep their best photos (It’s true!!!!) is a fabulous poster of Keith himself with an advertising of the Underground and it’s police presence and their in the front is our Keith – Bless Him.

We said a sad farewell to our friends to head back to family to cool out for a couple of weeks before heading to Turkey. Now the next two posts will be individual as I spent time with my sister and her family and Megs spent time with her sister. We will post these separately and then start together again from Sarah’s birthday when we joined up again.

We set off with Keith as guide to cycle around Ferry Meadow. It has been a while since I have ridden a bicycle but as the saying goes "its just like riding a bike" I felt confident that it would not be a problem - I mean how else would the saying have come to be?????

No major issues but let me tell you it did take a little bit to feel balanced and fully in control.

I wonder what they are all looking at???

There is a local craftsman who has created a few of these

amazing artworks that you can find around the park.

We head off to explore the next section of the parkways...

And we arrive at the stables

Another of the statues by the local man - this was an amazing totem

With incredible detailed carvings all the way round,

it was surprising what animals and motifs can be found.

Ferry Meadows also has a large lake that plays home to an extensive number of water birds.

It is a very pretty place

Keith admiring the scenery - we were actually looking at a red kite - a bird that is not the toy

it is a great place for the family and there are water sports on the lake as well

Ohh we also went cross country riding - and did the ducking and weaving of trees and other obstacles soooo well!!

We stopped to enjoy a refreshment

Poppies and wild flowers. The park has a section dedicated just to wild flowers. Unfortunately we missed Blue Bell Season - apparently just beautiful.

Keith's media debut for the London Underground.

Peterborough's Cathedral

Very impressive and after recently reading Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth, it was really interesting to read the history of the how the Cathedral started out as a monastery until Henry VIII abolished all monasteries as they were making money that was not directly available to the throne.