Woke up this morning to drizzle again. We had talked briefly yesterday about possibly revisiting Bude today if the weather was nicer, but instead we decided to pack up and head to Salisbury as originally planned.
After breakfast, all but Ed walked over to the church one last time. We had never been inside the church before for whatever reason. I peeked in yesterday but there was a service I didn’t want to interrupt. The church was beautiful. I tried to imagine Grandpa Davis ringing the bells as a child. They had some cannonballs and other relics of the Battle of Stratton on one wall; I wonder if they were there when he was young. We also wandered some more around the churchyard looking for relatives. Anne had told me that the sets of baby twins who died were buried there but I couldn’t find the gravesite she had described.
My feet were soaked from the search, so I got into the packed van barefoot and we set off to Salisbury to see the famed cathedral. We had never been to Salisbury, and the town was very interesting, comprising of architecture from multiple historical periods. We had lunch in the cathedral, then went to see the Salisbury copy of the Magna Carta, which is the self-proclaimed best. Then we went into the church itself. A major project to renovate the pipe organ was underway, and the work and the exhibit describing it were interesting. A chaplain talked to Dad a bit about it.
After our short visit it was time to walk back to the van and make the short drive to Stonehenge, as we had booked tickets for 4:00 online. Astonishingly, none of us (except Barb) had been to Stonehenge either. After years of being told to temper expectations of Stonehenge, it actually was impressive. I think the land around it is what makes it so – vast rolling hills, virtually treeless, with burial mounds all around it. It was very windy and grey, but that added to the mystery. For future reference, you can get pretty close to the fenced area without tickets, and it might be good to do so sometime when the light is low in the sky.
The drive back to Oxford was tedious due to traffic, accidents and a few wrong turns. Once back we had cocktails and chatted with Alan, then he made eggs and smoked salmon with bagels and we broke out the cheese we had bought in Cornwall (Red Leicester, Wensleydale w/ apricot and double Gloucester with onion and chive).