An Update Long Overdue, part 1

My 4PM Medieval Writing seminar was cancelled, so I've been spending the past two hours goofing off online, and now I feel as if I should do something productive. It's been quite a while since I last posted, and a lot has happened.

All right, then. Let's see if I can remember it all.

Sunday, Nov 2- I woke up much earlier than I would have liked to on a Sunday to catch a coach out to Wicken Fen with the Dickinson group. We've been reading Waterland by Graham Swift, a novel that takes place in the Fens of western East Anglia and into the Eastern Midlands. Basically, when they started out, the Fens were an enormous stretch of flat, grey swamp land with the slightly raised town of Ely in the middle. Over time, Dutch engineers came in to drain the land so that it could be used for farming. This caused a rift between the new farmers and the "water people" who had lived in the Fens and for whom water was a way of life.

Most of the Fens have been converted to farmland, but in the 1899 some land was bought by the Natural Trust, and they have been pumping the water back into the land which makes up Wicken Fen in order to preserve the ecosystem as it was before the irrigation was put in.

The Fen was nice and it was a fairly nice day, but I think I would have appreciated it better if I wasn't so tired. We had a few minutes of spare time at the end of the tour, so Lauren Martin, Jen, Katie, and I went to the reserve's coffee shop and orderded tea and a scone. I love being in a country were tea and a scone is a perfectly normal and acceptable thing to want to order.

Then we drove on to Ely, which was one of the last towns to hold out against William the Conqueror because it was so difficult to get to across the swamps. It's a very small city, but still likes to call itself a city because it's the biggest thing around. Once we got into town, Chad, Lauren Deitz, Leah, Duncan, Tristan, Dan, and I went to a pub and got the first decent meal I had had in a long time. The guy at the bar passed a few snide comments over the fact that "all these Americans" were in his establishment, and even came over to us at one point to warn us that our meals would be a bit late "because we don't use microwaves here." Thanks, man. That's really the only anti-American sentiment that I've heard so far, but I know that other people have heard worse. Oh well. It wasn't so bad so it didn't bother me that much.

After lunch we met up with the rest of the group to tour Oliver Cromwell's house and museum, which, to be honest, was a bit cheesy. The British have this love of animatronic puppets and staged scenes in their museums, and it's a bit off-putting at some points. I also think this museum was actually geared toward younger visitors, which sort of trivialized it at times. The running theme through all the plaques and posters throughout the museum was trying to help you establish whether you consider Cromwell a hero or a villain. You could tell that they wanted to have the appearence of being unbiased, but there was a definite bias toward the "hero" interpretation. I'm not too convinved.

From the Cromwell museum we walked across the lawn to Ely Cathedral, which was spared from the destruction of the Civil War because Cromwell had a special liking for it. Right away, I could tell why, although I can't explain it. I've realized that I really love cathedrals, that there's something amazingly majestic and calming about them, especially the ones that are not crowded by massive amounts of tourists. Ely is an absolutely beautiful cathedral, and is probably my favorite next to St. Paul's. Once we got on the inside, I walked around and admired the long nave, the beautiful painted ceilings, and then went into the Lady Chapel off to the side, which was rather bare but had very large white windows and a lot of light coming in, and intricate stone work that still had some of the original paint on it, which I love seeing.

There was a special evensong service that night for All Souls' Day, and so the choir was practicing while we were walking around. The music just filled the entire building as the light was flooding through the stained glass. The entire experience was perfect and I felt so at peace and happy, as if that was exactly the way you are supposed to experience a cathedral.

We were invited to stay for the service that evening or to walk around town. Originally I had planned to use that time to explore the town, but after hearing the choir practicing in the afternoon, I really wanted to stay for the service. We had gone to evensong at St. Paul's, but I suspect because it was All Saint's Day and that it was a Requiem Eucharist that this service was far more elaborate than the one at St. Paul's. There weren't that many people there, and the sun was going down just as the service began, so the candles were all lit. There was incense burning throughout the enitre service, and the choir was just wonderful. They were singing Maurice Duruflé's Requiem, I found out later, in case anyone wants to know. If I have the time I think I might go to evensong at Norwich Cathedral one of these days, just because it's always such a beautiful service.

After the service, those of us who had stayed met up with those who had walked around the city, and we got on the bus back to Norwich.

There will soon be another installment of "An Update Long Overdue" detailing everything else that has happened. I will update pictures on Photobucket one of these days, but in the meantime I leave you with three of my favorites from Ely Cathedral.