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Winchester Pilgrimage
Jul. 16th, 2008 06:55 pmYesterday I ended up sleeping straight through until noon and took that as a sign not to go into the office and lay low for the day. Thankfully today I'm feeling better.
Winchester Pilgrimage was everything I'd hope it would be. The event is held at the Hospital of Saint Cross, in Winchester, "England's oldest and most perfect almshouse". The hospital forms a square with the church one one side, rooms for the brothers who live there on another, with the ambulatory opposite, and the great hall and gate opposite the church. Outside of the square there are gardens and some other outlying buildings, and a couple of cemeteries. People camping in period tents put theirs up inside the square, those with non-period tents go into the outer fields where they can't be seen, and then there was sleeping space in the ambulatory for those without tents. I was amazed that there was a direct train from Leeds to Winchester, but there was and I got in around 2:30 and was picked up by the event steward on his way to the site. A couple others had also arrived early and we set up camps until a sudden and very strong rain shower drove everyone indoors. ( Friday evening. )
( The pilgrimage. )
( The rest of the day. )
Sunday was mostly hang around and clean-up, and then Raphe took me back to the train station so I could wend my way back to Stansted. I'd just gotten on to the train and gotten settled when four more people trooped on laden with baggage --![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bend_gules, Robert, Asbiorn, and Logan. So we grabbed ourselves two tables in an adjacent compartment and had an enjoyable trip back to London, with Robert and bend_gules sharing with us some fantastic Spanish sausages that they'd recently acquired, and we all shared a couple of bottles of cider. The concept of being able to have alcohol on public trains is quite foreign to me. My first introduction to it had been on the train from Leeds to Winchester two days earlier, when two stops before I got off, a very drunk hen party (= bachelorette party) got on to the carriage I was in, and continued drinking heavily. I can't imagine ever being such an irritating nuisance in a public place, but that's just me.
We parted paths at London Waterloo and I continued my way to Stansted, managing not to die under the weight of all my books (oh, I didn't mention; after feast prizes for the people who'd gotten the most pilgrimage questions right were given out. At 17.5/18, I came in second, and came away with a complete Middle English edition of Chaucer. I have one back in the US, but none here and as I aluded to above, I'd like to try reading it again. But that was one more book to carry home...)
Winchester Pilgrimage was everything I'd hope it would be. The event is held at the Hospital of Saint Cross, in Winchester, "England's oldest and most perfect almshouse". The hospital forms a square with the church one one side, rooms for the brothers who live there on another, with the ambulatory opposite, and the great hall and gate opposite the church. Outside of the square there are gardens and some other outlying buildings, and a couple of cemeteries. People camping in period tents put theirs up inside the square, those with non-period tents go into the outer fields where they can't be seen, and then there was sleeping space in the ambulatory for those without tents. I was amazed that there was a direct train from Leeds to Winchester, but there was and I got in around 2:30 and was picked up by the event steward on his way to the site. A couple others had also arrived early and we set up camps until a sudden and very strong rain shower drove everyone indoors. ( Friday evening. )
( The pilgrimage. )
( The rest of the day. )
Sunday was mostly hang around and clean-up, and then Raphe took me back to the train station so I could wend my way back to Stansted. I'd just gotten on to the train and gotten settled when four more people trooped on laden with baggage --
bend_gules, Robert, Asbiorn, and Logan. So we grabbed ourselves two tables in an adjacent compartment and had an enjoyable trip back to London, with Robert and bend_gules sharing with us some fantastic Spanish sausages that they'd recently acquired, and we all shared a couple of bottles of cider. The concept of being able to have alcohol on public trains is quite foreign to me. My first introduction to it had been on the train from Leeds to Winchester two days earlier, when two stops before I got off, a very drunk hen party (= bachelorette party) got on to the carriage I was in, and continued drinking heavily. I can't imagine ever being such an irritating nuisance in a public place, but that's just me.We parted paths at London Waterloo and I continued my way to Stansted, managing not to die under the weight of all my books (oh, I didn't mention; after feast prizes for the people who'd gotten the most pilgrimage questions right were given out. At 17.5/18, I came in second, and came away with a complete Middle English edition of Chaucer. I have one back in the US, but none here and as I aluded to above, I'd like to try reading it again. But that was one more book to carry home...)
