The "Bury's"

Let's see, where to start? After trekking in from Bracknell on Friday afternoon, Mich and I had invitations to take the kids bowling that evening with some of their school friends, so we rode out to the bowling alley for a Friday evening there. As Michelle can attest, I bowled the game of my life, getting somewhere north of 160 - I don't remember the exact score, and got a turkey to boot. Normally, I'm quite happy to catch 120 or so. To top things off, they were giving out bowling pins every time you got a strike, so I got a couple of bowling pins, which I gave to Dalton and Maggie. It was kind of funny, because Dalton was holding on to his pin for dear life, and I think that was the highlight of the evening for him. I guess that's a couple more souvenirs to bring home.

We roused ourselves the next morning to find that the weather predictions had once again been wrong - this time to our benefit, as the expectations had been for rain and clouds, but instead it was reasonably bright and warm. (For all the non-Brits out there, I should clarify - warm means it was north of 50F.) So I quickly hired a car for the weekend, we piled in and went out for the day. We opted to go to Salisbury and Shaftesbury, as we had talked about the two towns for a bit, and so out we went, bypassing the villages of Upper Wallop, Middle Wallop, Nether Wallop, and Red Rice.

Given that we had a late start, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that we didn't have too much time to spend in either place, but we started off at Salisbury, best known for its cathedral, and not, as some may suspect, for its steak. I didn't see a single sign for "Salisbury steak" anywhere, so I suspect that is yet another instance of a misnomer. The cathedral itself is a beautiful structure, with the highest spire of any cathedral in England, and duly impressive tombs inside, including the tomb of Edward Seymour and Lady Catherine Grey (sister of Jane Grey, Queen of England for nine days). One of the neatest things, I thought, was the fact that the cathedral was still largely painted. Although venturing inside other old buildings is still awe-inspiring, it is incredible to think that at one point, the interiors were more than just stone and marble, they were painted in a myriad of colours. Salisbury does an excellent job of bringing those colours to life. After visiting the cathedral, we wandered the streets for a bit, popping in another small church (built in 1219 - actually pre-dating the cathedral itself) before heading to Shaftesbury.

Shaftesbury has essentially one sight - Gold Hill. There is also the remains of an abbey and a small museum, but most people come here for Gold Hill. Interestingly enough, when driving through town, you can figure out where it is from the oversized sculpture of a loaf of bread sitting on the street at the top of the hill. I did find out why this is, but I figure that if you want to know, you'll just have to do your own research - the answer isn't too hard to find. And then we putted home, grabbing fish and chips before calling it a night.