Wednesday 17 December

Another glorious day in Abbots Ripton, sunny and warmish. Today was a return trip to Peterborough to view Peterborough Cathedral.
This time we drove to Peterborough, rather than taking the train, at a more leisurely pace and I was able to see more of the country-side.
The Cathedral is another ancient site that began as a Monastic Church founded by King Peada in 655. The Danes destroyed the Church in 870, which was rebuilt as part of a Benedictine Abbey in 972. An accidental fire destroyed the Abbey in 1116 and between 1116 and 1238 it was rebuilt to its present form.
Admission was free but I had to pay £2.00 to take photographs, a small price to pay to have permanent reminders of my visit to the Cathedral.
I know that the phrase "history comes alive" is over used but it truly did for me here in the Cathedral. I saw the former burial site of Mary Queen of Scots, and the burial site of Catherine of Aragon. In 1177 relics of Thomas Becket, a blood stained piece of clothing, a piece of stone stained with his blood and other items were brought to the Cathedral.
I was unable to identify the Cathedra as none of the seating near the Altar seemed to stand out as our Cathedra does in St. George's. Maybe they had ready moved it down to be closer to the Nave Altar.
After our tour we set out to find a geocahe hidden somewhere on the Cathedral grounds. This was a puzzle cache which involved finding five sites around the grounds where we would find numbers somewhere nearby which we had to record. Two of the sites were under ancient sundials on the Cathedral walls, while another involved counting the number of crosses in view and subtracting the number of large swords we could see. It gave us the opportunity to see many of the outbuildings and the cemetery. We eventually found the cache container in the hollow section of a tree nearby to the memorial of the first mayor of Peterbourough, whose name I forget.
After all that exercise we set out to find a pub for some lunch. After an exhaustive search we had to settle for Pizzaexpress, which may sound like a fast food restaurant, but was far from it. I had my first pizza with a sunny side up egg in the middle, and it was delicious.
We arrived home in time for an early dinner so that Jeff and Louise could joins others in the village for a door-to-door carol sing. I had to forgo that pleasure in order to babysit Alexander and Maeghan.
One thing I have noticed here is that they do like their "drinks" After the carol sing the carolers were to meet at the pub for "drinks". And I believe we are to get together for "drinks" before the 10:00 pm Christmas Eve Service. I think I shall give that a miss so that I will still be awake for the service.