30.07 - Day 197 - Bury St Edmunds to Ely to Coventry
Tuesday 30th July - Bury St Edmunds - Coventry (Day 197)
The kids don’t know it yet, but we’re planning to visit 5 cathedrals on our drive to Mynytho - obviously we don’t tell them that up front, but instead drip feed this information as we go.
After completing their schoolwork at the Grange Hotel we head into Bury St Edmunds to its cathedral where after walking through the rose garden, the kids attention is absorbed by a large Lego Model being built of the cathedral using 200,000 pieces as a fundraiser at 1GBP (can’t find the pound sign on the Australian laptop) a brick.
The kids both give a pound and the volunteer lets them place on bricks 144,667th and 144,668th. And now the volunteer will sit and wait for the next donation. 6 years so far.
In the sun outside we have a snack alongside a small aviary learning about St Edmunds and the significance of the wolf.
We then drove for 45 minutes to Ely, with its huge cathedral dominating the flat landscape on the approach. This almost 700 year old building gets approval from Sienna and Seb due to the fact we’re each given an iphone and headphones for a guided tour to bring it to life, so to speak, some of the deceased lying in and under the brickwork.
We also happen upon a 20 minute recital upon the organ booming out through the cavernous space.
The interest in cathedrals is more architectural but without knowing about architecture. This includes the fictional book Pillars of the Earth around building a cathedral in medieval times, and wondering - how do you build this colossus building without today’s technology.
Meanwhile, in the here and now, in the two hour drive to Coventry, Andy Murray’s impending retirement is delayed once more, adding in the doubles tennis.
And whilst eating dinner at the next door Wetherspoons, Simone Biles is plying her trade in gymnastics. Coventry might not be on many tourist trails but it has two cathedrals we’ll visit tomorrow and out central accommodation just 200m away is a converted terrace hundreds of years old that the kids call the perfect house mostly because they have their own room with a 4 poster bed and all the doorways are childishly small. But it is very smart and crisp inside, managed by Coventry Historic Trust.
