Day 9: The quest to reach Stratford without drowning

It was drizzly early this morning in York and perhaps we should have taken that as an omen.  Martina was catching up with Carina and so Enid, Chris and I headed off to the Shambles area, in search of coffee, to fix up some financial business for Enid whose card had been hacked and to wander York for a bit before heading off. We even had to buy a new umbrella from the local Superdrug as it started raining and we felt that if we had an umbrella it would stand us in good stead and the rain would not come back. Hmmmmm!

It was lovely in the early morning with not too many people, but we felt that there were far too many vans and cars making deliveries and clogging the lanes. Still, it was a great meander, back up to the Minster, along the really rickety part of the shambles and even through the Shambles Market... hoorah, a real market town experience.

We met back up with Martina, played car Tetris again and said goodbye to Carina before driving out of York, destination Chesterfield and a lunch date with Martina’s friend Niki. Unfortunately there was a significant hold up on the M1 and so Martina pulled up Wayz and we navigated a path across countryside and through small towns like Ravensfield. It was absolutely preferable to spending the time in a freeway car park!

We made it to Chesterfield, home of the church with the twisted spire... it looks amazing. Niki and Martina lunched together and Enid, Chris and I had a light soup and bread roll lunch from a Debenhams nearby the car park. Unfortunately, while we were in Chesterfield the heavens opened... BIG TIME... and that was to be the pattern for the rest of the day... an intense low pressure system had parked itself right over the top of the UK and it was nasty.

Chris was doing an amazing job of driving but the conditions on the motorway deteriorated so badly that he decided to pull off for a bit. So we drove off along country lanes until the rain cleared a bit, but when we tried to get back to the main drag unfortunately the road was closed so we had to go back the way we came. It was a bit frustrating, but we did drive through a tiny village called Lockington which was as big as a postage stamp but had a beautiful old little church.

Back on the motorway and we were on a mission... to find Richard! Yep, we were heading to Leicester to see the grave of Richard III, the last of the Plantagenet kings of Great Britain and the last king to die in battle. For those of you who know Enid, you will know that Richard III is somewhat of an obsession for her.... no, honestly it is an outright obsession. It was so important for Enid to get to Leicester cathedral and there was wild excitement in the car as we passed the turnoff to Bosworth,  the place round about where Richard was killed in the Battle of Bosworth Field.

We were all very impressed with the sensitivity with which the "Richard tomb" had been handled. For those of you who do not know the story, Richard was 32 when he was killed in battle and his body had been interred in the Abbey church of the Greyfriars. We were told today that this was a political decision because it meant that supporters of Richard could not rally at his grave or make pilgrimage because the burial in the Abbey church looked grand, but essentially made his grave located on private ground! Clever political move by Henry Tudor really. Of course, Henry Tudor’s son Henry VIII dissolved all of the monasteries ( small thing about a disagreement with the Pope on marriage and divorce) and so the priory was handed over to other uses and fell into disrepair... becoming the site of a car park in modern day Leicester. And that is where they found him in 2015 and interred his remains in the cathedral in Leicester (which would not have existed when he died in 1485). The monument is striking and the story around Richard is told with great metaphor connecting his circumstances such as exile with the Christian response to asylum seekers and refugees. It was beautifully done: a great mix of the secular and the sacred. Enid was absolutely moved by the whole thing as were we all. And in addition to the tomb area, I was very taken with some contemporary stained glass that tells the Richard story as the story of the suffering of Everyman. The other thing that stood out was the amazing cathedra chair: very contemporary and the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ above all things. Very clever.

It was time to hit the road and the rain was worsening again and Chris still had a long drive to Stratford. It continued to be a challenging drive on the motorways and  the traffic in the peak and the wet was a nightmare. 

But here we are in Stratford. A quick dinner at the hotel tonight as we were not prepared to brave the weather and now off to bed. We hope to sleep but as we are in Stratford I ask of sleep... to be or not to be? That is the question.





























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