We had decided to head south to the coastline by Southhampton where we had originally landed on the Queen Mary 2 several months ago. Since it wasn’t so far, I got a bit more of a lie in (the UK version of “sleeping in”) which was much needed. Juliet was a little suspicious as usual and seemed to know we were heading out and she seemed sad and nervous. We let her play outside for a while and had the obligatory PAC with her in the garden.
Bear basking in the sun, PAC in paw
Juliet ran up and down the stairs a lot while we got ready and I packed my bag of snacks. Here’s an insight to the mind of a ‘Munk–never go anywhere without snacks. You can’t count on anyone having the food you want when you want it, and that’s doubly true if you’re a vegetarian ‘Munk (or a mollusketarian in my case). I usually bring a small bag of fruesli snack bars, some ginger/lemon tea cookies, tangerines or clementines, a protein flapjack bar and a bottle of water with some Crystal Light mix. Bear does not. However, as you might imagine, I only have to unzip the bag for his furry little ears to perk up and he cranes his neck over to see what I’ve brought.
We also got to try out our new travel mugs for the first time on this trip. One of my major concerns with the car was that it didn’t have cup holders which I know sounds shallow, but it’s practical and also safety-related when you like to have drinks to sip and you need to drive carefully. We’d learned pretty quickly that drinks lose their heat and it wasn’t practical to get just any insulated thermos mug because of possible spillage. Bear did a lot of research and came up with the Contigo mug which has a vacuum seal so you literally cannot possibly spill it and it will keep a drink hot for up to 7 hours.
I am here to tell you that they’re not joking about the hot part. I made the mistake of making my tea directly in the mug and it didn’t have a chance to cool off so I scalded myself for about two hours after the fact. Now I’ve learned to make the tea, let it cool just a bit to nearly drinkable, then pour it into the mug and seal. And by God, seven hours later it was still warm and not a drop had spilled. I could drink, then toss it on the floor boards to roll around and scoop it up later.
Not a single drop spilled
We headed down towards Winchester to see Wolvesey Castle which was actually the residence of the Bishop of Winchester, but it was so grand that it rates being a castle. I had read some about Bishop Henry of Blois, the bishop who had expanded the residence significantly in the 12th century because he was a key player in the period of the Anarchy, the war of succession between King Stephen and the Empress Maud. (I really love the Brother Cadfael mystery books which were set during that period and you were always learning tidbits about the Bishop and other key players during the conflict.) Henry was occasionally referred to as “a king without a throne” because of the extend of his powers.
Castle walls, give or take a few bricks
The deal with Henry apparently was that he liked to butter his bread on both sides and play them against the middle, to screw up a few metaphors. He was King Stephen’s brother and supported him, but as soon as Maud captured Stephen, Henry switched sides to support Maud, and then when Stephen got out, Henry switched back to Stephen’s side. This is one of the theories as to why the Bishop’s Castle was so well fortified, because he had very good reason to feel insecure about his standing with The Powers That Were.
Extensive plumbing and drainage system, fairly advanced for the time
We had gotten parking in a lot for sports events at the bishop’s school because I asked a nice gentleman in the parking lot and it turned out that he maintained the lot and was willing to let us park there. You really don’t know the relief of finding parking in this country.
We decided to walk over to the cathedral since it was around the corner (hey, the bishop decided to live close to work!) and passed Winchester College, a boys school, along the way. I had just been doing some reading about Joss Whedon, the writer/director of some of my favorite shows (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Dollhouse and the upcoming Avengers movie) and he had gone to the school for a few years before going to university in America.
The college was closed for the day, so I only got as far as the porter's house where you have to check in.
It was rumored that Joss Whedon based the Buffy character of Rupert Giles on a teacher there, but actually it was his house matron (according to IMDB).
If he really was teaching at Winchester right now, I might find myself in need of another degree. (Anthony Head, or you might know him as the Taster's Choice neighbor from the mid-90s)
Just down the street, the Winchester Cathedral looked very impressive and they charged accordingly, so we stayed in the reception area and chatted with the service worker who had just been to Miami and taken a little plane flight over the Everglades and she seemed perfectly happy to chat with Bear about his childhood in Miami. I may have caught a glimpse of Jane Austen’s tomb from where I was standing but the following photos are not mine.
Winchester Cathedral interior (from Wikipedia)
Please note the orthographic convention of the time to use what appears to be a lowercase letter F for an S, so that next to last line actually reads "her soul acceptable in the sight of her Redeemer".
We decided to have tea on the early side and went to the cathedral’s cafe for scones, tea, a cappuccino and some homemade elderflower jam. There was also a petting zoo outside in the market square area next to the food stalls. Not entirely sure what that was about.
The calf was neighbors with an enormous white bunny who seemed very unimpressed with it all.
Brickwork outside the cathedral area -- look for the inscription
The next stop about a half hour away was Portchester Castle down on the coast, right at the mouth of the port. (-chester evolved from castra/caster an older word for camp, hence camp at the port.)
Walls of Portchester Castle, originally built in the 3rd century by Romans
The structured dated back to Roman times as the walls were first built in the 3rd century AD, twenty feet high and ten feet thick out of layers of flint.
The red tiles seemed unique to the Roman parts
The inner buildings dated from later in medieval times, including rooms designated as a palace for Richard II.
Richard II's palace rooms
St. Mary's church yard and cemetery inside the castle walls
The audio tour was particularly good and featured alternating dialogue with an English solder during the Napoleonic period (late 1700s-early 1800s) and a French soldier who was being held prisoner. It was genuinely funny how the two would snipe at each other while telling the history of the castle and how it featured in the French/English conflicts.
Painting of Portchester Castle on the wall of the keep from a time period when it served as a theater
We climbed all three floors of the keep, including some pretty challenging spiral stone staircases. Ever since I took a small slip at Orford Castle (nothing hurt really), I’ve been very wary of the stone stairs when I’m wearing my hiking boots which don’t seem to have as much traction as you might think.
View of the bay from the top of Portchester Castle -- the same chalk that makes the white cliffs of Dover can be seen across the water
On our way to Titchfield Abbey, Bear realized he was hungry. I need to put this in perspective. With my husband things often go from 0 to 60 and back again with little warning. In this case he was all over the castle, having a great time, bouncing about, no mention of food whatsoever, and then in the space of 2 miles he announced he was dying of hunger, absolutely ravenous, his stomach was eating his spinal column and we had to find food right that minute. I really have no idea how this slams up on him so suddenly, but it’s been like this for as long as I’ve known him. I tried to offer the snack bag but he needed real food and decided he wanted to go to Nando’s. Don’t get me wrong, I like Nando’s. I really like Nando’s actually because they have 3 vegetarian sandwiches, maybe more, and their fries are good and there’s an unlimited soft drink station. But the odds of finding Nando’s in the middle of nowhere? I started to fear for how the rest of the day was going to go.
The long and the short of it is that there is in fact a Nando’s in Fareham. I have no idea how he pulled that off, but Bear’s stomach led him to it and there was even a car park there and his loyalty card got us a free appetizer of marinated olives, peppers and garlic. I really have no idea how he does that.
An hour later with happy, full stomachs, heading back up the highway, we tried to stop at Titchfield Abbey only to learn…
Bear’s perspective was that if Queen Elizabeth wanted to see the abbey he’s pretty sure that they would pop it open right away for her, but I had also spotted Netley Abbey on the map so we stopped there instead and found that it was possibly the biggest prize of the day. Thanks for being closed, Titchfield!
Netley Abbey ruins
The abbey had been a Cistercian monastery that didn’t survive the Dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII but was given over to a loyal supporter and converted to a manor home.
Apparently writers, poets and painters from the Romantic period heard about the spot and turned up in droves to admire the grounds.
And really, who could blame them? It was really gorgeous, even with no roof and some walls missing. Thomas Gray (“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard“) liked it and reportedly Jane Austen came here for inspiration for Northanger Abbey.
Vaulted ceiling still intact in places
One of the real goals of the day though, besides seeing some really beautiful structures and re-visiting Southampton, was to talk about some of our ideas for building apps and software so we were happy to pack up and head home so we could talk along the way. I promised Bear I wouldn’t write too much about it since we’re just coming up with ideas and sketching out plans and what to look at, but it was a lot of fun and we had a really good time discussing game theory and all the apps we wished we’d had in school to help with subjects.
We have some bigger scale trips planned for the first weekend of May (the Orkneys) and for the last week of June (to Sardinia for work and back), so we’re really looking forward to getting a little further afield to see even more. Everyone just needs to promise me not to tell Juliet about it or she’ll figure out she’s headed back to the cattery and we’ll have to deal with a despondent, forlorn little kitty.
Cambridge Chipmunk 