Tuesday 13th August 2024

And so, to the Isle of Eels.

I was up at half five, having slept surprisingly well, and the room actually cool.

I messed around for half an hour, then packed and with one last sweep, left the oven for the last time, not looking back.

The station was a five minute walk away, and the ring road quiet at quarter to seven. Once inside I bought a ticket to Ely, then went to the station buffet to buy a bottle of Coke and a sausage roll to have on the train once it pulled in.

Again it was an eight car class 387 set, so plenty of space on the train, and early enough to beat the last dregs of the festival crowd who might be travelling.

Ely, or the Isle of Ely, stands on a low hill, that was once surrounded by marshes, mires and pools until polderisation took place and these turned into farmland. So, imagine the cathedral as it is now, but rising from the marshes and fens, it must have seemed miraculous.

The cathedral as an unusual feature, the Octagon or Lantern, which relaced a tower that collapsed possibly as part of the construction of the Lady Chapel.

How something so large just seems to sit on the roof, and has done so for some 600 years is a wonder, and testament to the work of the builders and the used of the supporting columns and arches that hold and spreads the weight.

I have over two hours to kill before the cathedral opens, so watch trains coming and going for half an hour or so. Good as Ely is the junction of lines north, south, east and west, and then some, so a good mix of traction and liveries. And then the passing freight train en route to Felixstowe too.

Trains to Cambridge are packed, and cycles not allowed during the rush hour, so good to watch people squeeze on, content for me that all I have to worry about is where to get breakfast.

I walk out of the station, down through the car park and seeing the cathedral about half a mile away, up the hill, I set off.

Signs lead along a typical Fenland town street, plan, if not downright ugly houses and dirty boarded up shops and takeaways, before walking left and beside the car park, up a fairly steep path and out through what might have been the arch of a coaching inn, and out onto the main street.

I tried to find a place for breakfast, but the only café I found was an hour from opening, and they were just setting the chairs and tables outside. So it was a Costa Coffee, a huge vat of Americano, along with a sausage bap, microwaved, but good enough.

I took my time and people watched, so that by the time i left I had just half an hour to wait.

The twin west towers and the lantern rise above the roofs of the town, so drew me ever closer like a moth to a flame. I approached the cathedral gate along a cobbled alleyway, then into the grounds, a large grassed area with shaded seating, at least at that time of day, to ponder and admire the scene.

I was first in the west door at half nine, waiting to pay my entrance and then get out and take shots. There is a tour up to the lantern, 175 steps, which on such a hot day didn't seem like a good idea, so I bailed. But we shall return.

I go around with the 50mm on my camera, and soon even in the coolness of the Nave, I was getting hot, and needed to take five minutes here and there to try to cool down and mop my brow.

The Lantern dominates everything, or course, and on the Transept in front of the Quire, and altar the size and shape of the Lantern above sits on a wooden platform.

Above there is the pained wooden roof of the Nave, and in each Transept wooden ceilings are flanked by a hoard of angels and attendants. All highly painted.

I switched to the big lens, to get details of the windows and carvings, so that by eleven or so, I was very hot and bothered.

So, back outside, on the hunt for a taxi to take me the short drive to the station. I asked one driver packed up, so he advised me to go past The Lamb, turn right and past The Hereward there's the rank.

So I follows his direction, see taxis up ahead, but seeing people with pints of ice cold beer inside, I go in and treat myself to a pint of Amstel.

It was cold and wet.

But when I came out, the rank was empty, but there was an office nearby, and they got a car to come, driven by a friendly guy who took me down past the cathedral, down the hill to the station.

For a fiver.

There was a Thameslink train waiting, wasn't due to leave, but has 12 air conditioned carriages, so I got on one near the front and took a seat to ait, and from there I cold still watch trains coming and going on the other two platforms.

The train moved off on time, and only stopped at Cambridge North to pick up a few passengers, and Cambridge to pick up a lot. It was certainly full of life with two families of Indian, three mothers with six children between them, and the age old struggle of how to keep them entertained.

The Class 700 Thameslinks are infamous for their hard seating. Which is true, but under each seat there is a supporting strut which reduces footroom and caused my knee to complain for the rest of the day.

Non-stop into King's Cross, and over the road I found I had missed a Dover train by ten minutes, so had 50 minutes to kill, so into M&S to do some shopping, get bread for dinner, then into the 'Spoons next door for yet more old beer.

I go up onto the platform to wait for the train to pull in, and get talking to two ladies from or near Leeds who were cycling the southern part of Cycling Route 1 from Dover to Felixstowe.

I confirmed for them the climb out of Dover to the National Trust place was indeed, one heck of a climb.

So, onto the train and a quick hour back under London, through the southern Essex badlands and into Kent to Dover where I had arranged a taxi to take me home.

AJ appeared interested in me photographing churches, and so the trip went quickly, and he insisted on dropping me at the door rather than on Station Road, as it was "too dangerous".

A short walk home where Mulder and Scully were waiting for dinner, it was four after all.

I prepared Caprese, sliced the bread and made sure there was some fizz chilling, so that when Jools got home we could eat well. Her journey home was made difficult by a crash on Townwall Street, and then all other roads around it quickly jammed.

There could have been football to watch, but needing a shower and being footsore meant I went to bed instead, though couldn't sleep.