Ouch! I received my first nettle sting today. Nettles are everywhere here (really, whole fields of the little suckers) and the little plants look like mint. I bent down to pick some and received a most unwelcome surprise. My thumb still hurts!
Today I went on an eight mile hike in the county of Hampshire, in the south of England with the other intern that shares my position at the WBL. This year the powers that be picked two interns instead of just one, so I now have a partner in crime (and a very nice one at that)! She happens to have gone to college with Greg, one of my dearest friends. Since I met him when I went on a trip during high school, I've never talked to anyone else who knows him--it was so nice to be able to talk to another person who knew Greg!
We took a train from London to a village called Mortimer and walked to the Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum, which is now the town of Silchester. There's an amazing ruined amphitheatre outside of town, and the city walls are still intact, so one can walk along their (now grassy) top. We had a snack at the base of a giant oak tree, walked along many pastures and streams, and even stumbled onto a pheasant and game-bird farm when we took a detour away from our planned route (read: we got lost).
We spent part of our afternoon going through St. Mary's Chuch in Silchester. It has some wonderful remnants of medieval wall-paintings of flowers (photo to your left), possibly painted as early as the 13th century. It was a nice, quiet parish church, with a 400 old yew tree that shaded many of the old tombstones. It was great seeing the church with an art historian, especially since I've always been interested in the history of medieval churches in England. This church also had a wonderful wooden ceiling, but none of the guides mentioned if it was a Tudor one or not (it looked as if it might be).One of my favorite parts of England are the little villages filled with wonderful remnants of the medieval and Roman periods one just runs into! We ended our day with a much more modern stop at the pub at the next village over, called Bramley Then, we caught the train back to London! After all was said and done, we walked about 8 miles.
1 comment:
If you think nettles on your thumb hurt, try nettles on your bum! Owie! How do I know this? It's a long story, but it involves being 20 years old, being way out in the English countryside, drinking too much, and needing to pee very badly.
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