Bartimaeus

Ever since I was little I have found insects interesting. I am a bit scared of some larger specimens, some moths and large spiders but still fascinated too. So I was more happy than most to open the blinds at Torksey and see a large number of slugs on the path. I went out on the back deck only to find they had made their way on to the boat. In the dull day when we decided to wait out the damp, we had a short walk. It had brightened enough that something more sun loving than slugs had made an appearance. Later I saw a black bristly caterpillar, but not on leaves or crossing the road, as normal, but in the odd location of the metal edging of the canal. By the end of the day one of the slugs had thoroughly consumed dead mint leaves but they hadn’t attacked the living plants or I might have gone off them. When one appeared inside the boat, Shane asked me to eject it.

The next day we started along the Fossdyke canal. I amused Shane with my hopeful looking for deer, but he was disappointed by the lack of interest. It wasn’t just that the view was limited, though not unattractive, it was also that the canal was so straight (perhaps it is Roman, if they built canals like they built their roads) the driving had not much variation either. No canal is completely dull if there is a kingfisher in it though and in the sun, its brilliance was on full show as it flashed past. Herons and waterliles broke up the straight lines.

We stopped at the village of Saxilby, with its origins not necessarily Roman but Viking or Danish. We found a good cafe. In small places it is good to support the businesses that have a small population. Locals were certainly happy there. It seemed they were employing a couple of young women with learning difficulties and a cheerful disposition, and it was a more pleasant experience for it. Our server was particularly jolly. Real flowers and sugar tongs provided on the table was an uncommon touch.

We continued on to Lincoln. We have been here before but in the winter. Steep hill should be less slippy in the summer. We were entertained by someone kicking a football down it, running to the bottom and catching it. I don’t think even he expected to succeed, especially as the ball bounced to the smooth pavement at the side while he was on the cobbles.

We went in to the cathedral and I liked a modern round window. It was opposite a more traditional design. Some work was being done, but I don’t know if it was stained glass or stonework as there was an appeal to support stonemasonry.

There was also a strangely non religious painting in the Russel chancery, showing a ship at dock being loaded and also a rural mural. It’s certainly not a Galilean fishing boat but a Medieval Lincoln scene. I found out the next day that the main mural looked like it was medieval but was painted much more recently, just last century, and strangely includes the artist’s partner and daughter in the group of women at the left side.

We located the gallery and decided to return the next day in the predicted wetter weather. We contemplated eating out but in the end we’re happy to return back as nothing was quite hitting the spot. We did see a boat cafe, not open, and a pub I liked the name of, by the water, but couldn’t see a menu.

We found the next day that Lincoln had become home to elephants that had not been there the day before. We had passed the museum and there had definitely not been an elephant. Later we found Elmer at the market place.

We were in the gallery about as soon as it opened. Grayson Perry didn’t have a specific exhibition but his works were scattered through in different rooms. In one he is depicted as a Victorian farmer’s wife driven to insanity by the loss of her children. Tennyson was also from Lincoln. There was a bust of him and a painting of his sons with long hair just before it was cut for going to school, which Tennyson described as his “boys when they were girls”. His hair as an adult wasn’t much shorter.

When we had been everywhere in the gallery, we went elsewhere and had lunch, where I felt a little guilty as the woman at the next table was told they had run out of the sandwich filling that I had just been served.

We headed for the castle, and saw there were handy toilets at the entrance. I went round a couple of bends to the Ladies’ to be greeted with a strange row of cubicles. All the amenities were however perfectly ordinary and modern.

The castle is interesting in itself but it held a few additional attractions, a Victorian prison and the Magna Carta Vault. Behind the case with the magna carta (no photos allowed in the vault) was one with a crossbow. I studied it while the guide was busy speaking to another small group. It was decorated with carving on the the ivory body. The underside was apparently decorated with naked women, where only the shooter could see the figures!

The woman beside the Magna Carta case was extremely knowledgeable and when visitors ahead of us took a side topic to the document or history of it, she was unfazed and still seemed to have information for them. She had just revealed that the pen is so called as the feather of the female swan (or pen) is used for writing, only from one wing so that it curved correctly to be held in the hand of a right handed writer. A lady in the group started talking about seeing cygnets paddling with only one foot and they had all used the same one and the guide went on to talk about “handedness” in the animal kingdom. When she was speaking to us and the previous group, she had apologised for having a mind full of useless information and being a bit nerdy. I thought this was a most laudable skill and made her excellent at her job. She was not boring and was able to answer all sorts of questions. She informed us that while it was a breakthrough in social structure, it still included a woman must not tell her husband to do anything. It was not saying all men were equal either. Shane ventured that it might not have been complementary about the Scots. She said it was, in fact. The magna carta suggested the Scots and Welsh should be compensated for previous losses, but in the end it did not happen, because the Pope did not agree!

I found the prison very interesting. It had housed both men and women, though separately in different floors and exercise yards. There was a chapel that had been laid out so that male prisoners could not see or touch each other and could only see the preacher. Debtors were able to sit normally at the back and women sat together at the front. They had models in there and it was quite disconcerting. Gruelling as it all seemed (and that’s not just the repetitive menu) it was remarked that for the poorest they got better care from the prison surgeon that they could afford outside prison and that might have gone for the food too. I was surprised they had flushing toilets and water, many homes would not have done.