The weather remained beautifully warm as we tramped along to Withcote before heading back south to Launde Abbey. This historical mansion was home to Gregory Cromwell, the son of Thomas Cromwell who was Henry VIII's right-hand man during the time of The Dissolution of the Monasteries. Much of the stone came from the ruins of the original Launde Abbey - built some four hundred years earlier.
The place is now a Christian retreat and as God-fearing Christians we visited the Abbey's cafe where Stew and I had bacon. lettuce and tomato sandwiches and Frances ordered a cheese and onion panini. Shirley asked if they did "cheese salad" - meaning a cheese salad sandwich. In the event, the waitress brought an actual cheese salad on a big plate. So it goes. She only ate half of it.
Soon afterwards, Stewart headed back to Sheffield for three days of work. He will return on Thursday night.
Late yesterday afternoon, Clint kindly transported me to the tiny village of Loddington with its remote church dedicated to St Michael and All Angels. There I met a fellow in a red T-shirt. He was sitting patiently painting a watercolour in his little art book and he kindly showed me several of his other paintings. Turns out he was a retired professor of history from The University of Leicester. It also turns out that ten years ago he nearly died following a road collision in East Yorkshire that was not his fault. He was hit by a nineteen year old carpet fitter who had just been to the pub and was travelling far too fast in a company van. The professor spent a month in hospital as his bones mended.
We conversed for half an hour and I could have easily talked with him for hours. It was nice to meet someone like that. We connected, far from the madding crowd, in the rural heart of Leicestershire and then said our goodbyes.
I expect the Professor enjoys his painting all the more knowing that he is fortunate to still be here to appreciate the beautiful landscape.
ReplyDeleteIt is as if he experienced rebirth.
DeleteYour holiday looks perfect. Lucky that the weather has turned into a late Indian Summer. English architecture is gorgeous, though paid for on the backs of the poor ;)
ReplyDeleteYou are right there Thelma. Often their lives were foreshortened.
DeleteSome people who want to chat are pains. Good that you met someone you connected with. Good to know the Christians believe in bacon butties and the more exotic paninis.
ReplyDeleteSome people only want to talk about themselves.
DeleteI'd never heard of a cheese salad in any form.
ReplyDeleteYou are certainly in a picturesque place. How nice to meet someone with whom you could have a good chat. A rare and fine thing.
Life throws up many accidental gemstones.
DeleteThe eastern edge of Leicestershire is a remote place where God-fearers are still found, a peculiar people much given to the consumption of ... bacon butties.
ReplyDeleteIn the Graeco-Roman world, God-fearers were like Yorkshiremen, both Epicurean and Stoic.
They liked a good time, in moderation, but didn't whine when the going got tough.
These pious polytheistic nomads were to be found in Athens, Corinth, Thessalonica and Psidian Antioch.
They liked the synagogues and were Jewish in their heart of hearts.
Let's be honest, Momma's kosher cooking is always wonderful.
In time the God-fearers migrated to Sheffield, Doncaster, Bradford, Leeds, Wakefield, and even as far as Taskerland, a mythic region much like Ultima Thule.
Most of them ended up as Primitive Methodists, Peculiar Baptists, and beer-guzzling Country and Western fans.
*Send Me the Pillow You Dream On* (Dolly Parton: YouTube) is a favourite song of theirs.
Haggerty
You would have loved to talk to that professor. He knew so much about non-conformism but surprisingly nothing about Taskerland - now a land of wicked debauchery.
Delete"built for Thomas Cromwell before his execution". There would have been little point in building it for him after his execution.
ReplyDeleteThe builders built the house under his instructions, receiving payment from him.
Deletethere ae some very interesting characters out there. We have to stop and talk to them and then we find out how interesting they are. If we walk by we miss things.
ReplyDeleteI would love to meet you on a walk Red. After a while we could arm wrestle.
DeleteSounds like a good walk. It's great you found someone agreeable to talk to. I must admit I usually scurry away rather than engage any strangers in conversation. (I'll say hi, but THEN I scurry away.) What on earth is a cheese salad sandwich? Like pimento & cheese?
ReplyDeleteCheese salad sandwich? Lettuce, tomato and cucumber with mayo and grated cheese on top - enclosed in two slices of buttered bread. A simple snack or lunch.
DeleteSuch encounters are to be treasured, and I know you do. What an interesting person to talk to! (Both the professor and yourself, by the way.)
ReplyDeleteThe cheese salad episode made me chuckle. And by the way, panini is plural; I wonder how many panini Frances actually ordered (and ate)? One panino, two panini... and so on. Have a question regarding the Italian language? You have come to the right place! Professor Hölscher-Tommasi-Riley is always ready to help, whether she's been asked to or not!
So my dear professor...what is the singular of panini?
DeleteLike I said in my comment, it's panino.
DeleteI have sporadically met people that I felt I could talk to for hours over the years. I always wish I lived close enough to someone like that to meet more than a single time but it never seems to work out that way.
ReplyDeleteIf we could only gather all those people closer to home. Life would be enhanced and richer too.
DeleteWhat beautiful buildings both Launde Abbey and Luddington Church are. Thank you for sharing your writing and photographic talents with all of us. But you cannot include yourself, according to your own prior testimony, among “God-fearing Christians”. I suppose you were attempting to be humorous, slyly humorous one might even say, and I wonder who prompted that. No, I don’t wonder at all. Would that it were true. From your mouth to God’s ear.
ReplyDelete"Slyly humorous"...Yes. Like an old fox.
DeleteI love random encounters and conversations. Phoebe got to go for a walk! I'm glad you're getting great weather and enjoying the lovely scenery and buildings. What is a cheese salad??
ReplyDeleteFor cheese salad see my reply to Karen below.
DeleteGreat photos YP. I remember Rutland Weekend Television on the BBC in the nineteen seventies. Brilliant comedy that I still watch on You Tube.
ReplyDeleteThat show does not seem to fit the staid, rural and rather affluent "feel" of the county.
DeleteThat sculpture is rather lovely
ReplyDeleteI think it is Jesus.
DeleteI am a Cromwell descendant with roots in Rutland. Thank you for that photograph and the explanation. Now, please explain cheese salad?
ReplyDeleteA plate with typical salad ingredients and a small hillock of grated cheese - rather than say a piece of chicken or a slice of ham.
DeleteOh, I think I would quite enjoy that. Especially if it was a nice pile of a sharp Wensleydale
DeleteWhy do people find it necessary to fire their shotguns at signs? We have them here too!
ReplyDeletePerhaps because some of our fellow citizens are complete idiots.
Delete