A Pilgrim in Durham Cathedral

I wanted to start write something fresh when I turned 70. Something like -- write a blog called “My 70th Year to Heaven".

Doral asked me why I just didn’t write my heart out on the family blog we already have.

So I am going to pump up the volume until I run out of new things to see. I hope I live long enough to write until I come to the end of all of the words I have. I wonder if I can contain any more happiness or if my heart will explode some night when I am resting, getting ready for the next day.

Too full.

I am on overload from how full each day is.

Wyona reminded me that I am on my way to County Durham today, the place where the musical Billy Elliot is set. Having seen that show more times than I want to thnk about, I got to hear all of the dialogue from the show ghosting along in my mind as I watched out the window on the way to Durham.

The guide book had confirmed that with the stroke of a pen in 1984, the mining communities of this country were wipe out and pointing out that I would see the residual effect of that moment 30 years ago.

Durham itself is posh, partly because it houses the University of Durham in a lovely cobblestoned setting, the university library being one of the buildings in the cloisters and castle that surround the building. The streets are steep and narrow around the cathederal and castle.

I asked the station guard if I could walk to the castle and back in two hours and he said I could. I didn’t think about taking a bus ride until I stopped to snap a picture from a cove nestled in a panoramic view of the the castle.

“How much does the bus cost?” I asked a fellow traveller.

“Free,” she said, “if you are over 65. Free bus service all over England if you are over sixty-five. If I go down to London, the buses are free for me.”

Apparently I don’t look 65 in Durham. The bus driver charged me 50 pence and charmingly confided told that it was a good price, for the ticket will last all day for me.

I am a fan of taking guided tours, even when the tour books caution people against those tours as some guidebooks do. In this case, I was visiting between cathedral tours, having to catch the train before another could begin so I bought a four-fold pamphlet and supplemented the material in that with what I would overhear from other tours that were in progress.

I have a coffee table book at home called Cathedrals of the World, and like other coffee table books I own, I love them, but I don’t sit on the couch and read one. I do like to go book and show my grandchildren that the Mormon temple in Salt Lake City is classified as a cathedral; at least I like to tell them if I can get one of them to stop long enough to listen to me.

Now they will have to linger longer, for I am going to use my own that book and see if I can find a glossy picture of the wonderful Romanesque decorated pillars that I saw today. The hardest part of these trips is to leave the illustrated books produced about these World Heritage sites, still in the shops when I leave. What makes the task easier is that I had already figured out that I can only take 1 ½ pounds more luggage back than I already have.

I have loved reading in the guidebook today about Northumberland, a part of north east England that is dotted with old cathedrals. I see the most exquisite of spires on church in small town I have never heard the name of – or even more startling, an old cathedral in the middle of a field.

Growing up as a Mormon, I don’t have a complicated vocabulary to use when I describe a church or a cathedral. I am pretty well stopped after using the words sacrament table and chapel. I don’t know where to look when a pamphlet directs me to look at the high altar, the choir screen, the bishop’s seat, or the transept.

I did see the line of demarcation for some on the floor – women were to stay at the back of the church on the plain stone floor: men could come up and stand on the marble tile.

But that was changed by the 1600's.

I do wish I had a nice door knocker on my house like the one I saw today.

If you were in trouble and used that doorknocker, the monastery would give you 37 days of saftety until you tied up your business or found safe passage elsewhere. I worked to find the best sideview of the knocker I could find. Maybe I could just put one on the door of my house. What a treat to be able to give refuge to people in trouble, and then make sure hey have safe passage, at least to the other side of the Shuswap.

As well, I have been listening in the museums when paintings are described and I have learned every saint has an attribute: St. Catherine, for example, is depicted with a broken wheel; St. Peter with a set of keys; John the Baptist wearing animal skins. Today, in Durham Cathedra, St. Cuthbert has King Oswelll’s head in his hand. That was a bit gruesome. The king died in a battle and St. Cuthbert rescued his head, and carried it on his arm, finally having it buried in his gravesite with him.

The good part of the attribute is that even if the statues head gets knocked off, you can still tell who it is by the attribute in their hand.

That story could surely compete with the Book of Mormon tale of cutting off all of the arms of the slain, bagging them up and taking them to the king.
Rolling around in my head has been the idea of taking on an attribute of my own.

That is the way others would know who I am if I ever get sainted.

I don’t think I want to carry a marble slab for dipping chocolates should I become a saint and need a sign to let people know who I am.

Too heavy to carry a marble slab for eternity, even in pictures.

I wouldn’t mind being known as someone who carried a laptop with her everywhere she went – but that attribute might belong to many others of the population, given what I am seeing on this train.

Maybe I will choose a pencil and a paper for my attribute, since both of those are becoming obsolute.

The idea is easy for me when I think about Wyona. If I saw a statue with its head knocked off, but a couple of decks of cards in its hand, I would know it was her.
I have a new interest in train protocol. I said to the man who sat beside me at the next stop, “What do the local people here do when there are four of us at one table and only two wireless connections? Do you arm wrestle each other?”

“They say, I will take it half the time and you take it the other,” he said, laughing. “And by the way, the trains have Wi-Fi connection as well so you can stay in contact with the other world.”

“Thank you. I have two last questions and then I will try not to interrupt you. Could you please tell me the name of the white bush that is in flower along the sides of the roads now?”

“Good question. I don’t know.” He looked thoughtful and then said, “I call it thorn.”

When Wyona had asked the same question of the girl on the train as we were going to the coast, she too didn’t know.

“I call it blossom,” she said.

Some of the fields are golden with a yellow colour. I guessed I was seeing mustard seed growing, but it is sunflowers for making cooking oil, my fellow lap-top user remarked.

Van Gogh would have been happy living here

Occasionally I wonder if I should be keeping track of the total cost of this trip.
Today I paid a pound for a guidebook, 50 pence for a railroad ticket and I won’t be maxing out on my Oyster pass.

A day with savings like that makes me feel like I should go to another West End London Musical; a month like that and I will be able to buy another Britrail pass.

Arta