more lincoln friday july 17, including White Hart

So I'm staying at this historic White Hart Inn/Hotel, that used to be cathedral property, hence the names of all the bishops of Lincoln Cathedral on the doors. I had to move today to a (smaller, cheaper) room because of my late booking. This part of the hotel is old, but not nearly as old as the part that had the last room. AND I have a small balcony looking out over Bailgate, so I can open a door if I get hot, which is right now unlikely as it is raining and cold. There's the hotel at the left there. And I'm no longer in one of the rooms that is "haunted", to the chagrin of the younger choristers.

Martin showed up while I was eating breakfast this morning, wanting

(allegedly) to check his email and look up some things online. He also wanted me to take him out to lunch, as his "boxed lunch" was a roll with a piece of cheese and slice of tomato in it, in a plastic bag with a bottle of water and a banana. He's not crazy about the lunches they've been getting. I was at this point tucking into an enormous English breakfast, with bacon, eggs, toast, mushrooms, lots of tea, the works (I passed on the black pudding, the sausage and the "baked beans", which are actually pork and beans). I suggested that perhaps we could wait awhile before we went to lunch. We went up to my room and he looked at his email for a couple of minutes and then announced that he was going to take a nap until it was time to go to lunch. The bottom line is that all these choristers, the men, and all the chaperones are dog tired, what with staying out until all hours, getting up at 7:00 and running all day and into the night.

Rather later we went to a pub down the street "Steep Hill" and had some reliable fish and chips and peas (these brits are really into starch, aren't they). He had a Sam Smith Coke Lite (no joke) and I had a half pint of Sam Smith Bitter.

Did some more Christmas shopping at Pitlochry Woolens (it was too late to go to Grantham to Woolsthorpe Manor, Isaac Newton's birthplace), visited the cloister and took some more photos, and went to Evensong. They were good. Sang this stuff by Byrd. Turns out he was among other things organist and choirmaster a Lincoln Cathedral as well as being a student of Thomas Tallis in the 16th century. This country gives you a totally different perspective on time.

Tomorrow I want to figure out where it is that Katherine Swynford actually lived in the cathedral precincts.

Lillie