Corinne CrawfordAfter getting our rental car on the Wales side, we made the drive to Lincoln switching out drivers halfway because my lack of sleep was catching up to me. We made it to Lincoln and found the very narrow parking area and then found our apartment for the week. It was an older townhome type of place with two bedrooms upstairs and quite charming.
After ordering a pizza for dinner at the Pizza Hut on the corner and getting a good night’s rest, we drove to the venue for the team meeting and a team lunch afterwards. The actual events started the next day. During the week, some days I would go with Sally and stay the day, some days I would drop her off and then come back to get her later in the day and some days she drove herself.
I kept myself busy with work and exploring and visits to the local pub right around the corner from our apartment. On Tuesday night, it was trivia night and the table next to me invited me to join their team. We came in second (only three teams that night J) and they let me know that on Thursday there was actually air gun shooting in the bar. That would never fly in the US as at least once a night, some dummy would aim the gun at people as a “joke” and an eye would be gone. But bell target shooting was allowed in English pubs due to a decree hundreds of years ago that all men should do target practice but that was with bow and arrow. That was continued in the early 1900’s with firearms and many target practice clubs were in pubs so it was allowed. And still is.
So I showed up on Thursday night and paid my 3 pounds to get two rounds of 5 shots each at the target. It took me a minute to get the sights lined up but once I got the hang of it, I did quite well, getting within 2 inches of the ¼ inch target every time and even getting a bullseye which rings the bell. I think I earned the respect of the local men that were there and I went back to the apartment quite proud of myself.
This pub, called Joiner’s Arms, also had a betting pool that was hilarious if not a bit macabre. The owner of the bar created a board with 100 names on it. Famous people, musicians, sports figures, politicians, etc. For a pound, you bought a name, randomly assigned to you. Now you wait. For one of the names to die. That’s right, if someone on the board dies, the person that bought that name gets the kitty. then the game starts all over again with a new name added and you have to buy a new random name.
Earlier that day, I did my sight seeing because it was a day that looked like it would be free of rain. I visited the Lincoln Castle and Lincoln Cathedral and just wandered around the charming town that has history going back to the Roman days.
The castle site has origins going back to 49AD and parts of it still standing today date back to William the Conqueror. It also houses one of the four remaining original copies of the Magna Carta. I have been to the one that is housed at the British Library in London and now I have seen this one. This document alone probably has more to do with shaping democracy and human rights than any other document in history and the United States would not exist without it. The castle grounds had a prison that had been in use for centuries up until the Victorian period that you could visit and there was still the hall of justice within the walls that was still in use today. They also had sculptures of dragons coming up out of the ground that actually made noise and occasionally had smoke and steam coming out of their noses.
On a previous evening, I took a Ghost Walk with a local guide.
There were only 3 other people on the walk and we heard about a few local ghost stories and hauntings along with some interesting history and mythology about the sites around the castle and cathedral.
On my way to join the ghost tour, I came across two gentlemen with a pair of binoculars that looked like they were from a cartoon they were so big and a camera lens longer than my arm. It was around 6:30pm and a little cloudy and they were looking up at one of the cathedral towers so of course I stopped and asked “whatcha all looking at?”. They said they were watching the peregrine falcon that nested up in various parts of the cathedral. I waited with them for a while and actually saw it fly out and out of view. The guy with the camera showed me some of the photos he had taken a few minutes before that were major close ups of this beautiful bird of prey up on a ledge high above the church on one of the towers. He told me where to look and sure enough, I saw the raptor with my naked eye. Well, I saw movement and a bird like figure. It was pretty far up.
Luckily it did not take too long to get used to driving both on the wrong side of the road and in the wrong side of the car. The main issue I found with driving in the UK was the narrowness of the streets and parking. It felt like a sideswipe was going to happen at any moment and parking took an 18 point turn into the spot. Roads that could only be described as barely wide enough for a one way street were indeed two way streets. But like anything, you get used to it.
