Bury St. Edmunds

Wednesday was our second great adventure here in the UK. We went with a "newcomers tour" to Bury St. Edmunds, a larger town near our base. We totally enjoyed ourselves. We started the tour on a big bus, winding down what looked to me like a sidewalk with cars driving on it. There were several times I thought the bus was either going to whack a road sign or an oncoming car. The whole trip, the bus was brushing up against the hedges growing alongside the road. The whole while, our tour guide, a seasoned military member, gave us the history of the area, dating back from the Roman time period and told us about his adventures in the pubs and with his metal detector. Apparently, it's a popular passtime to go out with a metal detector and look for old artifacts. The tour guide reminded us that because Britain is so small and so old, there isn't a square mile that hasn't been lived upon at some time or another. The country side is literally littered with coins, brass clasps, arrowheads, and other valuable artifacts. All finds must be reported to the British governement. If they decide it's of national importance, they pay you for the find and display it in a museum somewhere. If not, you get to keep it. Our guide (who also happens to be one of our new neighbors in Mildenhall...surprise!) has found tons of coins that he makes necklaces and other jewelry out of for his friends and family. Kevin and I are thinking about renting one and seeing what we can find for family night sometime. It'll be fun just to be out in some random field with the detector.

When we finally got to Bury, we stopped first at the Nutshell. It is the Guiness Book of World Records holder for being the smallest pub in the world. 10 people can comfortably fit inside around the counter (which is pretty much all the pub is...a counter)...but they have crammed over 100 people in the pub at once for fun. Seriously, after seeing the pub, I can only guess they must have sat on one another to get that many people in there.

After the Nutshell, we headed to St. Edmundsbury Cathedral. It's only recently become a cathedral. It used to only be a parish church. It still serves the parish, but has been fitted with a tower (actually, the tower is still being built along with the double buttress roof). There are scaffolds all over the place where the workers are reroofing the building. The tower is actually quite special to the people of Bury. The mason who created the tower taught his crew a 500 year old art of masonry to make the tower the way the masons would have made it back when the church was built. Each piece of rock had to be measured twice...once on the computer and once with a tape measure, because the rocks had to fit together perfectly. It cost them 12 million dollars to build. The government only funded half of the money. The people in the parish had to raise the rest. Most of the money actually came from the United States. The church has strong ties to the Magna Carta (the basis for our Constitution) and many of the first settlers to the USA came from Bury St. Edmunds. In fact, the founder of Jamestown...the one who raised the money and hand selected the first voyagers (including John Smith) came from the parish in Bury St. Edmunds. His daughter was the vicar's wife. Another interesting thing about the cathedral is that it was built (or at least the parish church was built) for the parishoners because the abby was too busy taking care of pilgrims that came to pray at the tomb of St. Edmunds (an early king that was martyred by the Danes because he wouldn't renounce his God). Myth has it that he was beheaded and when the peasants were looking for his head to bury with his body, a wolf called out to them in Latin, "over here, over here". The wolf had the king's head between his paws and allowed the peasants to take it (and he didn't try to eat it). The wolf stayed in the village for the duration of the funeral and then departed, never to be heard from again. Myth also has it that when they put the head with the body, his head reattached itself to his neck straightway. His body was supposedly dug up in the medieval time period to see if, in fact, it did reconnect, and reports were that it did. However, no one knows where his body is now, so they can't check it again. St. Edmunds used to be the patron saint of England and there is talk of making him the patron saint again...but who knows what will happen.

During the tour, Weslee began to have stomach problems and soon afterwards, began having explosive diapers. I was the lucky one holding him at the time. We left the tour group to change his diaper before any more of the goo got on my jacket (I smelled horrible the rest of the trip). While changing his diaper, the tour group moved on, leaving me alone...and lost. Weslee and I walked around the outside of the cathedral for a good 10 minutes...and even into the ruins behind the cathedral searching for the group of 12. When we didn't find them, we headed back to the front door (mainly because Weslee had exploded out of his diaper yet again...why, oh why didn't I think to bring extra pants for him?) and found the group looking for us. Kevin was good enough to take the kid and the explosive diaper off of my hands. I tried to get the goo off of me as best as I could with a wipe. Wipes do great things for getting goo off of baby's bums...but not so great with cordurouy jackets. Oh well. The group was pretty understanding.

After the cathedral, we headed to the Queen's Arms (another pub) for the best lunch I've had here so far. I had a chicken bacon sandwich on a "grainy" (a whole wheat baguette). Seriously...it was some of the best food I've had in a while. I am in love with English bacon. It's thick like Canadian bacon and salty and greasy like American bacon. Not healthy, I'm sure. Oh, but it was delicious. I'm sure my entire meal wasn't exactly healthy...I don't think Brits are known for their healthy foods...my baguette was smothered in really good mayo.

We spent the rest of the day touring the ruins of the humongous abbey that was torn down during King Henry VIII's reign. All that's left is the flint that filled the thick walls. Everything else was taken by the villagers to build their homes and garden walls. So, in essence, the abbey is still in Bury...it's just spread all over the place. We also toured St Mary's church, which is smaller and darker than the cathedral. But, I liked the interior a little more. The dark, rich wood made it seem more comfortable and less imposing that the stark white limestone of the cathedral. It seemed more "homey".

On our way back to the bus, we hit the market. There were so many things I wanted to stop and look at and possibly purchase...but we were just barely going to make our bus back home. I quickly purchased 2 pints of raspberries from a vendor on our way out. 2 pints for 1 pound 50 pence...or roughly 3 dollars. I thought I had scored big since a pint of raspberries at the commissary is $3.50. We enjoyed crepes later that night with lots of fresh berries. They were delicious. We had heard (and now we agree) that the open markets in the little villages around here are the only places to shop for fruits and veggies. They are so much cheaper and taste so much better.

Anyway...the last picture is a funny sign I saw right before the bus stop. "Fatty Bun Buns". In the states, someone would shoot you if you named your sandwich shop that...and they certainly wouldn't come and purchase your sandwiches. If you look closely, the lady in front of the shop actually looks shocked...likes she's been caught doing something she didn't want to be caught doing (like eating a sandwich that will give you fatty bun buns). It makes me laugh, and so it's included here.