Land of Lincoln(shire)

I was scanning my list of places I haven’t seen in England as yet–which remains an ever growing list–and “Lincoln” called my name. Lincoln is north and an itty bit west of Cambridge, about two-thirds of the way to York. It’s a simple enough route if you make the right connections, but if you have one mis-timed nap and go to Nottingham, Robin Hood will stop the train.
This is the first time I’ve traveled on a Saturday. It’s usually just me and a guide and some grammar school kids perhaps. But today the train from Peterborough to Lincoln was overrun by thirteen-year olds bringing their own cacophony to a concert. None of them bought tickets; all of them got caught at the exit gate.
Modern Lincoln, what you see as soon as you get off the train, was awash with Christmas shoppers. The town itself seemed very prosperous, but I fled the feeding frenzy of santa sales, climbed up the Strait and then up an even steeper path cleverly called “Steep Hill.”


OK, any sane person would have had quite enough of Norman cathedrals by now, so I’ll let the pictures do the talking. The light was exceptionally good today (translation from English to American: “the sun actually came out”). My two favorite Chaucer bits: 1) the story of St. Hugh’s missing head (i.e., a relic of the kind and wise bishop who was instrumental in negotiating the Magna Carta, not the boy “martyr” mentioned by Mme. Eglentyne in The Canterbury Tales whose anti-Semitic legend contributed to the expulsion of Jews in 1290); and 2) the fact that Katherine Swynford’s tomb (she was nanny/mistress/wife of John of Gaunt) is just to the left of the main altar. Lincoln Cathedral also has
a unique type of vaulting with the technical name "crazy vaulting"--that's what the guide said and I believe every syllable.

After too much time in the cathedral (did I mention over thirty greenmen, an imp, an angel choir, a double or cadaver effigy, a sepulcher chapel?. . .nevermind), I also walked the walls of the castle. I was doing fine till I ascended the (post-medieval) observatory and had a terrifying attack of vertigo which made me cry like a little boy-martyr. I was once again ready to swear off seeing anything non-medieval, but I kind of really like the memorial to Tennyson (born Somersby, Lincolnshire). No Jane Austen sightings.