The Meliza Girls Do the Cotswolds: Winchester

We all tumbled back in the car and headed off to Winchester. Now I must admit the actual car part is a bit of a blur. I think I blocked it out. You know, trying to protect my delciate psyche from the trauma. I'm not really a car trip person. And never having had sisters, I sort of missed out on the joys of sisters travelling together for extended periods of time in close quarters. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for never having another girl! :-)

Despite the many crises on the road, we did manage to arrive in Winchester in one piece and mostly sane. Our first stop was the Winchester Mill which is several hundred years old and still in use, grinding the local wheat into beautiful whole wheat flour. Gorgeous! You know me and baking. Not only did I buy a bag of the flour, I also bought a cookbook to go with it. For those of you not aware, here's a little factoid about me: I adore cookbooks.

After a tour of the beautiful old mill and gardens, we wandered over to the Cathedral which is supposed to house a lovely luminated copy of the Bible which Shirley was dying to see. Unfortunately, it was graduation day for the local Uni and the Cathedral was closed for the day. Really, we do have the worst luck. Shirley wanted to buy something in the gift shop, so we waited for her outside. Lili wanted a smoke break, so we wandered away from the crowds, keeping an eye out for Shirley's return. We waited. And waited. And waited some more. Finally we sent out the search parties. No Shirley anywhere. We were about to give her up as lost to an alien abduction when she finally reappeared. She had some tall tale about not being able to find us. Hello! Have you seen the colour of my hair lately? I'm pretty hard to miss, even in a crowd.

After a bit of griping at her for an appropriate length of time, we trotted off to see the Round Table.

Now once again I must apologize. You see, it has been five months so my recollection of the tale of the Round Table is slightly hazy, but it goes something like this.

A few hundred years ago, the Capital was actually not London, but Winchester. Now kind somebody or other decided he needed to consolidate his power. To do that, he thought it'd be a grand idea to capitalize on the legends of the Knights of the Round Table. So, he pulled a couple of creative little political tricks. First off, he came up with "proof" he was decended from King Arthur (in fact, he very nearly claimed to be Arthur reincarnated). Then he had a lovely round table made up, all painted and glitzy, with King Arthur depicted in full, glowing TechniColor. Guess who Arthur looked like? You got it in one: Good King Whatsisname. Oh, gee, suddenly medeival King Arthur is wearing modern day (well, for the times, anyway)clothing and armor and bearing a striking resemblance to the current king. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

With tales of knights and kings buzzing in our brains, we took time out for cream tea at the local posh hotel before continuing to our final destination: Avebury.