A Day In Chester

CJ had a relatively Good Day today.  We went to Chester.  For those who don't know the city it was founded as a "castrum" or Roman fort with the name Deva Victrix in the year 79 (ie nearly 2000 years ago).  Chester's four main roads, Eastgate, Northgate, Watergate and Bridge, follow routes laid out at this time – almost 2,000 years ago. One of the three main Roman army bases, Deva later became a major settlement in the Roman province of Britannia. After the Romans left in the 5th century, the Saxons fortified the town against the Danes and gave Chester its name.

Chester was one of the last towns in England to fall to the Normans in the Norman conquest of England.  William the Conqueror ordered the construction of a castle, to dominate the town and the nearby Welsh border.  

Chester has a number of medieval buildings and is one of the best preserved walled cities in Britain. Apart from a 100-metre (330 ft) section, the walls are almost complete.

As we were going to be in close proximity to buildings all day I decided to take Gaz's Canon EOS 7D with his canon prime 24mm lens with the wee gadgety thing which allows one to compensate for the parallax effect of being close to buildings.  Gaz put his camera and lenses into my care before going back to sea with permission to use them to see if I wanted to move from my bridge camera and return to full SLR capability in due course.  My last SLR was pre-digital.  I suppose I should have been a bit concerned given that the kit I was carrying today probably cost more than my car is worth.  His full kit probably cost more than my house did.  I digress.

I had downloaded the manual and read some of the hundreds of pages but still didn't manage to recall all the instructions so quite a few of the 130 photos I took were  over-exposed and therefore unusable.  Ho hum.  

Very old (the bridge), old (the first bus) and new (the second bus) join in the ancient city of Chester

I hadn't realised that milliners still existed as shops

City tours

We had morning coffee at La Paticerie on Lower Bridge Street with wonderful smiling staff and cakes to drool over

The Old King's Head was the house of Randle Holme, Mayor of Chester 1633-4.  It was described as a 'new building' in 1633.

These elegant houses of the Abbey Square were built in the mid 18th century and must be some of the most desirable town residences in Chester

and these cottages were built in 1626 by Bishop John Bridgeman.  The building to the right is part of the Chester Cathedral complex.

A get-together of advertising banners.
What happened to the ever-present sandwich board man with "The end of the world is nigh" written on it that every town used to have?

On the way home CJ and I stopped in Parkgate for an ice cream.
Ice creams and shrimps have (separately!) been part of Parkgate since we were children.

The Ship Inn in Parkgate where, as a young man, I spent many a Friday or Saturday evening in the company of friends.

There Was A Time

When you went into a shop or department store to but something like a waste bin or garbage/trash can and there might have been a choice between a plastic one and a stainless steel one.  This is the choice in John Lewis in Liverpool:

And that appears just to be the metal ones.  Perhaps they don't have plastic ones.  

An Afternoon's Croquet

CJ's had a bad night last night and today he's had a bad day too and hasn't surfaced.  Jo had to get some work done.  So I decided to see if I could have a game of croquet.  Chester has a croquet club.  So I managed to get a game of Association Croquet. I discovered that one of the members was someone who used to play at the Marewa Croquet Club where I am a member in Napier in New Zealand.  It's a very small world and we had quite a lot to chat about.  I had a game with another member and although at the beginning it looked as though I had lost any capacity to hit a ball straight that soon remedied itself.  I lost the game but not badly and had a really enjoyable afternoon.  They were a really great bunch and now that I've found it I shall play some more on future visits.

I should also mention that it was a beautiful afternoon with the temperature around 23℃: the warmest since I left Lewis.   This evening it's clouded over and I suspect we are in for a cool and wet night.

The four lawns are superb (and very fast) and can be converted to 8 half-size lawns for social golf croquet.

Odds and Ends From Penrhyn Castle

Penrhyn Castle has a small railway museum which I might show some more photos of at another time.  Today I'm just showing the engine that Jo wanted to have a go at driving. 

Then there was this curious three-seater chair.  As all three people had their backs to each other it would have made conversation a little odd.  Perhaps there is another reason for its shape.  Does anyone know or have an idea?

After dinner when the ladies had withdrawn the men had the 'luxury' of not having to wander off round the castle when they wanted to relieve themselves.  Just go behind the screen for a handy chamber pot.  Hmmm.