Exeat: Winchester Cathedral

I have been to Winchester before and it is where I first met those street performers who pretend to be statues. I also bought an orange watch, as you do, and refused to pay the entry fee for the Cathedral.
This time we'd arranged it all in advance and were prepared to pay. Jof had elected not to come with us because the shops in Winchester aren't a patch on Salisbury, apparently, and she had yet another opticians appointment.
So we drove to Grandad's place, for he is a nutter like us and had eagerly accepted the chance to accompany me on an expedition into the unknown. We found a multi-storey car park that said it was going to be demolished in 9 days' time, giving us a sufficient window of time to do the Cathedral Tower Tour.
The Cathedral itself is a little smaller than the one in Salisbury and its tower is definitely shorter. But they say they're the longest one in Europe and have the biggest bell-ringing room, and that the stone spiral staircases are narrower than anywhere else.
We approached the desk and said we've booked, can we have our tickets. They said go to the box office: the box office tried to send us back again but then she printed out our tickets and flustered, forgot to charge for the privilege.
This was absolutely the right price for us so we didn't mind having to pay the entry fee of £13 (which was for 2 of us even though we are 3) and I wanted to buy a pheasant feather and pot of quill ink from the shop but he said you'll never use it, just because you've seen it in Harry Potter does not mean that you can't just use a pen. Plus, if you haven't got your pen licence from school yet, think how long it'll be until you get your quill licence. Pheasant Plucker.
So we gathered in the gathering point after a quick look in the treasury which is a load of glass cupboards with 16th century gold and silver chalices, beer steins and plates. These monks obviously knew how to party, some of those tankards are like, 3 pints each.
The tour guides were two old ladies and they had to ask us all if we had a history of heart attacks, vertigo, sudden blackouts or demonic possession etc, to be fair, I'm 9, Bud is 45, the other 2 were in their twenties, only Grandad was older than the biddies at a mere 85. But we had to do the biddies' bidding and duly said we were fine, whereas in reality, the least able to negotiate steep spiral staircases were the biddies themselves.
We ascended the first flight and came out onto the roof edge of the main nave. This was a groovy view north up the hill to the Roman roads and we saw the tower and St Catherine's Hill and some pigeons. The lead roof had many patches with dates on (2009 etc) and at some point soon, the whole thing is going to be covered in scaffolding so the lead can be stripped off and replaced wholesale.
Then, like at Salisbury, we traversed the length of the nave in amongst the rather chunky medieval rafters and roof supports and we saw that they were good.
At the end is the base of the tower where the bellringers stand. They also have those placards where they record the longest ever campanology sessions and one was 4 hours and 11 minutes, bet the local population loved that one. They used to all be blokes and you know what it's like when you have 10 blokes all alone in a tower for 4 hours, so those nice Victorians installed a urinal in a cupboard. We also saw the giant central trap door for bell-lifting.
I found a spare clapper behind a chair and it was heavy. But then we went into the corner where the biddies got all worried about our ascent to the next level. OK, so the spiral staircase is narrow, and the steps have been worn away so you could easily slip if you were drunk, incapable, an old biddy, or not looking where you were going. You have to go down a bit, then along and up lots.
We also made rude jokes about how Americans couldn't get up the spiral stairs due to being moderately plump. But that's unfair, they're not all like that.
Grandad caused mayhem when he decided to go down the steps backwards, like in a ship or submarine, but then he bumped into a wall which is why you go down forwards. On the next astral plane is the bell room. These bronze monsters go up to a ton and a half and while we were there, some dinged and donged because it was quarter to the hour.
Back into the narrow staircase, the biddies were back in claustrophobic panic mode and we emerged onto the flat roof with raised sound dispersal unit and flagpole. We looked from all angles but I must report that the wind was a bit keen and I was glad I was wearing a coat. In fact the monks have a special medieval Papal Edict, signed by the man himself, saying they're allowed to have their hoods up during services, for otherwise their ears would succumb to frostbite in the centuries before windows, and decent clothing.
The time came for us to descend and that's when one of the biddies revealed she actually knows Grandad, from one of his church singing groups. I guess that once you meet him, you don't forget him. Mmm.
At the very bottom we all got a certificate, signed by the actual Dean of Winchester Cathedral's actual photocopier, saying congrats you have climbed the 213 steps on the tower tour and the biddy also said that we'd broken records: the youngest person to do the tower tour (me, 9), and the oldest person to do the tower tour (Grandad, 85) all in one go, and all in one family! Gosh, how we guffawed, chalk up another victory for Team M.
So you can't pay 60% of the entry fees and not have at least a quick circuit of the building so we saw the Crypt and that's when Grandad came up with his poem, about a cat that crept into a crypt and crapt. The poem was good, but the crypt was crap indeed because it was a big nice place if damp, but you couldn't actually go in it, just huddle at one end and view it through a fence.
All through the superstructure we found medieval flagstones in the floor with pull-rings so you know full well that there's tunnels and stuff down there. They also have many chantry chapels dedicated to various great and good from the 14th century and yes, it bursts with history, rocking mental stonework and wide open spaces, very valuable, extra credits to the deep-sea divers that saved the place by supporting the foundations.
There was also a choir practice going on, they were doing Bach, and Grandma would have wet herself with joy at some solid choral Bach in a decent Cathedral so Grandad sat and listened for a bit while I lit a candle to Nanna, which is what I do.
Outside we found a pricey yet VERY good Gourmet pizza establishment and pigged out, and then we did the city museum which is fairly small, even smaller when filled to the gunwhales by 57 Spanish students all trying to fill in the learning journey funquest and we saw many Roman coins and mosaics. Next door is a pub called the Eclipse, bet they had a good day yesterday.
We had a few minutes left so we ran to the old castle with its gifte shoppe of ambitious prices and squashed 3 pennies, King Alfred, Guinevere's Garden and the Round Table, which hangs in the great hall next door. It is a faithful medieval reproduction of the legendary original, using exactly the same shape!
The time on the car ran out so we drove Grandad home. On the way out, we saw people on the tower roof, from the 2pm tour! At his apartment, he made me do some angles, quizzed me on geography, gave me some foreign coins from his latest far eastern cruise and we came home, where we parked at exactly the same time as Jof and her work friend Katie off the hovercraft and they had prosecco and WKD blue and went to Gunwharf and then phoned us up and said I forgot the camera so we drove to Gunwharf and Bud scooted through the flat concourse and delivered the camera. Everyone in Gunwharf should have a scooter.

Then I chose Schwarzenegger in 'Eraser' for my film night because I like the guns. Then I watched 'Predator' because I like the jungles, and dollops of extra death, hurrah. Overcome by tiredness at 1020, just when Dutch was making his final stand. Blurred Jof got home only 30 minutes later. I have orders to be quiet tomorrow.