Salisbury Sights and Sounds.

Last Saturday saw sunshine and us meeting Mr GBT's bro and wife for a jolly- the date had already been booked in our diaries weeks ago but it was good to catch up under more normal circumstances on the back of the recent funeral.

Now when one says Salisbury chances are the first thing you think of is the cathedral so we broke with tradition and wandered round the cloisters but didn't go in this time.

 I liked the sentiment of this piece.

More shots from inside St Thomas's [the church with the amazing doom picture]. It's only a stone's throw away from the cathedral. It has three well preserved Medieval paintings on the North wall.

This wooden panel was made by Humphrey Beckham. He was a Master Joiner and several examples of his carvings survive. As he tells us this is all "his own worke".

Rather liked the juxtaposition of old and new in this shot.

I can heartily recommend a visit to the church to see its wonders but I must admit that I found it very oppressive with quite a malevolent undercurrent to it. I think that it was partly down to the fact that it's very tall with a lot of dark wood and is strikingly unfamiliar. Perhaps back in the day when it was brightly adorned with colours it may have felt different, but certainly the doom picture was meant to impress and I suspect intimidate the masses! Interestingly we all separately picked up the atmosphere.

Turning to other observations. How about this for a fine example of a recycled floor from The India shop? On four floors, this retail outlet specialises in Fairtrade and has some gorgeous wares for sale.

Music to entertain the masses- they were rather good!! Always love a double bass and the player may have just caught my eye too. Snigger.... It makes a change from being surrounded by lots of hairy and bearded Morris dancers!

As for this final one I just smiled wryly to myself....I wonder how much of my life I have spent queueing to powder my nose, whilst a whole gang of chaps sail in and out of their facilities. When I rule the world I am going to put in twice as many loos for us ladies as it seems to escape the notice of the planners that, due to certain design constraints, the whole business simply has to take longer. Aargh!!

Arilx