{"id":10314,"date":"2021-07-25T18:22:46","date_gmt":"2021-07-25T17:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/?p=10314"},"modified":"2021-07-26T11:17:36","modified_gmt":"2021-07-26T10:17:36","slug":"small-cathedrals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/?p=10314","title":{"rendered":"Small Cathedrals and A Shrine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday 25th July 2021<\/p>\n

We went on from Burghley to Herbert Morrison and St Anselm’s at Cromer. The welcome dinner was sumptuous, to say the least. The next night we went to dine in an hotel, the only time I have attempted public eating in this phase. It rained on the way there and we had to hide under dripping laurels. It should be noted that laurel drips spectacularly well. When a couple are positioned in Cromer, it’s important that London should regularly monitor their condition. Royston’s approach is as one preparing a Cabinet briefing paper. On the face of it, HM is the worst behaved of the two. Just now he’s toying with the Tories, which is a far cry from the early Leninist days. In either case, he thinks little of the public and their tiresome demands. Why can’t they do more for themselves? St Anselm ditto, re: the public at the National Trust stately where he presides. That very day somebody had expected to be wheel-chaired all the way back from the far end of the arboretum. ‘Why did they go there in the first place if they weren’t able to get back?’ St Anselm raged. Herbert Morrison told us how he had tormented the Leader of the Tories with the possibility of joining – for a while, perhaps, or maybe not at all. Royston thought this approach a mistake but I begged to differ. This is HM’s power game. Next morning he cornered me before breakfast and inflicted an unsparing description of the toilet behaviour of a previous lodger. He believes that the younger generation are not brought up to toilet. But I imagine the main purpose was to ensure I wouldn’t want any breakfast and thereby economise. Or just for the hell of it.<\/p>\n

Herbert Morrison arranged a private visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. It’s a strange 1930s place – the actual Shrine resembling a semi on the Great West Road. The gardens are pleasant and even with interest and there is a crop of buildings where pilgrims may gather for food or moral improvement that have a special bare quality. We lunched with the director and his assistant – much ecclesiastical gossip and Royston suggested various ways forward re: funding and encouraging more visitors. The next day we visited Norwich, where I haven’t been since the early 70s. The cathedral is nice but a bit small, like Winchester, I said. Royston blew up. Winchester is not small, it’s one of the biggest, he declaimed. Well, it wasn’t when I went there, I protested. Low and long, like a cottage, I said. I quite liked Norwich Cath, although rather a hybrid, not solid and venerable as a pure Romanesque, not really soaring either as a Gothic. Old, though. Most striking, I thought, were the strange patterns on the spire. Somehow they looked exotic. Byzantine, Royston suggested. There was little to do at Norwich in terms of projecting for the future, setting up trusts etc. The bishop seemed not to be about, nor anybody else of influence. It remained to compliment the volunteers on a lovely cathedral and continue our visit to the rest of Norwich, which turned to be extensive with historic neighbourhoods, oldy-worldy and nooky-wooky. Very satisfactory. Herbert Morrison and Royston, being catholics, were hell-bent on the Catholic cathedral but I could go no further. Sitting on a bench I received the miraculous news via Instagram that Her Majesty the Queen had arrived at Ascot Races final Saturday.<\/p>\n

\"Our

Our Lady of Walsingham: the Sacred Inner Shrine: Floor like that of the Porch of a 30s Semi<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Our

Our Lady of Walsingham: Stillness, like the Queen<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Norwich

Norwich Cathedral Inside: Looks More Soaring than it is<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Norwich

Norwich Cathedral Inside: Looks more Soaring than It is<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Strange

Strange Patterns on the Spire of Norwich Cathedral: Secret Signals?<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday 25th July 2021 We went on from Burghley to Herbert Morrison and St Anselm’s at Cromer. The welcome dinner was sumptuous, to say the least. The next night we went to dine in an hotel, the only time I have attempted public eating in this phase. It rained on the way there and we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adrain-edge"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10314"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10323,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10314\/revisions\/10323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}