Barnsley Dearne Valley - Peterborough and Ely

The day started well, with an easy breakfast, pack up and drive to Peterborough where I am booked in for 2 nights. I had plans to stay at Ely, but after an hour's fruitless searching last night, I opted for Peterborough at the Holiday Inn and it seems fine so far. There is a restaurant next door called Harvester, which is a bit like Sizzler's, so dinner is taken care of.

I arrived by 11.30am, but they let me check in OK and I set out for my destination for the day Ely Cathedral.

Barnsley Dearne Valley - Peterborough - Ely and back to Peterborough

The reason I wanted to go to Ely Cathedral, was that quite a while ago I had a chat with my Mercy friend Jan Gray (who is now sadly deceased) and we talked about many places to visit in the UK. Those of you who know Jan would know how vast her knowledge was about anything theological or historical, and Ely Cathedral was high on her list of priorities for me to visit. I had kept those notes we made at Milkd - a favourite coffee shop in North Perth - and so the visit today was for Jan.

One little complication was that the weather decided to break today and rain was forecast.... I can't believe how lucky I've been so far, so I'm not complaining. In fact visiting a Cathedral is quite a good activity for a rainy day! My GMaps, as usual, took me off the beaten track and through the Fens. I'm now in East Anglia - the bit that sticks out like a bump on the lower East of England, and it is renowned for being a flat, low-lying district. There are multiple little channels of water, and there also seemed to be some bigger ones that could've been rivers... not quite sure, as there were no names anywhere.

I couldn't stop to get any pics, as it was raining quite steadily and there were no places to pull in. The road itself was interesting... it was like a raised embankment with drops on either side, and it was a bit like going up and down on a roller coaster!!! It also felt like the old cowboy movies... "Ride 'em cowboy!!!"

Image borrowed from Google images - this is what it looked like!

 So I arrived at Ely and was lucky enough to jag a free parking place very close to the Cathedral.

Ely Cathedral

Ely Cathedral

When I arrived at the entrance there was both good news and bad news...
The good news was Admission was free
The bad news was there was a display of many of the Ely businesses in the main nave of the Church - I have to admit it felt a bit like the buyers and the sellers in the temple. It was quite noisy and chatty and I was really looking forward to the quiet and stillness that these places often provide.

Here's a few pics of the inside...

Choir

The Octagon

Explanation of the Octagon

Ely has connections to Oliver Cromwell

The Lady Chapel was the place I particularly wanted to visit - it was the place Jan had highlighted and when I saw it I realized why....

The statue of Mary is quite unique...

Lady Chapel Ely Cathedral

Statue of Mary

Explanation of Mary Statue

The Mary statue was deliberately made to show Mary  as willing and ready to accept the call which would change her life, rather than the meek and mild submissive image of the Virgin Mary which is common in mainstream images of Mary.

The other thing that was really interesting was that all the plaster statues in this Chapel had lost their heads!!! Not sure if you can see that in the pic below....

Headless statues

Explanation of Headless Statues.

So, even though, it was a bit disappointing when I walked in, the wander through the Ely Cathedral was really interesting in the end.

Now for the daily drama!!!
One of the things I needed to do today was to get some more cash out, as I had paid cash for the my stay on Lindisfarne and although I can use my credit card for nearly everything, it always carries a little conversion rate that makes each transaction more expensive.

I had come prepared with 2 means of gaining cash.... my normal eftpos card with CBA which worked perfectly well last time, and  prepaid card which I had loaded with British pounds...
So I went to the ATM at the Lloyds bank in Ely and tried my eftpos card and it all went through OK until I asked it for £100. Then it spat it back out and as they say in the classics... "Computer says No"!!!
I wasn't sure how much was left on my prepaid card because I had withdrawn cash in Long Eaton to get some Euros for next week.
And I'm really conscious of not checking my banking whilst on an open wifi network.... which for me in hotels is most of the time....
A further complication was I tried to add more money to my prepaid card whilst at Fiona's but it wanted to send me a Netcode text message, and I had swapped my Australian sim for my UK Sim and I didn't know how to swap it back...
Fortunately there was a mobile phone shop in Ely and I went in and explained the situation and they showed me how to simply replace the  Sim. That was one thing that worked ok....

Aaaaaaagggghhhhh.......

So.... my problem solving skills were called into action once again. I think I can solve the problem if I can get into a safe wifi environment, which won't be an option for the next few days.

Butttt... as I was driving here this morning, I noticed the turn off to Rutland, which is close to where cousin Jo lives... it's only half an hour away! So, I got on the phone and rang Jo and I've arranged to go over there tomorrow morning and try and sort all this out. Thank you Jo!!!! 😀

I did have plans to go to Norwich tomorrow but with the rain again forecast, I think this is a more pressing issue - won't be able to stay long without cash!!!

And one last thing.... when I eventually got home from Ely after battling solid rain and peak hour traffic and getting lost again (!!!) there was a notice from the Commonwealth Bank saying there was suspicious activity on my card from the UK.... Hellllloooo !!! There is a number to ring with reverse charges, so I'm going to try that from Jo's place tomorrow....

Thinking of everyone in Oz on Anzac Day tomorrow. My friends from Perth, Barry and Roberta, are in Villiers Bretoneux for the Anzac Day ceremony. Lest we forget...

And thus ends another day in the ongoing saga of Wattle's Wanderings!  At least it's keeping me on my toes!!!