Wednesday, 8/10 - 1st English Shore Excursion

Liverpool – Charming Chester

Hubby woke up still tired. He has days like that. We had to meet to leave for our shore excursion by 7:15, so we went to the buffet for our usual made-to-order omelet and cream of wheat. When we were sent out to find our bus, it seemed like we walked a couple miles to get there. We hoped there would not be a lot walking today but couldn’t remember anything about this excursion.

It turned out we were leaving Liverpool to visit the charming town of Chester, some 45 minutes away.

Chester started out as a walled garrison for some 6,000 Roman soldiers. It wasn’t called Chester then, but I don’t remember what it was called, due to an adventure Hubby had. More on that later.

After the Romans were chased away, the walls around the town were made higher. You can walk around the inner city atop the walls, a distance of about 2 miles.

Peter, our tour guide, pointed out some sights of the town as we drove through and around it for a few minutes. Then the bus stopped outside The StoryHouse, which has 2 theaters, a cinema, the library and a café. We were supposed to meet back at the StoryHouse to get on our bus 2 hours later, at 11:15. Then Peter took the group south on Northgate Street to the center of town. By then, my knees had started to ache, which is never a good sign, so when Peter said he would take us to the East gate, and then to the Cathedral, I handed Hubby the map of Chester and told him I was headed back to the StoryHouse. He wasn’t happy, but my aching knees aren’t something that can be argued with. So Hubby continued with Peter, and I turned back to climb the hill back to the StoryHouse.

About half way up the hill, I found a bench in the shade and sat down to rest for a while. While I was resting, I realized I was directly across the street from the Information Center, so I crossed over to see if they had any interesting books. They had some history books that looked interesting, but they were £18 or more. I settled on a children’s book for £7, and went back to the bench to sit for a little longer.

At 10:45, I walked back to the StoryHouse and found a bench outside to sit on as I waited for my bus. There were plenty of buses to choose from, but I couldn’t tell which one was mine. At 11:08, I decided I’d better walk across the street and see if one of the 2 buses was mine. One of them was, and as I got ready to board, I told Peter, “I haven’t seen my husband return. I hope he’s already on the bus.”

But Hubby was not on the bus, so I selected our seats and sat down to wait for him. About 11:20, Peter counted the people on the bus, and then asked if my husband was on the bus. I said no, and he said, “He’s the one that’s missing, then.” A few minutes later, he asked if I knew where Hubby would have gone. The last I’d seen him, he was following Peter toward the East Gate, which had a clock tower. At about 11:27, John finally showed up, out of breath and looking exhausted.

We got underway to head back for Liverpool. Once Hubby caught his breath, he told me he had decided to walk around the town on the city walls, a distance of about 2 miles. He started at the clock tower, and walked leisurely, taking pictures. Once he saw the race track outside the city, which was approximately half way around, he decided he’d better pick up his pace in order to get back to the bus. But he didn’t know how much further he had to go. Apparently, he didn’t realize when he got to the North Gate, nor that that was the closest point to the StoryHouse. So he continued to hoof it back to the East Gate, then down East Gate Road and up North Gate Street, where he was vastly relieved to find the bus was still there.

When we got back to the ship, Hubby started to complain that his stomach was upset and he was desperate for a cold drink. We went to O’Sheehan’s for lunch, where he got a particle of food caught in his throat and kept coughing, trying to get it unstuck. He finally drank enough pop to get it washed down, so we went to our cabin and lay down for about an hour, to give us time to recuperate. I took a pain reliever because my knees were still aching.

After that hour, he got up to watch some tv and said he was feeling a bit better. I took my computer and went off to the internet cafe, where I could sit at a table and type. I returned to our cabin about 6:30, and he told me to go have supper without him, that he wasn’t feeling any better, and he was going to bed early. He asked me to bring him back a Diet Pepsi when I came back.

So I went back to O’Sheehan’s, where I had loaded nachos and their Blue Plate Special, which was meatloaf, mashed potatoes and corn. I enjoyed the food very much, but I skipped dessert. When I was done eating and ready to leave, I asked for a diet Pepsi, which I carefully carried back to the room. Hubby was climbing into bed, having forgotten he had asked for a diet Pepsi. He had me put it in the refrigerator, and then I sat and read until 10, when I tried to set a wake-up call for 6 AM before going to bed.

Good Ol’ Saxons

The Saxons were a group of early Germanic peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country near the North Sea coast of what is now Germany. According to one proposal, the Saxon’s earliest area of settlement is believed to have been Northern Albingia, which is close to the probable homeland of the Angles. During the late Roman Empire, the name ‘Saxon’ referred to Germanic coastal raiders. Later, they were associated with settlements along the coast of Normandy.

Later still, the Saxons, Angles, Frisians and Jutes settled in England and became known as Anglo-Saxons. These were no longer raiders. The political history of the continental Saxons is unclear until the time of the conflict between their legendary hero Widukind and the Frankish emperor Charlemagne. Charlemagne won the conflict, and organized the Saxons into a Frankish province. Although the continental Saxons are no longer a distinctive ethnic group or country, their name lives on in the name of several regions and states of Germany.

But as I stated earlier, the Saxons, Angles, Frisians and Jutes either invaded or migrated to the island of ‘Great Britain’ around the time of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. For centuries before that, Saxon raiders had harassed the eastern and southern shores, and some had been granted permission to settle in these areas as farmers.

Tradition says that the Saxons (and others) were brought in to protect the Britons from raids by the Picts (of Scotland), Gaels (of Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man) and others. The Saxons were allowed to settle on the Isle of Thanet (eastern Kent) in exchange for their services as mercenaries. (Thanet is no longer an island, but is connected to the English mainland.) For whatever reason, more land was granted to the Anglo-Saxons, and more of them arrived to settle it. It is uncertain whether this was a peaceful process or not.

Eventually, in about the 6th century, the Anglo-Saxons took over all of the southeastern portions of Britain and formed 4 realms: The East saxons created the Kingdom of Essex; The Middle Saxons created the province of Middlesex; the South Saxons created the Kingdom of Sussex; and the West Saxons created the Kingdom of Wessex. Between the reigns of Egbert to Alfred the great, the kings of Wessex gained sway over the other realms and unified the country. They eventually organized it as the Kingdom of England in the face of Viking invasions.

One has to wonder if they saw the irony of becoming victims of coastal raiders, when that was how their own people started out?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxons