From journal,
Kent & St. Albans, Hertfordshire
My last morning in Kent. After breakfast I settled my bill at the little inn where I so pleasantly stayed for 3 nights.
I got into my rental for 1 last auto-adventure, having about 3 hours before the car was due back in Ashford. My first stop was St. Margaret’s Cliffe. I think I found paradise—again. Even in the gloom of grey drizzle, it was perfection—a cliffside enclave overlooking the English Channel. Regretfully, I carried on, crossing the main road for a roam-about, the last part in a fairly steady rain. Glorious. Again reluctantly, I realized it was time to leave the back roads and enter the motorway.
I made my way back to the auto rental. The cracked “mirror-glass” from my first day out cost only £27.50, worth every penny. I joked with the attendant that they should call it the “American mirror glass” because, surely, I am not the 1st Yankee to misjudge the left side. He said, “Not to worry, it’s just a pop out- pop-in.”
I chatted with a friendly Brit on the train to London/St. Pancreas. He was going to rendezvous with college-mates, a recurring pattern for most of my train companions. They were to do a “historical pub crawl.” He wanted to talk about American politics.
Somehow talking about the beauty of Kent, he inspired me to get a wild hair and journey north to Edinburgh for a night. James II and Mary of Modena lived there, in Holyrood Palace, off and on when James’ brother Charles II deemed they would be safer there, because of James’ intense Catholicism. QEII still stays there once a year, at least.
Just days ago, I didn’t think my injured lower back would take a 5-hour train ride, but it is so much better, and I have the small pillow placed just so that relieves the pressure. I am just too close not to try. I don’t know the chap’s name, but I thought of him all day and giggled to myself because we laughed at how I keep dodging the ever-present rain—when I need to be outside, it disappears. He said whatever I write should be titled Rain Dodging. It’s an apt metaphor, too.
Sure enough, once I checked in to my boutique hotel (the former home of Wind and the Willows author Kenneth Grahame), I researched Edinburgh and decided to find the bus stop to St Alban’s for a late afternoon walk-a-bout, the sky cleared. I am back at my hotel and it is raining again!
I reached St. Alban’s and started walking toward City Centre. I found myself in St. Alban’s Abbey apple orchard and decided to walk around the Cathedral, which was enormous, I realized, once I turned the corner.
I peeked into a door and heard a lovely (aren’t they all) British accent but a completely empty Nave. I carefully, quietly opened the door—which squeaked a bit. Tentatively, I walked forward. This Nave, I later read, is one of the longest in Europe. I continued creeping forward, past a partial wall. I discovered that Saturday Evensong was in progress: It had been the actual sermon from the “Quire” I’d been listening to via speakers.
An usher with a clipped mustache and a mustard yellow suit jacket invited me to sit where I wouldn’t interrupt the ongoing service. Ahead of me in the North Transept was a breathtaking Round Rose window, stained glass that (I later read) had been unveiled by Princess Diana in the late ’80s. The window hangs over the shrine of St. Alban, the 1st Christian martyr of Britain, put to death in the 3rdcentury AD for refusing to renounce his faith.
But it was the haunting evensong choir that brought me to tears.
I am unspeakably thankful for this British experience. There have been so many quiet moments of wonder, of discovery, of just-right. And there I was, almost at the end of this blessed adventure, just as I was at Westminster Cathedral weeks ago for Evensong, as if book-ends to my journey of a lifetime—a journey of literary and historical discovery, a journey of geographical incredulity, and a gifted journey of respite from the anxieties of my worry for my Tony. I said my prayers for him and my prayers of gratitude for this incredible fellowship. Silent tears of thanks did flow.
