Puzzles and contradictions

The drive from Berkshire to Peterborough is remarkable for the sheer number of roundabouts involved. Our cross-country journey takes on a herringbone pattern of A and B roads connected every few minutes by sometimes multiple interlocking circular junctions. It makes drinking coffee almost impossible. 

At the Peterborough Passport Office, I’m prepared for queues snaking their way out of the door and into the street, while whole families camp on the pavement, waiting for news of their passports. Such has been the picture of nightmarish chaos that my weeks of futile phone calls has conjured up. But I find nothing of the sort. In fact there’s no-one there at all apart from the bored security guard, who forgoes the security, and the two employees sitting unoccupied behind the reception desk. I approach the desk, a young man asks my name and date of birth and voila! my two passports and supporting documents are handed to me with a congratulatory smile. I’m back out on the street before Adrian has even made it to the Pay and Display machine.

We stare at the passports, stare at each other and feel at a loss. ‘What shall we do now?’ we both ask. Neither of us is prepared for this quick and easy operation, nor are we yet ready for another two and a half hours of roundabouts. So instead, we take a whistle-stop tour of Peterborough’s history and find ourselves once more stumbling into Mary, Queen of Scots, this time far from her favourite Faulkland castle . . . and headless. Her remains are buried in Peterborough cathedral, along with those of Catherine of Aragon, the first of Henry VIII’s marital discards. 

The cathedral close is one of the most pleasantly attractive I’ve seen. There are people picnicking in the shady green space that sprawls beneath the Bishop’s palace and the row of mellow stone houses and offices. The surrounding buildings form a unique architectural palimpsest that wears its ancient monastic history in the form of a structural puzzle. It’s intriguing. We turn and turn again, taking in arches buried in walls and make guesses. It’s crying out for some clever reconstruction that might fill in the blanks.

The Norman cathedral itself, consecrated in 1238, is so solidly vast around the girth that it looks squat despite the height of it’s towers and spires. It’s really really big. We walk back through the Norman Gate and into Cathedral square, a market place still laid out in its original 12th century shape. Although the medieval Guildhall was replaced during the restoration, it was another seven centuries before Peterborough finally spread beyond half a mile of this medieval centre. 

But we don’t really have time for sightseeing. Now that our travel plans are going ahead, we have much to organise and people to see before we go. On Sunday we meet our niece, Lizzie, and her partner, Ben, for lunch in the house that they’ve recently bought together. As Ben cooks and Lizzie makes salad, the two of them look as happy, relaxed and confident as if they’ve lived together here for years. The food is delicious and we’re touched that these busy young people have given up their Sunday for us.

Kate trains down from London on Monday, looking tanned and pretty in her summer dress and long curls. We talk non-stop and she asks us up to London at the weekend: one more get-together with our children before we fly off. Then there’s a journey to Surrey to see some more of Adrian’s cousins and, with all these good-byes, it’s beginning to feel like we’re embarking on more than a just a holiday. 

As we sit around Pam’s table, I’m fascinated to learn that this side of Adrian’s family – his father’s siblings – were all musical and theatrical. There are many stories of singing and dancing but I love best the one she and Celia tell of their mother and aunt, two women born at the turn of the 19th/20th century, previously seen rather severely dressed on cine films, giving a performance of the can-can in their house. For me, this is a completely new perspective on the family that I thought I knew well.

It’s one of the most positive aspects of our journey around the UK, this catching up with friends and relatives that we would normally not see from one year to the next, the stories we hear. We have a few more meetings up before flying-off day. It’s getting close.