There is a veritable crowd of hares in Winchester at the moment. Actually, they are spread out across Hampshire but we were in Winchester so they were the only ones we saw. They are all painted by different artists, very much like the painted cows we saw in Belgium and Salzburg, the eggs in London and, of course, the otters of Farnham.
This is one of the Hares of Hampshire, an art display in Winchester and Southampton, showcasing the skills of Hampshire artists. They are very big, kind of like the giant hare I once saw on a golf course at East Worldham…
We came across the pale blue hare above while sitting beside the River Itchen, (not really) enjoying the sun. We were sitting in the sun because a group of girls had already claimed the shady bench. I thought this was quite odd. Generally in Britain, the minute there’s sun, the inhabitants head for it, with the women lying down under it and the men taking their shirts off for reasons that defy logic.
We realised this group of girls was foreign, possibly Italian, which made a lot more sense.
In fact, we saw quite a few groups of foreign kids roaming the streets of Winchester, snapping photos of the big statue in the middle of the road at just the same time as Denise wanted to take one. I did suggest she just take a photo that included the kids, like I would but she just waited for them to disperse, then took her Alfred Photo.
It occurred to me, as we headed out of Winchester, that there must be millions of photos on the Internet of the statue of the Winchester King Alfred statue.
We decided to visit Winchester when I realised a day on the Isle of Wight would involve about eight hours of travelling and about an hour of visiting. So we hailed the 65 bus and set off for Alton before changing to the 64 for the rest of the trip.
It used to be that the bus would simply change its number at Alton station then, having sat for a while in order for the driver to spend some time in relief maintenance, head down to Winchester. Not any more. These days there’s two distinct buses, both, today anyway, with very pleasant drivers.
In fact, the one to Winchester was so pleasant we thought he was going to propose to Denise.
Denise visited Winchester way back in 2001. She remembers seeing the round table but that was all. Of course, once we started walking around, she remembered other things, most notably the butter cross. She didn’t, however, remember visiting the old Bishop’s palace, so, naturally, we followed the city wall around to the main entrance and popped in for a visit.
The Bishops of Winchester, for many years, were the most profitable pimps in London, mostly around Southwark. Seemingly unconcerned with the hypocrisy of religion v prostitution, they made enough money to build a massive palace here in the godly city of Winchester.
It’s not the obvious morality issue that upsets me so much as the church amassing enough money to build a huge palace for men who were paid for doing absolutely nothing in an organisation that is not taxed while taking money from those that are. But I guess the population was (and remains) happy about the latter. I assume the current bishop of Winchester is no longer a brothel keeper.
We weren’t alone at the English Heritage site. There was a surprisingly large number of people about all over the city, which I thought was odd given it was a nondescript Tuesday in July and school holidays don’t start until next week. Though, as I said, there were quite a few foreign school groups. That’s where we saw Tara.
She was wearing an orange t-shirt with her name badge proudly displayed. She seemed to be lurking on the fringes of a group of, what sounded like, French teenagers. Hardly much older, Tara appeared to us to be looking for a group to join rather than being officially with the group she was behind.
We watched her as we waited for the bus to take us back to Alton. In a very Freya type way, she managed to inveigle herself into the centre of the group, particularly when another group leader took a sub-set of the group to the loo. It was most mysterious.
Almost as mysterious as the claim that the Royal Oak pub has the ‘oldest bar in England’. Historically, it was once a house, given to Queen Emma by King Canute back in the 11th century, as a sort of wedding present. It was then a brewhouse in 1637. By 1677 it was called the Royal Oak though, untypically, there isn’t an oak tree near it for Charles to have hidden in.
It may (or may not) be the oldest bar in England, but it’s certainly one of the coldest. Given the humidity of the day and the balls of sweat that we were, walking up to the bar, the air conditioner behind us gave welcome relief as did the pints of very cold beer I downed.
We also had a lovely lunch of ham, egg and chips before deciding to venture out, into the wall of moisture waiting for us in the lane beside the pub.
We slowly walked down to the bus stop, forgetting to get an ice cream, where we found we had ten minutes to wait. Denise popped into the garden to have a quick squizz at the flowers.
And we discovered we had the same bus driver taking us back that had brought us into Winchester earlier.
In the bus, on the way back to Alton, we witnessed a lovely gesture by the bus driver. A couple of Ukrainian refugees boarded and, the younger woman started to explain to the driver that their free bus pass had expired but they had their passports to prove who they were. He smiled and just told them to get on the bus.
You hear so many stories of jobs worth bus drivers treating people without any decent humanity that this was a lovely testament to how some people can be decent human beings. What a lovely man he was.
