Afternoon: Fotheringhay

I took a trip out to Fotheringhay this afternoon.

crouching down looking up along a grave stone pointing to the sky is beautiful, especially with these tall Celtic crosses which lie so low beneath the cloudy sky; lying down makes them tall unproportionally taller than the other stones.  The sky behind this one looks rather delicious.

Another favourite of mine is lying on the floor in a church…particularly when there is a vaulted ceiling in view. With a lot of effort and thought you can gently trick your mind into thinking you are on the wall and not lying down at all.   I like the rushing water at weirs too  (or the water rushing into a lock from a gate). If you stare at the swirling water for a minute or so then look at your hand, the skin on the back of your hand crawls. 

Fotheringhay church doesn’t lend oneself to these tricks but I liked the look of the ceiling all the same; the patch that was so different to the rest. There are a lot of good ceilings in our country – I find it interesting as so many of us spend so much time looking at the floor.

The pulpit was better (not just because a piano was behind it!).

I wondered what the view over the roof tops to the church looked like and as I stood on the castle mound I was able to see:

You can trick the mind, but tricking the soul is even better.

I sat in the old castle grounds in Fotheringhay and real life disappeared. I sat and listened to the silence, the wind in my hair and watched the River Nene wind along below me.  A fly busied itself weaving in and out of the reeds as if there was not a care in the world. I found the still quiet voice of the calm. The river didn’t tell a story this time, it listened and carried my questions away.

There was a quietness there so I sat for a while on a style, me looking one way, and Boots the other, being quiet.

I liked the seats made from tree trunks, one had it’s shadow with it, so me and my shadow took a seat:

As we sat and watched the world go by we wondered whether we found a place of peace, but timed ticked on and we had to leave.

Fotheringhay is steeped in history. The castle used to look like this

but it looks like this now (you can see where the water went when standing there):

I don’t know anything about trees but I did wonder whether any of the trees standing remembered the castle as it was.

My shadow wondered what it would be like standing or dining in the great all on the 9th Feb 1586/7