Canterbury

We managed to visit Canterbury this past weekend.  There was much discussion en route about Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, Thomas Beckett, etc.  It was all even more interesting when we got there and learned about all this stuff as well as the Roman history of the area.  It was amazingly interesting...at least for me.

It rained the entire time we were in Canterbury.  As determined pilgrims, the rain couldn't stop us! 

Our first stop was a nice boat ride along the river Stour.  Lots of history/historic buildings.  The children were more interested in trying to see pike, eels, or other stuff rumored to live in the river.  Hank insisted that he saw an alligator.  Sophia was disgusted when the guide told her that the inhabitants of the city used to dump their sewage in the river and then drink out of it as well.  She just couldn't accept that!

Starting the boat trip!

Lovely view of the Stour!

Above and behind the Daddy's head is a dunking stool.  In addition to using it to determine a witch's guilt it was also apparently used to dissuade house wives from nagging and harassing their husbands all the time.  It seems as though a husband who was unable to handle his wife's nagging would cry to the Magistrate who would then have the woman dunked.  They dunked her for only about two or three seconds, but as the river was the equivalent of a septic tank, that two or three seconds would have been horrible.  We were also told that the chair was used to dunk businessmen who cheated their customers.  As they were publicly dunked everyone knew they were cheaters and would no longer give them business and they would eventually go bankrupt.  The boat tour guy insisted that this is where the term "going under" came from in regards to businesses.  I am doubtful.

The grand finale of the day was going to SANDWICH for supper.  If only I had been able to find the sign that showed the distance for both the villages of Ham and Sandwich...  Oh well.