I've never visited The Fens. Flat, originally watery marsh. Devastated and flooded. Reclaimed. And in the middle, Ely. A massive cathedral rising on the edge, on one of the very few clay hills.

The Fens are still flat, of course. Crossed by waterways. Rich in cultivated vegetables--I passed potatoes and cabbage and cauliflower and vegetable markets. The water's been managed. But Ely, beside the River Ouse, is still called "The Ship of the Fens."

I drove down Saturday and booked in at a b&b a block from the Cathedral.

Today I went to church.

If you've been reading carefully, you're about to laugh. They had a visiting boys' choir. From TEXAS.

Interesting that Wells has it's scissor arch because the original cracked. Ely can do it one better. Their central tower crashed to the ground one February morning in 1322. There's no record of loss of life. Yah, right.

In it's place they built an octagon tower supported by 8 stone pillars and vaulted. Topped by a wooden octagonal tower. Covered in lead. (PS-the lead is what toppled the Wells original tower. The weight. Sometimes it doesn't pay to read.}

I should not have read a memorial in the church. It's about how a famous architect went up in the tower, and fell to his death in 1845. I'd already bought the ticket for the tour.

So up I went. About 180 steps. Through tiny stooping doors and slender cylindrical stairs. Across a lead roof that looked down on the flying buttresses. Up another stair. And out onto the original lead roof, built roughly 1340.

I've included pix inside and out, looking up and looking down.

I am terrified of heights.

Then I walked down High Street to the river and had tea in a shop covered in wisteria. And I watched the boats.

Tomorrow I disappear back into the luxury of friendship. And after that the car goes back to Hertz and I go back home. I'll finish up from Minnow Creek, or Indianapolis...sometime soon.

I've planned this trip for years. It was better-than-planned because it was filled with so much luck and old fashioned love.

Thanks for joining me for a bit. I'll talk to you later.