Feb 25th A Cathedral Flog it

Friday and another fine sunny if somewhat cooler day. A morning swim was the first order of the day followed by coffee at 'Sundays' in town. 'Himself' was coming in by bus and we were meeting up for coffee.

After coffee we strolled over the brand new revamped Cathedral Square, remarking of the bland emptiness of it and the numerous disgusting blobs of chewing gum trodden in the new expensive sandstone paving blocks. Twelve million pounds and two years of work for a very unimposing monument to modernness.

Anyway rant over. We were heading to the Cathedral to have a nose at the filming of a popular BBC2 television program called 'Flog It'. Members of the public take in their antiques for valuation and appraised by experts and if their item is deemed interesting enough they get to be filmed with the 'Television antiques experts' and their item is then sold at an upcoming auction.

There were queues of people. They got longer and never seemed to reduce. Inside rows of patient people clutching their precious goods sat patiently waiting their turn with the experts.

The television crews waited for their next victim with the Antiques celebrity expert Philip Serrell.

The shows presenter Paul Martin wandered about and talked to the waiting punters.

We bypassed the waiting queues and went straight in. Its a few years since our last visit and I always find churches and Cathedrals fascinating places. It's their history and architecture that interests me. Despite the vast size and height of the building it was kept warm by these hugh ancient heating stoves.

We wandered around past the Cathedrals two notable memorial edifices, namely Katharine of Aragon and Mary Queen of Scots, looked again at the ancient silver ware and marvelled at the stone carving. Always finding bits that we'd missed on previous visits.

Since the building was cleaned and restored after the disastrous arson attack of a few years ago, the pale Barnack sandstone of building gleams and radiates light around from the magnificent stain glass windows.

Our Cathedral always attracts lots of visitor because of its history and architecture but today there was understandably extra milling around, along with us, watching the proceedings in the central aisle.