I Hate Rugby

No, I have not gone off the game, only the tangled urban jungle ... $#@% ...words failed me beyond those frowned upon in public yesterday but I mean the town of Rugby that boasts to be the game's home. It had one of those brown tourist signs advertising the school and other historic sights but after driving through its suburbs and then around its busy centre yesterday we left disappointed. No convenient place to park and enjoy some of the old buildings I glimpsed from behind the wheel and lots of Saturday morning shoppers impatient with lost tourists like myself. So we left unsatisfied and unconvinced of its right to claim to be Rugby's birthplace.
Fortunately, the nearby city of Coventry proved to be easily accessible by car with parking quite close to its well sign posted and famously demolished cathedral. I felt we had made good a promise to visit back in 1980 when radiator trouble prevented our visit with my parents' friends the Whitfords.
Ironically, while we walked in silence inside the shell that was left after the 1940 raid by the Luftwaffe we heard the distinctive tones of some old German tourists enjoying a visit. The site is cleaned up now and Tess almost prefers its light and open look to some of the old gothic cathedrals we have encountered elsewhere in our travels. The new cathedral they built next door has beautiful modern stained glass and the cathedral itself is a worthy replacement for the old.
Back on the M1 to Leeds and I passed the wheel to Tess for a brief nap. My phone tells me she hit 130 kmh at one stage - when a rude Jag would not let her over to pass - not quite matching her 136 on the return trip to Bath earlier on. Safely arrived at the Novotel for the next 9 nights we explored the Off Licences in the immediate vicinity, stocked the fridge and awaited Emma to join us at 7 pm for dinner. She had been visiting Chatsworth House near Sheffield with friends. It was used as the site for Pemberley in the Keira Knightly film version of Pride and Prejudice. We enjoyed a good Italian red with our Italian meals and then waited with Em among a rowdy crowd of Saturday night revelers and saw her safely aboard her bus back to college.
Today we head off for a Sunday drive in the Dales.