Ely, its cathedral and the family artist

Arati is feeling sick due to the food she has eaten and she stayed back and not for her good. I think this place, ELY (spelled as ily as our kannada mouse, haha) is one of the most beautiful cities in this country. It is also one of the smallest cities in this place. These people classify a place as a city only if it has a cathedral. There is a difference b/w the cathedral and a church. A cathedral will have a bishop and the church will not have. Hope I have been able to translate what I have learnt.

Jaqueline is the wife of a veterinarian and very nice lady. She is so funny and lively, we never felt we spent almost 4 hours with her in the morning. Ely`s cathedral has one of the biggest octagon which is built of wood in the late 12/13th century. Whichever the place we have visitied here have so much history and manyof the Rotarians we have met have been living in homes which are more than 300-400 years of age. This cathedral was first built in 1090 something and it is still standing tall in the small city of ely. Amazing stuff inside and you can see beheaded statues from Charles the VIII era it is just like all the temples damaged by the ghaznis and ghoris in India.

There is a lovely river in ely and we had a nice cold drink and enjoyed the sun. Charles and jaqueline took us to the ely club meeting where in we had to present with out any powerpoint. I think this was the most lacklustre presentation we have ever done in this trip. I think it makes a lot of difference when we use audio visuals compared to only audio.

Oliver Cromwell. I am sure many of us have not heard of this guy back home but this is one guy many people hate and some love in UK. This the person who was responsible for killing king charles I and created a revolution in the country. Born to a poor family he grew to be the biggest guy in the country and ruled the country for a few years. We had a chance to visit his home in ely which is very well maintained which speaks about the history of oliver Cromwell.

Finally when he died, his body was removed from his burial ground and was beheaded by the king charles II and then finally his head is intered in one of the colleges of Cambridge.

Toney is an artist of different character. I think he was born in India in his previous life!?!. He is one of the few guys who gives so much importance to the family here. He has a lot of collection of all the stuff he used to use when he was a child, his children, grand children and so on and so forth. He has pictures of his 10 generations of parentage and all his wonderful paintings speak of the family values. Quite a character he is!. He gave us a wonderful tour of his paintings on the theme of TIME and he was kind enough to join us in the meeting which was conducted in LAMB the very evening.

This club of ely is quite young and vibrant and very very informal. This is one of the clubs where we had one of the best interactions. The presentation went very very well and at the same time we had wonderful question and answer session too. Every day we are coming very late and having long days. Have already given 4 presentations in 2 days.