Friday morning I awaken to peel away the suction blinds on two of the van windows.
In minutes I’m dressed and wellied up to walk the two hundred metres to where shapely Milton Ferry Bridge crosses a Nene swollen and sunlit.
Water, water everywhere. And all the boards did sink.
Water, water everywhere …
… nor coffee yet to drink.
A denial, of my inalienable right to caffeination, by all paths to the Visitors’ Centre cafe, due to open in an hour, being cut off by sheets of water. I have the makings in the van but, my fingers numb with cold, want it served with a smile and savoured in a warm bright venue with views.
Still, much to admire as I try route after increasingly indirect route, all to no avail.
A red kite hunts high in the sky …
… without coming close enough to allow a good snap.
This dude may not be going as far as he thinks. I’m now walking back, having been thwarted too many times by initially promising paths ending abruptly in waters darkly forbidding.
Back at the van I head for Stamford, not half an hour away and according to John Betjeman the loveliest town in England.
Friday is market day in Stamford.
The Welland is no less swollen than the Nene as both hurry on, like the Great Ouse to the south and Witham to the north, to top up the Wash.
Loveliest town in England? Maybe. The BBC filmed George Eliot’s Middlemarch here in the early nineties. It’s rated her opus magnum but I always preferred The Mill on the Floss.
Me being a lover of rivers.
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