Hassocks!

There has been an eleven month interval since our last visit to Lincolnshire to walk the Viking Way, and we finished last September in the middle of section 4, partly for practical reasons but also because we were a little footsore from walking distances which generally seemed somewhat longer than those set out in Lincolnshire CC's otherwise admirable (and free to download) guide. As a result we have been slightly out of sync with the sections into which the guide divides up the route. So on 23rd August, having spent the night in Horncastle, we returned to Ludford, site of disused airfield which was the home of 101 Squadron. From here Lancasters took off towards Germany; later it was home to the Thor ICBM: but now the airfield has almost disappeared into peaceful farmland. 

From Ludford we headed to Wykeham, where we could just about make out the site of a lost village. Around this point we met the only other Viking Way walkers we encountered on the whole trip - two middle-aged(ish) chaps who were doing the whole route from end to end and going a lot faster than we were. 

As we continued at a moderate pace through rolling farmland I was getting messages about flooding in Leeds: the basement of my old chambers was underwater! Traffic was at a standstill! My parents (near Derby) reported a tremendous thunderstorm over them. This seemed ominous as we assumed the rain would be heading east and the deluge would be with us in an hour or two. And so it did: the clouds massed; the sky grew dark; a wind got up; the heavens opened. After about ten minutes they closed again, and that was all the rain we had for the whole trip. Enough to make us reasonably damp for an hour or two, but otherwise we have been incredibly fortunate with the weather (as we were last year).

As the rain descended we arrived at Biscathorpe, an out of the way spot with an interesting-looking but disappointingly locked church. Little St Helens is still used for the occasional service, apparently - we were surprised that whoever looks after it felt it necessary not only to lock the church but also chain up the gate to the churchyard, thus making access unnecessarily difficult. 

While still drying off we reached Donington on Bain, where there is a fine church built of the local greenstone. There was a curious custom, in existence till the 19th century, of hassock throwing. When a couple got married the older ladies of the parish would gather in the church and throw hassocks at them as they left. This custom was quashed by the Reverend Veners - clearly a dull chap - who took exception on being struck by a (possibly) misaimed hassock. The church is now full of brightly coloured hassocks - so I revived the custom, despite protests from my sister. You can't do much harm with a hassock. 

Onwards then, across one of Lincolnshire's many disused railways, to Goulceby, Scamblesby and finally Belchford. When we calculated, using the GPS on my sister's phone, the mileages for today we discovered we had walked 18 miles. Belchford was a little too far: we should have stopped at the previous village. Unfortunately doing a linear walk using two cars ties you to a particular destination. It was by then a glorious sunny evening. 

When I did the Coast to Coast a few years ago it seemed that I would fall over almost every day, usually onto something soft and muddy. I decided to revive this tradition by falling over in Scamblesby. We spotted a disused shop, formerly the Post Office, the windows of which were festooned with rather sinister looking stained white cloths (rust? blood?) and which had a useful display of VHS video tapes inside. While walking up to the door the lace of my boot bizarrely hooked itself round part of a bootscraper, bringing that foot to an abrupt halt while the rest of me carried on. The bruises will last for some time.

Photographs: multi-storey haystacks; Grims Mount (a barrow which we passed); the locked church at Biscathorpe; hassocks at St Andrew's, Donington on Bain; Provence or Lincolnshire?; the shop at Scamblesby; the locked church at Biscathorpe.