Day 121 – Clay Hole to Marsh Farm (via Boston): 10.2m: 3.2h

The radiators in our rooms (together with large amounts of paper towel provided by the hotel) have done a very effective drying job on our bags, clothes and boots. However, the prospects of completing our planned walk today – just over 15 miles to the Ship Inn at Fosdyke Bridge in time to pick up a cab booked for 2:30 to take us to Spalding – are problematic. First, the weather is dreadful. Heavy rain with a strong, and quite biting, wind. And secondly, having hoped to get a cab to return us to Clay Hole in time for an 8:30 start, we discover that school runs mean that we can’t be picked up from the hotel until 9:00 at the earliest. During our extra time in the hotel lounge, we witness two men at the bar having a couple of beers (we assume – or hope – that they’re night workers at the end of their shift) and John and Mike venture outside to establish that our route from Clay Hole through Boston will bring us back past the hotel because we’ll be unable to cross the river at an old swing bridge a few hundred yards away. This serves to confirm an earlier provisional decision that we should leave our rucksacks at the hotel and collect them later which will hopefully mean that we’ll have some dry clothes when we finish. We’re picked up shortly after 9:00 and we’re out in the rain at Clay Hole around 9:30, unencumbered by luggage – and by scenery. Once again an embankment with flat fields on one side and the river and more flat fields (and a couple of industrial sites) on the other. The rather monotonous nature of the walk is illustrated by the fact that we fail to notice the point where we cross back into the western hemisphere and that one of the few memorable events is Ben’s attempt to make a connection between cricket and walking with Mike towards the Boston Stump. The somewhat tenuous link is “stump mike”. So not surprisingly, the prospect of returning to the Quayside lounge becomes more and more attractive and, on our wet and bedraggled arrival there after over an hour and a half’s walking, it is clear that there’s neither the time nor the inclination to try and get to Fosdyke Bridge. Instead, we settle down to agree other arrangements over warming cups of coffee for John, Mike and Gary, and an early and equally warming glass of red for Ben. We decide that the rucksacks will remain at the hotel and that we’ll walk another 5 miles or so back along the south side of the river to Marsh Farm where there’s a lane for a cab to collect us and return us again to Boston. John also gets the cab booked for the Ship Inn to pick us up at the Quayside. By the time we leave the lounge, the rain isn’t quite as heavy as before but, after half a mile, we have to divert away from the path leading to the river because of some flood barrier works which, if the water in the yards which we pass is anything to go by, aren’t yet wholly effective. It proves to be quite a long diversion which we soon realise could make us a bit late for taxi rendezvous time. So when we eventually reach the embankment, the walk gradually develops into an easterly yomp (with the meridian going unnoticed yet again) and we arrive at the Marsh Farm lane as the cab is driving towards us. By 1:45 we’re back at the Quayside and, as it doesn’t serve lunch, John pops out to a nearby shop and returns with crab sandwiches. We have time to enjoy these, wash them down and change into gratifyingly dry clothes before our diverted cab arrives. Mike has decided that it's easier for him to stay in Boston and catch a direct train to Nottingham rather than accompanying the rest of us to Spalding. John and Ben get a train from there to catch their connections at Peterborough, whilst Gary gets a train north to join Sally for a couple of days in Lincoln.

Postscript: After we left Wainfleet, heavy rain continued to fall leading to the town being flooded a couple of days later. Roads were impassable, the rail line from Boston was closed and a state of emergency was declared.         

Day 120 – Wainfleet to Clay Hole: 17.4m: 6.2h

Ben and Gary’s route this morning involves a change of trains at Sleaford where they join John and Mike who are travelling through/from Nottingham. For once, we haven’t chosen the best of dates for a walk. The country is due to experience regular rainfall throughout the week, with Lincolnshire being one of the worst affected areas and, when we arrive in Wainfleet shortly after 11:30, the actual weather conditions confirm those predicted. It is raining, lightly but steadily, and the leaden skies offer little hope of immediate improvement. Undeterred, we set off and immediately miss an early turn from the road out of the town which only takes a few minutes to rectify. Much of our route back towards the coast involves going through a series of rather muddy vegetable fields to the south west of Wainfleet before turning left along a track which crosses the A52 and leads to a grass embankment running parallel to – but several hundred yards away from – the coastline. And the embankment proves to be the story of the day. We don’t leave it for the next 4 hours. It’s bordered by wide stretches of farmland, marsh and wetland; due to the distance from the coast and the dull/damp weather, we rarely catch sight of the sea; we come across a few groups of cows and horses, but only a handful of buildings and people; and, whilst there are occasional breaks in the rain and nothing between the breaks which would qualify as a downpour, it’s generally a wet and rather bleak day. The high spots are witnessing a mechanical vegetable picker in one of the fields, and speculating on the purpose of yellow discs in the ground which we see along a two mile stretch of the embankment and which, according to John’s calculation, appear every 100 metres. The speculation ends when we encounter a small group of people at one of the periodic crossings of the embankment (some of which are bounded by removable barbed wire) and are informed that the discs are designed to monitor any movement in that particular stretch following its level being raised several months ago. Given that the group looks vaguely official – with jackets and clip boards in evidence – the information could well be reliable, and it does sound plausible. We’re anticipating that the embankment will end somewhere on the approach to HM Prison, North Sea Camp, just before we reach The Haven river which leads into Boston. But no. Remarkably it continues through the prison (or maybe camp is the more appropriate word) with nothing more than stretches of waist high wire on either side. It is no surprise to read that it is an open prison. A very genial prison officer emerges as we pass the gate house and asks if we’d like to be escorted through the site but, seeing that it’s more in the nature of a polite request than a suggestion, we reply with equal politeness that it won’t be necessary. And the observations which we hear from one or two inmates as we pass alongside their blocks don’t sound too antagonistic. The day ends as it began with what proves to be an unnecessary diversion around three sides of a field to get to the north bank of the river. As it transpires, we could simply have crossed the first side. This adds a good 15 minutes to the route, during which the light drizzle develops into quite heavy rain, accompanied by a freshening breeze. This knocks on the head any ideas we may have had to walk an extra 5 miles into Boston. John orders a cab to collect us from a narrow lane at Clay Hole and, when it arrives, the driver’s expression is one of having encountered the proverbial drowned rats. Muddy boots and wet jackets are duly removed before we set off and we arrive at the Quayside Hotel and Bar in Boston around 6:30. The weather today has clearly had a considerable effect on us  because, in a significant break from tradition, we go straight to our rooms to dry out and clean up rather than having the customary post check-in sharpener. Normal service is resumed with beers/wine before/with supper (very substantial burgers – i.e. double patty) and stickies afterwards. Very friendly staff, one of whom (female) keeps addressing John as “darling”.