7. Hartsholme Country Park, Lincoln
    Local authority site
   20th-24^th March

Vernal equinox - first day of spring. Freezing cold, big anorak back on. Our weather really IS mad. Two weeks ago I was in shorts. Well, we won't talk it better, so …...................

The drive up from Thetford was pretty uniformly boring, although it got better. Initially dead-straight A17 alongside dead-straight railway line alongside dead-straight river. Enormous flat fields, stretching as far as the eye could see; no trees, no hedges. Farmhouses set in the midst of these prairies, looking like stills from all those films about the American Mid-West. After Sleaford on the A15, as I neared Lincoln, however, the road started to undulate and dry-stone walls started to appear. It was turning into Yorkshire!

Went past a village called Burton Pedwardine. I wonder if this is the same “wardine” I encountered in Shropshire and Herefordshire, meaning an enclosure. After Sleaford I spotted Boothby Graffoe, which is the name of a comedian and is in “The Meaning of Liff”:-

BOOTHBY GRAFFOE (n.)
1. The man in the pub who slaps people on the back as if they were old friends, when in fact he has no friends, largely on account of this habit.

  2.  Any story told by Robert Morley on chat shows.

Lincoln is on quite a hill and the cathedral is right on top of it. I made the mistake of going into the city on the day I arrived; I've always taken the afternoon to settle in and rest after the drive. As a consequence, being tired, I didn't like the place at all and got thoroughly ill-tempered. Luckily the buses are every 10 minutes. I got even grumpier when I discovered I had no TV coverage. I'll try again when I am restored. I'm sure it's a lovely city really.

The amazing Murray Walker on Desert Island Discs. He is a jazz fan and said, en passant, that Chris Barber used to race cars. Must find out more. As one of his records he had one of the Sound Stories he made with his father and he chose one of my two – the 1961 Junior TT with the thrilling duel between Gary Hocking and Mike Hailwood on the MV Agusta “fire-engines”. As soon as I can I must digitise my two LP's so I can play them whenever I feel the need. On the other one, a celebration of the Diamond Jubilee TT in 1967, is the sound of Hailwood on the 285cc six-cylinder Honda flat out. I can still remember that sound from seeing him win the unlimited race at the end of the Easter Monday Brands Hatch meeting with Dad at about the same time. There, I feel better after that. Sorry, normal service has been resumed.

Walker thought the new Formula 1 season would be very exciting with the new regulations and I must say I'm looking forward to it. My interest in cricket and football is definitely fading and I found the rugby internationals, apart from the France/Ireland match, very boring, so I think I may be becoming a motor-racing fan. That doesn't mean I have to watch Top Gear, does it?

Saturday now, and I'm not really doing Lincoln justice. Went for a decent bike ride yesterday but then was struck down by the trots and, apart from a quick foray to fetch my newspaper this morning, have been confined to barracks (i.e., near the campsite toilets) since. By the trots, by the way, I mean “stomach trouble” and not a crippling fear of Aussie fast bowling. Well, I seem to be healing now so I'm going to risk a nice meal of new potatoes, cod fillet and mushy peas, followed by some Rachel's Greek-style yoghurt with ginger. Mmmm. (I just made that horrible noise that Hannibal Lecter makes when he talks about eating someone's liver with fava beans).                                                     

 

Lincoln Castle

 

I'll go into the city again tomorrow and have a look at the cathedral and the river. Lincoln has more of a northern feel about it. The name comes from the Brythonic linn, meaning “pool”, the same derivation as Dublin (dubh linn, meaning black pool) from the Goidelic. The pool is the Brayford Pool in the centre of the city, part of the River Witham. Because of its commanding hill the Romans built a fort here and re-named it Lindum. Later, it became a retirement centre for legionaries whose term of service had expired, a colonia (presumably because the old soldiers all had dodgy colons). Hence Lincoln.

Now, here's a perfect illustration of local authority “culture”. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice site in a lovely location, the staff are friendly and helpful and it's all told really good value at £11 a night. I'm not whingeing. It's just an observation. When I got here I did the usual and filled the van's tank with drinking water. Except I couldn't, because the tap, which was made of plastic, had its thread stripped so that when I turned it on my hose was blown off by the pressure. We tried PTFE tape to no avail, so I had to drive over to the big house and fill up from the gardeners' outside tap. No problem, job done. The warden and I agreed that it was madness to use a plastic tap rather than the usual brass one. I offered to buy one when I went down the town, but the warden said we couldn't do that as he would need a purchase order. Also, he wasn't allowed any petty cash so he couldn't pay me anyway. The manager had an account card for B & Q, but she was on leave and he wasn't allowed to use it. The only thing he could do was to get the plumber to come in and replace it. Why not? The most expensive option. But four days later and it's still not fixed. A tap, just a tap.

The Magna Carta Tavern

One of the four extant copies of Magna Carta was found in Lincoln Cathedral and was on display here until recently. It regularly travels abroad as an exhibit. Next year is its 800th anniversary. It was the first attempt to moderate the absolute powers of the monarchy, and was precipitated by the general awfulness of King John. Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was from near Lincoln, was its prime mover and should be regarded as one of the architects of the English constitution. As a reward he had a pub in Friday Street near Dorking named after him.  

Cycled into the city on my last day here, enlivened by heavy hailstorms. Glad I was wearing my cycling helmet. I walked up to the cathedral and the castle amongst crowds of tourists. The road up to the top is called “Steep Hill”; whoever named it, apart from clearly having won Mastermind specialising in stating the bleeding obvious, was never in danger of prosecution under the Trade Descriptions Act. I got to the top by taking a zigzag route along side-streets across the face of the hill. Well worth it. On the way back down I had to keep the brakes on the bike locked on to stop it running away from me. Not quite as steep as Croagh Patrick, though, whose ascent I miserably failed to complete.

Now, what is wrong with VW Camper people? Why are they so arrogant and unfriendly? (I know I'm generalising, but if you can't generalise you can't say anything.) Caravanners are, in the main, friendly people and we normally greet each other around the site and stop for a chat. VW Camper people, on the other hand, seem to think, because they are in cramped, uncomfortable, ludicrously over-priced vans that they should look down on sybaritic hoi polloi who lounge in cossetted conditions and watch TV. I had the great pleasure of seeing a VW driver ticked-off by the warden for over-staying his pitch and preventing a new arrival from taking it. Typical of these arrogant blighters. Wow, that was a good rant, I enjoyed that and it had been a long time coming.  

 

 

Lincoln Cathedral