The plan for today, to take advantage of a rare dry day with the wind coming from the east, was to do Lincolnshire and back. I worked out a route last night that would take me to a new entry point to the county of Isaac Newton. Essentially my usual route over to Waltham, Stonesby, Buckminster et al, except that I took a left turn before Waltham along five miles of road I hadn’t done before – toward Grantham, through a village called Croxton Kerrial, then to the Lincolnshire border a bit further on.
So I did that. I can’t say I greatly enjoyed the new stretch of road – the first couple of miles of it were a mostly gritty narrow lane with passing places. The rest of it had a long, steep descent followed by a slog of a climb (which of course meant the same again coming back).
On the way out I took the high road via Rempstone and Wymeswold to avoid standing water. On the way back though I needed to refuel at Burton on the Wolds petrol station because the village shop wasn’t open at Croxton. So I took the more usual route, and I did have to propel the bike through a couple of floods. Nothing dramatic. Just a couple of inches of water.
I detoured via Waltham to avoid the narrow lane on the way back as well. After Belton I came back down through Griffydam and Coleorton, just to do something a bit different.
Cool at first but after a couple of hours I was warm enough to remove my overtrousers and outer nylon top layer. Really nice in the sun. On the way back the temperature dropped quite quickly so I put them back on at the petrol station. Made a very welcome difference.
I had to contend with quite a stiff headwind going east, but the wind speed actually increased gradually over the afternoon which meant that – for a change – the tailwind on the way back was stronger than the headwind had been.
Really glad to be out on a bike for a few hours after a week of rubbish weather. I listened mostly to footy on 5 Live (most notably the EFL cup final).
Back on 76.69. That’s 375 this month which is nicely over target. Also, my average distance for 2023 is up to 45.07.
That’s another neighbouring county ticked for this year, just Rutland to do now.