Michael's Walk - Day 3: Get out and do something

My theme for today was fixed by hearing Chris Boardman, the great cyclist, talking on the radio about the epidemic of inactivity. People are getting fat partly because they are not active. I try to have a ten mile walk once a week. This week of course is special. When I started at Stanwick Lakes at 9.15 this morning there were a surprisingly large number of people there doing things. Some were just walking, with or without dogs, some were running, some were cycling and I met a number of people later on who were doing things.

The lakes park is ideal for physical activity. Various signs however (for very good reason) prohibited swimming. The park continues into another-a nature reserve where people were walking and cycling and running on the old Northampton to Peterborough railway here. Some no doubt were looking at the nature. I noticed in particular the bull rushes and white willow saplings on either side of the path from the railway to Irthlingborough Church. Either side was boggy rough pasture, with all sorts of plants. It was indeed pasture because there were cows on it. A man outside the church told me "we" (meaning himself and his two dogs) quite often walked from Ithlingborough to Stanwick Lakes and his wife came to take them back in the car. Irthlingborough Church has always looked modernish to me but on closer inspection it is obvious it isn’t although the very striking tower was rebuilt in the late 19th century to the original design. The ground plan is interesting as well . The main part of the church was complete by 1350, I read. It will repay a more extended visit I think.

I took a footpath from Irthlingborough to Finedon, leaving the former past the cricket ground. Just afterwards I passed a large hole. There was another even deeper on the edge of Finedon, remarkably unguarded. This was ironstone extraction country and these were the remains of quarries. Other quarries have been landscaped and there were actually mine tunnels in the area which means that parts of the land have been subject to subsidence. There was a hummocky area away to the left of part of the path. One wonders if these fields are not particularly good farmland. The grassland looked unkempt and uncared for. There were barley and wheat fields but the corn was still quite green compared with that I’d seen near Raunds on day 2 and some of the wheat contained wild oats. The weather at this point was gloomy as there was a fine drizzle.

The fields to the north of the Finedon to Great Harrowden Road were also an old quarrying area, but the land looked better and the landscaping better. The sun was also beginning to come out. I met a man who clearly loved walking. he had also been out walking like me over the past few days finishing earlier than he wanted because of the heat. Unlike me perhaps he didn’t look like a walker. He didn’t have boots or a backpack but he still walked for the love of it. More cyclists passed me.

I sat by the railway bridge at the bottom of the hill to eat my lunch and watch the trains. There were plenty of them-all passenger trains. It struck me as odd that although this line is electrified all the way to Wigston North Junction, south of Leicester, the only electric trains are the ones that stop at the intermediate stations to Kettering and Corby. The main line trains that go to Leicester and beyond are all diesels. Why? No has explained this to me. I gather electric trains which can use diesel engines where there are no wires have been ordered and were supposed to be in use this year, but there are no signs of them arriving. Why? The wires north of Kettering have been switched on since July last year but only test trains have used them. Why? The electrification was done on time and to budget. The rest of the scheme (the trains) have not.

The road up to Great Harrowden is the longest steep hill I’ve encountered on this walk so far. On the way up I stopped to watch somebody being taught how to swing a golf club. Beyond Great Harrowden there is long very open stretch of path on which I met an interesting man who had been bird watching. He had been looking for hobbies (the bird of prey that is) and he toldme that there had been plenty of skylarks in this field. (I could hear one) There were fewer of most birds however than there were years ago.

The route of the Via Beata does not go through the village of Hardwick. It passes to the west of that place. I could hear a lot of noise coming from somewhere ahead and to the left. There was a lot of hooting from a car and what sounded like shouting from a lot of people plus some sheep. I never did find out what had happened, but in the last field of my day’s walk it seemed that whatever had happened had frightened the sheep in the field to my left. There were large gaps in the hedge and the sheep were all moving through the field into the one I was in. The ewes were being very noisy and the lambs (quite large now) were all bleating after their mothers. The gate from the field led to a road near to a house called Hardwick Lodge where I had arranged to meet Barbara who picked me up in the car.