We woke up at dawn, or rather I did. I went downstairs, made a pot of coffee and turned on the radio to hear Radio 4 come on air. What followed was the shipping forecast; which was wonderfully detailed, but more so than I thought; as well as the main forecast there was the inshore waters forecast and the weather stations to go through too. Whilst I listened, I played clock patience, which for the first time I got out with the king being the last card turned over. Outside the fog swirled round the cottage, the farm cat was meowing again outside the door. The weather swung it; we would go home. The main reason was that the next two days gales and heavy rain was expected, and it would have meant either sitting inside or driving around in the rain. So, we packed up the car and at seven headed off into the mist for the long drive south.
The fog did clear by the time we got to York, and we did have second thoughts, but we pressed on and soon were speeding onto the A1.
The plan was to head south and to see how the weather would hold up and maybe stop off at Stamford after all. Not a bad plan, I think.
In the end we got into Stamford just after nine, and after finding a place to park on the side of a side road, we set off to explore the town, which I could at least four church spires dominating the skyline. The town is uniformly built of sand-coloured stone; maybe sandstone? And is glorious. At some point in the past it was clearly a very rich town and liked to spend money on its buildings. Or rather the great and good did. Great and good? OK, rich.
After entering and snapping at the first church, we headed up a side road and opposite a fine looking art-deco cinema was a medieval hospital, which is still open, although closed for visitors at half nine in the morning.
By now the sun was out and it was a glorious spring morning; we walked past a café and I thought a coffee would be a good idea. A brief look at the menu and scrambled egg and fresh salmon leapt off the page. So, we had (another) unplanned second breakfast, which was very nice indeed.
And back outside for a tour of two more churches before a look at my watch signalled that we should get back to the car and head south. The traffic never got to be a problem, and a listen to the travel news on the radio showed that there was no problems on the A14 and M11 and so we headed to Cambridge and then south again towards London and the M25.
The sun shone, we carried on driving at 70mph,and there was no hold-ups; we crossed over the Thames and into Kent and then back on the road home. We only stopped to buy some milk, and so just about three in the afternoon we arrived outside the house and the holiday was over.
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