A gentle, pleasant, sunny day of Northants countryside: thatchy villages with churches and cottages in orange-red stone, none quite fetching enough for a picture postcard, but all pleasant. Though with stamps the price they are these days, that was just as well.
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We headed west from the centre along the River Nene, which is pronounced ‘Nenn’ in Northamptonshire, ‘Neen’ in Cambridgeshire, ‘Naynay’ in Spanish (where it means ‘baby’) and Hawaiian (where it is a sort of goose). From the towpath we admired the Express Lift Tower, ‘Northampton’s lighthouse’, where – rather excitingly – lift companies test parts by throwing them down a very long shaft.
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After some humdrum B roads we got on the back lanes, and my route suggestions proved to have far more variety than Nigel’s. His were all on smooth tarmac, but mine were on a wide range of surfaces – pebbles, gravel, rocky farm tracks, potholes, and fascinatingly large and deep puddles.
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Lunch was at the cafe on Daventry Reservoir, which I can confidently say is the best cafe you’ll find on Daventry Reservoir. After that, mainly on NCN50, we enjoyed a series of quiet lanes – made quieter by a road closure at one point that blocked vehicles but not bikes – through those pleasant little Northants villages and hamlets.
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(Badby, for instance, used to have England’s only thatched youth hostel, though finding any sort of rural YHA hostel outside the Lakes is a challenge, whatever the roofing material.)
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After Stoke Bruerne’s canalside, busy with visitors in the sun, we had a very large and satisfying ice cream from the cafe at Salcey Forest. It was smashing. Unfortunately so was my phone: I dropped it while paying for them. Well, I was thinking of getting a new one anyway…