15 November: the walk from Maxey church

Pictures and appropriately rambling commentary by Tony Attwood.   Other photographers and commentators are welcome to take over…

And so, Maxey.  It is a village with a church in what likes to be known as the ceremonial county of Cambridgeshire.  And what you may ask is a ceremonial county?  Well yes,  apparently it is a county that exists for such purposes as appointing a Lord Lieutenant.  And what is the purpose of a Lord Lieutenant, you may ask, but as I have told you before, you only get one question per picture and you’ve had that.

The main thing to note is that we gathered and consulted maps and so forth.  And that is quite enough for you to know for now; otherwise, we will be here all day, and that really won’t do.   What you need to know is that there were fluffy clouds in the sky and lots of water in the lakes that peppered the area, if indeed lakes can pepper, which I very much doubt, but one has to take certain things on trust or else where would we be?

What I can say is that it was all jolly pretty, and the clouds were eternally fluffy, and I really never knew just how many lakes there were in this part of the kingdom.  I was shocked!   Astounded!!   Amazed!!! And so forth.   We don’t have water like that where I come from.   In fact, we only got mains drainage last week, but that’s another matter.

But I would not want you to think that I spent the whole walk just gaping at water, oh no, because there were churches to look at too.  In fact, every village has a church (I think that’s a rule laid down in the Domesday book, but I haven’t been back to check so I might be wrong.)   But even if churches don’t appeal – just look at the sky.   How blue!  How blue!  How very blue!

And yes, wouldn’t you know it, no sooner had we turned the bend than there we were once more up to our necks in lakes again.

Now of course, I speak as us literary types do, in a poetic frame of voice at this point, since no one was literally up to her or his neck in the wet stuff.  But I am sure you appreciate that in a discourse of this nature, a certain level of poetic whatnot is de rigueur, as they say in foreign parts – or at least they would if they were able to see as many lakes as we saw on this walk.

I mean you see a lake, turn a corner, and there’s another lake.  And pretty nifty some of them were too, and no mistake.

Now one of the more interesting things about this lakeish phenomenon is that when you are within the vicinity of a lake, you are entitled, according to an ancient treaty laid down by King Arburthnot the Uncertain, to invent new words of your own, especially when writing up a commentary about a walk that we have been on.

Being a writer of more serious renown, I tend not to join in such chitter chatter yett I admit, you could blow me down with a feature on a stick, but some of these lakes were pretty amazing, and well, you just turn a corner and there’s another one slap bang in front of you and demanding that you walk around it or else get rather wet in the foot region.

Anyway all this land has been here for over 1000 years – and I know that to be true because it is in Wikipedia, and they always know what’s what except when it isn’t and they don’t, but that of

course is an exception and there is always an exception because if there wasn’t an exception then it wouldn’t be would it?  I am sure you can see my point.

But of course, there was more to this lovely walk than just walking around the lakes, and it is quite possible (although I haven’t checked yet) that we might have some pictures of part two of the walk.

If that turns out to be the case, I shall be honoured to present them presently, although whether you choose to look at them is very much a matter for you to decide, as is the democratic tradition of Peterborough Ramblers.

So there we are – part one of a walk around the lakes, with some more added lakes in case more were actually needed.

But this is not all there was.  No indeed.

And more will be reported in due course in what I have, in a burst of originality, decided to call part two.

Please don’t say you have not been warned.

Reports of some of our earlier walks are still on this website.  If you would like to relive these earlier days just go to www.peterboroughramblers.co.uk and you will find an index to some of the highlights.