Day Three: Bridge Over Troubled Waters

Before I go off on an Epic Journey With Little Purpose, I do a lot of planning.  In some ways that's half the fun.  Cross checking timetables, tracing Ordnance Survey maps, drawing up spreadsheets.  It saves a lot of faffing about, and it gives me the reassurance my OCD crazed mind needs.

The last day of my Grimsby trip looked like this:

A nice busy day that would see me polish off the Barton Line and collect a few other stations in the Humberside area.  It'd also include walking across the Humber Bridge, which had been an ambition of mine ever since I first saw it.

My brain had other ideas.  Remember how, as a side job, I'm also a manic depressive?  I woke up that Saturday morning with a heart of deep dark coal.  I didn't want to get out of bed, never mind romp around the north east.  I'm not sure why - perhaps the exertions of the previous day had tired me so much I couldn't put up the resistance any more.  Perhaps my brain is just a bit of a bastard.  I would have been quite happy to wrap myself in the hotel duvet and spend the day watching repeats of Birds of a Feather on Drama.  Yes, things were that bad.

The only thing that stopped me from wallowing was the knowledge that if I didn't get out there and do it now, I'd have to do it some other time.  I'd just be delaying it.  I decided to revise the timetable somewhat.

Cut out all that nonsense with Goole; it was a lot of effort to collect just two stations, and they were stations I could collect any time.  Loads of trains go through Goole.  Instead I'd go out to Barrow Haven, do my bit of walking across the bridge, collect the stations on the other side, then return for Barton-on-Humber.

My platform at Grimsby Town was packed, though not for my train.  They were Saturday shoppers waiting for the TransPennine Express service to Sheffield.  Only one person boarded the Barton train with me, an old man who was known to the guard.  They chatted together merrily all the way to Stallingborough.  We picked up a few more passengers en route, most of whom then got off at Habrough to catch that same Sheffield train, and by the time we reached Barrow Haven it was near empty.

I climbed off the train and let it disappear into the distance.  As the name implies Barrow Haven is a tiny halt beside a small harbour.  It's surrounded by grass and trees and once the train had gone, it fell silent.

It's so quiet that the level crossing goes unguarded.  A man wandered through with a little terrier, barely pausing at the tracks, knowing full well the train had been and gone.

I'd not been sure how I was going to cross the river.  The maps I'd consulted had been distinctly cagey on the matter; there was a railway bridge, but I wasn't sure if there was a footpath.  I actually discovered a very sensible solution; when the line had been reduced from double to single tracks, the space left was barriered off and made into a footpath across the water.  I can only hope that this kind of intelligent thinking spreads to other parts of the UK - railway bridges with no footpath are a bit of a bugbear of mine.

I was joining the brilliantly named Nev Cole Way, a long distance path through North Lincolnshire that followed the Humber estuary.  Soon I was on a low cliff above an expanse of sea grasses, with Hull just about visible in the distance.  Blue dragonflies flitted around my feet.

To my left were a series of square lakes, old chalk pits that had been filled in and now formed a nature reserve.  There were boats on them already.  Interspersed with them caravans had been set up; one man took advantage of the warm morning to hose down his mobile home.

Up ahead of me, the Humber Bridge laced across the estuary.  It's astonishingly graceful, considering its size and construction material.  Concrete has been shaped into the simplest of forms that arc over the wide expanse of water.  The lack of competition around it means it's hard to conceive its scale.  Look at, say, the Brooklyn Bridge and you can compare its size to the buildings behind it.  The Humber Bridge is the only tall object for miles and as such it's hard to take it board.  This was the largest bridge on Earth for nearly twenty years.

It should have lifted me, but I was still stuck in that funk.  I couldn't get up the enthusiasm for anything.  I began to revise my schedule even further in my head.  If I crossed over the bridge to Hessle, it would mean a lot of waiting around, and then I'd have to come back again, violating my "don't go back the way you came" rule.  The new look plan therefore became:

I'll admit it; that's not exactly a grand climax to the Barton Line.  Sorry about that.  But if I'm in that kind of low, it's probably not a great idea for me to stand in the middle of a very high bridge with a very long drop, if you know what I mean.

As I approached the footings of the bridge a weird green spacecraft appeared to my left.  Looking like a circular packing crate, it was ugly and sort of pretty.  It turned its back on the river, but wide windows peered out of its face.

From the other side it made more sense; with its exposed front it reminded me of a beetle - hard on top, but then a fleshy exposed underneath.

This was the Water's Edge vistor's centre, a place to pause and reflect on the country park around you.  Interpretive boards explained about how the estuary was formed, and its important ecosystem.  Cameras allowed you to spy, Big Brother style, on the local wildlife.  It constantly boasted about the buildings environmental credentials - rainwater flushing the toilets and shutters controlling the heat and all that sort of thing.  Personally I saw it mainly as a place to use the loo and have a sandwich.  I mean, it was all nice enough, but I was furious that it didn't once mention the bridge that loomed over us so I boycotted its bird pictures on principle.  (I later found out that there's an actual Humber Bridge Information Centre on the north bank, so they probably didn't want to duplicate what was already there.  Sorry).

The cafe was a little overpriced, but popular.  A stream of pensioners on a day out and families taking advantage of the indoor playground appeared as I sat down.  My quiet cup of tea was suddenly surrounded by noise.  I wanted to go home.

I strolled into town past a long inlet.  On one side there were old brick terraces; on the other side a vast new Tesco.  The Sloop Inn promised fine meals and drinks; down a side road, I spotted the flyover that took you up and over the bridge.  It must have been odd for Barton to suddenly acquire this huge new neighbour; to suddenly have a whole new world opened up to them via a five minute drive.  Although from what I understand there's not been much of a movement between the two sides since the bridge was built.  Hundreds of years of tradition haven't been overturned, and the south bank still looks south while the north bank looks north.

I wished they'd been able to join up the railway lines while they were at it.  String a second deck underneath the road so that trains could go from Grimsby to Hull.  That would have properly connected the two halves.

Instead, the Barton Line finishes up on the fringe of Barton-on-Humber town centre.  A generous bus exchange has been built alongside, so that people can connect to the Hull buses, but the station itself is a disappointing strip.  A single platform and a buffer stop and a bench.

The warm morning had brought out the buckets and spades for the train to Cleethorpes.  The platform was filled with excitable children and less excitable parents in sleeveless tops.  A lot of them were sucking on e-cigarettes; it's not fair, I know, but the image of Jabba the Hutt and his hookah came unbidden to mind.

The train was late, but when it finally came, I clambered aboard behind a man with SAFC tattooed on the back of his neck and found a seat to hide in.  I scrunched up and wished for the train to go faster so I could sleep the afternoon away.

P.S.  Hey, Barton-on-Humber: how about cleaning your sign sometime?  Love Scott x

Day Two: That's Why The Gentleman Is A Tramp

I was worried that I'd be underdressed for Thornton Abbey.  Would I be met off the train by a bewhiskered butler?  Would I be expected to dine with the Lord of the Manor?  

Obviously not.  I was the only person to get off the train and I found the most decrepit station so far.

At some point, Northern had installed the Harrington Humps and then thought "meh. That'll do."  The  platforms were broken up, the concrete rough and patchy.  It was like a dirt road rather than a modern railway station in the UK.  I crunched over the gravel to get the station sign; even that's a bit rubbish.

Thornton Abbey gets its name from the monastery that once stood nearby.  It was destroyed in the Reformation, and the houses that replaced it didn't last long either.  All that remains is the ostentatious gatehouse, which admittedly looked impressive in the distance, but which I couldn't quite drag up the enthusiasm to go and poke round.

And speaking of a lack of enthusiasm... I had another walk along a rail side path to keep me entertained.  The OS map did at least show a few contours on this route and, sure enough, there was occasionally the odd rise to keep me on my toes.  In the rest of the country they'd be a speed bump, but I welcomed the variations as a break.  

I'd put Madonna's last album, MDNA, on my iPod in a hope that it would get my blood flowing again.  The beer and the sun were making me lazy.  It saddens me to report that MDNA still isn't a great Madonna album; there are some great parts ("Masterpiece") but there are also some truly appalling tracks that leave you baffled.  Here are some things I hope she doesn't put on her next album:

1)  Rapping

2)  Rapping about her life ("Gotta call the babysitter...I could take a helicopter")

3)  Collaborations with of the moment artists that date horribly (i.e. LMFAO)

4)  Swearing (remember when she would "teach you how to - mmmmm" in "Justify My Love"?  MDNA features a song called "I Fucked Up".  Classy, Madonna.  Do you kiss your kids with that mouth?)

5)  Did I mention the rapping?

It was at least keeping me awake.  Madonna is never dull, even when she's wrong.

The footpath turned into a road; I walked along the centre of it, not expecting any traffic.  I soon regretted this when a cyclist appeared out of nowhere and burned past me.  If it had been a cartoon my cap would have spun round and round on my head.  There were occasional farms, including one called "Hillcrest", which amused me because I hadn't even realised I was on a hill.  It really is VERY flat.

Soon the tendrils of Ulceby village began to reach out.  A pavement appeared, then a couple of parked cars, then some houses.  A UPS delivery van passed with a load of Amazon packages.  Neat hedges lined the driveways of tiny cottages.  Children had chalked on the pavement; I don't want to go casting aspersions about the intelligence of the locals, but, well:

Ulceby station lies between two junctions.  Below it is a triangular junction that connects the Barton Line to the rest of England's railways; trains can travel from the north or south on to Barnetby and Scunthorpe.  Above the station, a branch veers off to Immingham docks and the power station at Killinghome.  It's a point where freight and passenger services intersect, and there was a spotter there with a high powered camera ready to snap a passing train.

I retreated, in case he thought I was some kind of railway expert, and found solace in the nearby Yarborough Arms.  It was deserted when I went in, but I could hear voices in the back, so I waited at the bar.  Soon enough a woman appeared, poured me my pint of lager with a smile, and took my money.  I turned to find a seat.  It had been laid out as a gastropub, with lots of small tables; the first one I went to had a "reserved" notice on it, so I backed away, and looked for another.

"They're all reserved," the barmaid said over my shoulder.  "But there's plenty of room in the lounge."

There was plenty of room in the lounge, of course; there was plenty of room everywhere because I was the only customer, and it stayed that way during my entire visit.  I don't know who'd reserved the entire dining room - a coach party visiting the Abbey?  The Band of the Grenadier Guards?  Her Majesty the Queen and her security detail? - but they didn't show up.

I was three quarters of my way through the pint when the barmaid's head appeared round the corner.  "Did you want anything else?  Before I close up, I mean?"

It was three o'clock in the afternoon.  Lincolnshire.

I took the hint and, after a quick pee, I left the pub and went to the station.  The trainspotter had gone, and more fool him, because right then a really exciting train went through.

Drax!  As in Hugo Drax, the villain in Moonraker!  Yes, I'm fully aware that there is a power station of the same name, and this was carrying nothing more sinister than coal.  I'm personally clinging to the idea that it's part of the shadowy Drax Corporation and is filled with a cargo of shuttle parts and/or glamorous space vixens.

The train sadly didn't reappear with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season so I got on a regular Northern train and went to Goxhill.  It was a popular destination; I disembarked with a couple of tired looking pensioners and some excitable teens.  I guessed that they were on their GCSE study leave and had put it to good use with a day at the seaside.  They rolled onto the platform, clambering over one another, giggling and laughing.

The station building still stands proudly in the sunshine, though it's not in railway use any more.  The current owners have kept it in good condition, right down to preserving the hatch into the ticket office in one wall.  Meanwhile, another signal box stands guard over the level crossing.

In my head is an extremely effective, top drawer compass.  Combined with an Ordnance Survey map I become a one man SatNav.  I know where I'm going, where to turn, everything.  

I can only conclude that Goxhill is built on a massive magnet, because somewhere along the line, I made a wrong turn.  Instead of ending up on a busy, direct road to New Holland, I found myself on a long suburban avenue.  For a long time, I didn't realise I was on the wrong route.  I was too busy admiring the neat houses, the lawns mowed into stripes, the daisies peppering the grass verges.  The houses all had names; one was called "Dunvegan", which made me think the owners were probably cannibals.  

It finally dawned on me that something wasn't right, so I turned to the flickering 3G signal and started up Google Maps.  It confirmed that I was on the wrong road, and that I'd basically walked in a giant arc around the village.  With a sigh, I took the first left hand turn I saw, in the hope that it would take me across the fields to the correct route.  Who knew - maybe I'd cut a corner here or there.

I followed one finger post after another, left, right, north, west.  Sometimes I was alongside fields of waving crops, sometimes it was muddy tracks.  At one point I passed a paddock with a lazy looking pony.  I realised, with mounting fear, that I really didn't know where I was.  I knew where I wanted to go - over there - but the paths I followed didn't seem to relate to my OS map.  I couldn't get my bearings.  The 3G signal had gone completely now.

At a fork in the road, the little friendly yellow arrow failed to show up to indicate the way.  I took a punt, and found myself trekking down the side of a field, not entirely sure if I was on a right of way.

I know what you're thinking; why didn't I just turn back?  I'd invested too much time in walking so far; if I turned back, I'd be back to square one.  And I hate turning back.  It's an admission of failure.

So I pushed on.  I leapt over a ditch, impressing myself with my own spriteliness.  A distant, intermittent boom sounded across the fields; a tiny part of me worried if it was a farmer with a shotgun out murdering trespassers.  It turned out to be a sonic cannon, powered off a car battery as a twenty-first century bird scarer.  Far less intimidating.  I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the railway embankment up ahead; at least I'd been heading in the right direction all this time.  All I had to do was get to the other side of it.  I could see that there was a small crossing further up the track, so I walked along a little further, only to encounter another ditch in my way.

"No problem," I thought, limbering up for another Greg Rutherford-esque hurdle.  And then the ground gave way underneath me.

It turned out I hadn't been stood on solid earth, but I was instead putting all my weight on a matted mass of grass at the edge of the ditch.  It sent me toppling forward; my left foot went out to steady me, and went straight into the thick black water.  Still unstable, my brain sent the right one in as well, and I found myself up to my knees in filth.

I paused and let the air slide out of me.  Bugger.  I could already feel that my boots were now just two goldfish bowls of liquid at the bottom of my legs; my socks had turned to soggy dishrags.  In for a penny, I thought.  No point in trying to jump now; I may as well just walk across.  I pulled one boot out of the thick mud, and it belched out a noxious ball of composty smells.  I lurched to the other side of the ditch, and let out a huge, enormous, really quite obscene swear word.

In close up, the far bank of the ditch revealed that it wasn't grass and maybe a few flowers as I'd thought.  It was thick, sharp brambles, intertwined with stinging nettles.  It wasn't going to be easy getting out.

Reader, I tried.  I tried to move the thorns out of the way enough to facilitate my passage.  I tried to get enough of a hand hold to pull myself up out of the water.  I reached deep into the nettles, my arm screaming in pain, trying to find a blessed gap.  I felt the blood trickle down my arm as sharp points clawed at my flesh.  But finally I gave up.

I lurched back, the ditchwater farting out more smells as I did so, my boots becoming even more sodden, the bottom of my shorts becoming stained, and dragged myself out the way I came.  For a moment I sat on the soil, feeling defeated.  I couldn't see a way to get over the line now.  I'd have to go back to that fork, way back when, leap over that ditch again, take the other path and hope it was right.  Unless...

Let me clarify; I do not condone trespass in any way shape or form.  Especially not trespassing on railway tracks.  But right there and then, in pain, limping, my shoes squelching with each step, I didn't care.  I clambered up the embankment and dashed the few hundred metres to the pedestrian crossing and civilisation.  It was absolutely the wrong thing to do, but it got me closer to salvation.

For once, I wasn't in search of a pub.  I just wanted a shop.  A little Co-op or a Londis where I could buy a bottle of water for my parched throat and a tube of Germoline for my cuts and grazes.  Both arms were now singing to me, but from different hymn sheets; the left was numb from all the stinging nettles (it remained that way until next morning) while the right was a series of sharp, serrated gashes that mixed delightfully with my sweaty body to produce a constant underscore of discomfort and pain.  

Thirty five years ago I might have been in luck.  That was when New Holland was home to the Hull ferry, the only way to cross the River Humber between here and Goole.  There might have been a petrol station or a small shop or a cafe. 

The opening of the Humber Bridge turned New Holland into a backwater literally overnight.  There was no reason to come this way at all any more.  I wondered what this little village must have been like when there were queues of trucks waiting for their turn to cross.  The residents must have prayed for it to go away, until it actually did, and they realised that they were suddenly in the middle of nowhere.

I didn't find my little shop.  I did find Cooks restaurant, which advertised itself as being in "the Old Co-Op", a particularly cruel way of taunting me I thought.  I passed some pleasing alms houses, and a small factory where all the bosses were leaving one after the other, a little chain of BMWs, and then I saw the sign for New Holland station.

I sat on the bench and tipped the water out of one boot, then the other.  I peeled the socks off my feet and laid them on the seat to try and dry them in the late afternoon sun.  I felt like a tramp airing his underwear out in the middle of an Arndale Centre; I was waiting for a security guard to move me on.

Slowly I started to return to normal.  I was able to wipe away the worst of the blood with my handkerchief, leaving crisscross slashes on my arm like I was self-harming again.  My feet warmed and dried, though my socks and boots never really felt the benefit, and they both stank of rancid water.  I pitied anyone who sat near to me on the train home.  There was, thankfully, a 3G signal, so I went online and ordered a pizza for collection from Grimsby; a small treat to cheer myself up when I got back.  By the time the train arrived I was pretty much human again.

After a train journey that felt only slightly shorter than the Trans-Siberian Express, I was able to pick up my pizza and get back to my tiny little hotel room.  I then had a very long, very thorough, very well-deserved bath.

Day Two: While England's Dreaming

The more observant reader will have noted that on Day One of doing the Barton Line, I visited two Grimsby stations and Cleethorpes.  I completely missed out New Clee.  This station is a request stop a little further out in Grimsby, so I thought I'd start my second day from there.  I hate asking the guard to stop the train; I'd much rather climb on board at a request stop so I don't have to talk to a human being.

It was the morning after England went out of the World Cup and everything was subdued.  I'd not watched the match obviously - there was free Wi-fi in the hotel, so I spent my evening reading reviews of 30 Rock on my phone - but there was a palpable sense of gloom hanging over the town.  The streets were, in the main, empty, even though it was 8am on a Friday.  I'm guessing that a lot of people booked the morning off to recover from their celebratory/commiseratory hangover.  The only people I saw who looked jolly were two fishermen, sat by the riverside and chatting amiably.

First, I had to buy a hat.  The strong sunlight of the day before had turned my face red and left me with a brown ring around my throat where the collar of my t-shirt had been.  I do this every time I go away in summer.  I forget that I have an enormous forehead that absorbs sunlight like a solar collector, so I have to buy a hat.  Then I take it home, throw it in the back of a wardrobe and forget about it, which means that next time I go away, I have to buy another one.  I have a collection of single use hats building up.

Worse, the only type of hat that doesn't make me look like a total wanker is a baseball cap, and I'm 37 now.  I'm getting a bit old for a baseball cap.  I tried on a couple of other hats in Asda - shut up, it was the only place that was open at 8am - and they did not work at all.  A straw hat makes me look like Michael Fabricant hunting for some poor children to shoot; a flat cap turns me into the worst kind of indie twat.  I settled for a £3 baseball cap, stretched to fit my enormous skull.  (It's now in the back of my wardrobe amongst its poor dead brothers).

From there it was a walk through quiet streets to New Clee.  Occasionally a parent would appear, dragging one or two kids behind her on the way to school, but mostly the pavements were all mine.  I crossed a busy dual carriageway by "Playgirls Massage"; I wonder what their reaction would be if you went there with a knee injury and asked for a rub down?  I'm guessing the girls who work there don't have a BTEC in Sports Therapy, though I could be wrong.  Perhaps the busty woman on the sign was actually a fully trained physiotherapist and I've got a dirty mind.

I entered a trading estate on the fringe of the docks, a series of metal sheds that mainly dealt in fish and food processing.  Four women had gathered on a wall at the edge of some waste ground to have their last fag before they started work.  Cyclists whipped by; the flat terrain and the fenced off dock estate mean that bikes are a great way to get around.

New Clee station is tucked on a side road behind a home interiors warehouse.  It's another station that might have been useful for dock workers once, but modern changes in the way people work have made it irrelevant.

It doesn't help that when the line was singled, the platform on the side of the docks was put out of use.  It made sense at the time - the industry was on its knees - but without even a footpath to the other side it's an inconvenient walk round the block to get anywhere.

I leaned up against a fence post to wait for the train to arrive.  There are only four a day stopping here, and every one requires you to gain the attention of the driver.  I'm not a fan of sticking your arm out, like a bus; that's a bit obvious.  I'm stood on a station platform and you are a train - it's pretty clear what I'm here for.  Instead I prefer to go for the casual scratching of the head, sticking my elbow out in the direction of the track, so the driver is aware of my presence but isn't offended by me patronising him and his vision.

I may be over thinking all this.

I was dropped off at Healing, four stops up the line.  Most of the stations along the Barton Line are two platform halts serving small villages, where the old Victorian building has been turned into a private residence, and Healing established the tone.

I'm calling it the "Barton Line", but tiny stickers on the platform signs revealed it had undergone a rebranding.  Now it's the "Humberlinc Line", and if you read that without thinking of Englebert you're a better man than I.  I get the principle behind it - it connects the HUMBER with LINCOLNSHIRE, do you see?!?! - but I prefer the original.  Not least because I don't think any train company should mentally connect itself with a song called Please Release Me.

My Ordnance Survey map indicated there was a footpath running alongside the railway, but it was evidently a few years out of date, because there was a housing estate in the way.  Just a little one.  I followed its gentle curves and found a back alleyway behind the houses with a small yellow "public footpath" arrow beside it.  Putting on my best, "I'm not a burglar, honest" face, I walked down the passage, waiting for the local homeowners to accost me and demand to see my particulars.

Before long, the path opened out onto the village's sports ground - a football pitch with a metal packing crate to change in - and then I was on the edge of a field of green wheat.  The ears whacked at my naked legs, making me regret wearing shorts, while the last of the dew splattered into my boots.  Then there was a high pitched whistle, and an East Midlands Train appeared on the tracks above me, the morning service from Grimsby to Newark.

The path veered away from the fence then, taking a diagonal across the field, until it hit an embankment with rough wooden stairs embedded in the side.  I clambered up them and was a little surprised to find myself on a busy bypass.  I nipped between the cars and back down the second flight of stairs on the other side.

Houses appeared on the horizon.  As I got closer I realised how large they were - one had a courtyard, another backed onto a field of ponies.  The footpath eventually brought me out into a cul-de-sac that was so posh, it didn't have tarmac on the road, it had block paving.  A couple of builders were in the middle of constructing an extension to one of the already huge detached homes.

I crossed Station Road at the same time as a little Miss Marple lady on her bike (obviously there was a basket on the handlebars) and went looking for somewhere to sit down.  I still had a couple of hours until my next train and I hadn't yet eaten my breakfast - a falafel flatbread I got at Asda with my hat.  The village of Great Coates didn't seem to have a centre, just a series of houses strung along the main road, but I finally found a little bench by a bus stop opposite the church.  I ate my flatbread and drank my travel mug full of tea.

Walking back along Station Road, I found a lot of decent, well appointed homes with long drives and discreet entryphones, but not much to catch my eye.  Before I knew where I was I'd reached the station, and more or less the end of anything interesting.

I still had an hour until my train so I took my sign photo and resigned myself to a long wait on the platform.

It was then I spotted the "local information" map, with its handy key to vital amenities.  It seemed there was a post office within ten minutes' walk; I imagined that if there was a post office, there might be a row of shops, and possibly a little cafe where I could have a sit down and a cuppa.  It was reached through a footpath I'd already seen on the way up, so I turned back the way I'd came to hunt it down.

Remember The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe?  When Lucy pushes at the fur coats in the wardrobe, and walks through, and keeps going, and when she comes out the other end there's a lamp post and snow and Mr Tumnus?

Going down that path was a lot like that experience, except without James McAvoy.  I left a comforting green English village, and when I emerged at the other end, I was on the set of Shameless.

A long road curled around a series of differently angled houses, blocks of flats and maisonettes.  Narrow concrete paths ran between gardens.  The walkways delighted in names like "Fountains Avenue" and "Melrose Way", plus "Buckfast Way", which just has unfortunate connotations.  However, they were reached via Service Roads, each one numbered and leading into dead ends of garages and fencing.

If you want to dehumanise an area, give its streets names like "Service Road 22".  The whole district was a frustrating mix of bad architecture and bad planning.  I could imagine the town's designers, sat in their office, thinking that the tight walkways would generate community.  I pictured them drawing children playing in the gaps between houses.  I imagined their drawings of ladies leaning over the fence to chat to one another.  Mums walking home with the shopping.  Dad coming home on the bus, because there was no need to have a car.

I'm guessing none of their drawings featured teenage girls walking home after dark.  Or delivery men looking for a front door.  Or people parking their cars in garages and having to trek another 200 yards to get to their kitchen, with bags of shopping and a pushchair.  The principle of a pedestrian friendly housing estate is a sound one, but people don't live like that.

As I walked around the walkways, two things struck me.  Firstly, how close together everyone was.  Each house crowded against its neighbour, and there was only a three foot wide walkway separating front gardens.  It was claustrophobic.  Imagine getting just one bad neighbour in there, one person with a loud barking dog, one person who didn't mow their lawn, one person who listened to Iron Maiden at top volume at 3 in the morning.  There would be no escape.

The other thought was how quiet it was.  Without the gentle pulse of traffic in the background, the "streets" seemed dead and lifeless.  There was no sign of humanity in there.

With a slight shudder, I headed back towards the Narnia-alley.  I didn't find the Post Office, never mind a cafe.

A short train journey took me to Stallingborough.  I had a brief moment of confusion as I tried to take the sign picture; a shirtless workman appeared from the old station house and threw my concentration.  I can normally get my fat head and the station sign in the picture first time, but this one took me eight tries.  Ahem.

I crossed the road and found the pathway by the railway track that would take me to the next station.  There were two vans parked there, with a small barrage of men leaning up against the bonnet and laughing.  I assume they were there to do some work but they didn't seem to be in much of a rush to start.  I suppose it was almost lunch time.

I kicked the chalk with my boot as I followed the straight path through the fields.  In the distance, a red tractor was spraying the crops, performing languorous turns at the end of each run before going back for another spray.  Butterflies flew up in panic as I approached.  The white surface of the walkway made a perfect spot for them to bask, until my lolloping great steps intruded.

Cards on the table time.  Lincolnshire's dull.  It's flat and it goes on forever and there's nothing to see.  Everywhere I looked was just a plain vista of green going off to the horizon.  Not a hill to break the view.  When you start looking affectionately at electricity pylons as a break from the norm, you've lost it.

And it's so straight!  Roads, paths, fences; with no obstacles in sight they just go from A to B in the shortest, most boring way possible.  I could see every inch of the path ahead of me, and when I turned round, I could see everywhere I'd been.  There were no surprises or excitement.  Just long, straight, tedious walking.

I crossed the road at Little London - very Little London; there wasn't even a house, which makes me wonder if the name was sarcastic - and entered a small paddock.  The two horses inside barely looked at me.  A sign on the gate had warned that they were microchipped and freeze marked, which made me expect some kind of cyborg super horse, but they looked quite ordinary.  After a brief moment where the path detoured through a tiny copse, I came out by the signal box at Roxton Sidings.

The signal box is not much longer for this world.  The whole line is due to be upgraded and resignalled very soon, a process which will see it all remotely controlled from York.  The manned level crossings will be replaced by automated ones and the signal boxes will be closed and demolished.  I'd feel sad, but that portaloo out the back makes me think it's not the nicest place to work.  (Where did the old Victorian signalmen go to the toilet?  Never mind; I don't want to know).

More walking, more grass, more stinging nettles to avoid.  I could feel the back of my neck toasting.  By the end of the day it would be pink and flaky, like gammon.  I was distinctly bored with all this.

Then - blessed be! - I saw civilisation appear in the distance.  The buildings got larger, revealed themselves to be houses, and shops, and best of all, a pub.  I practically ran inside.

The only customers in the Station Hotel apart from me were a small knot of middle aged men.  They'd arranged themselves in a square in the centre of the pub, beers carefully placed to one side, and they were chatting through thick country accents.  They were all racing fans, and talked at length about odds and the different bookies in town - going from one place to the next to get the best odds.  One man suddenly said, "I don't know what to do w' meself until half two, when the racing starts.  I just potter about."  There was a moment of quiet, and I suddenly felt sorry for him.

Inevitably, England came up.  I guessed that they'd already done the post-mortem earlier on, lengthy, emotive discussions about the shortcomings of every player.  It seemed that the national team's failure had already gone from tragedy to farce.  "In t'Racing Post they're already doing odds for Euro 2016.  England are 14 to 1.  Should be 14 fucking thousand to 1!"

Weirdly, I like it when we're pessimistic about England's chances.  It seems much more English.  Shouting "we're going to win the Cup!" doesn't feel right.  I much prefer, "hopefully no-one will get hurt and we might beat a couple of decent teams."  It makes any actual victory even sweeter; the London Olympics were so much better because the country was deeply cynical about them, only for them to turn out to be really bloody good and Team GB won hundreds of medals.

I was mulling it over when the landlady appeared.  "I'm just closing up now, love.  You can take the beer and sit outside if you want."

It seems all day opening hasn't hit rural Lincolnshire yet.  It was one o'clock; time for everyone to go off and do something else.  Clutching my beer I wandered outside, a bit discombobulated; it's a long time since I was in a pub at last orders.

On the plus side, the railway station was right next door.  I took up a seat on the platform to wait for the train.  After a while, a woman was dropped off by a passing car and she came towards me.  A small glance and she decided, no, she wasn't going to sit on one of the spare seats beside me.  I was insulted until I realised I was still clutching an empty beer bottle.  She probably thought I was still drunk from the night before.  I hastily dropped the bottle in the bin, just as the train came in.