Terrington St Clement

   At last, I found the time to visit and explore the first new village of the season, the lovely village of Terrington St Clement. The village sits in the great Marshlands that leads to the Wash, a large village with a good mixture of modern and historic buildings.

   Terrington St Clement is around 20 miles from my own village of Upwell and although this time of year it can be a rather cold journey with the cold marsh winds as ever blowing against me, I'm very much looking forward to cycling there in the warmer summer months. The first thing I noticed was a great selection of amenities that the village has, all the normal shops such as butcher, baker and general stores along with the more traditional village amenities like the village forge, barbershop and of course the local fish and chip shop. There are many other facilities such as schools, health centre etc.

   I think you all know me enough by now to guess I headed straight for the older part of the village and the parish church being the first target. Their church is very unique in that the main church building and the tower are independent of each other, only by a few feet but they are separate. I have only come across this once before while cycling the fens and that is at the great bell tower of West Walton near Wisbech, in that case, the gap between the two buildings in a matter of yards rather than feet.

   I will be heading off to Terrington St Clement more often this summer, the village seems such a friendly place with various places at which to spend time to rest and of course there are the marshes that lay just below the Wash to explore. So, all in all, a very nice village to visit, a very large parish that boasts both modern and historical buildings of interest and the friendly people of the marshes who I can honestly say gave me a warm welcome. I can only speak from what I found but I would strongly advise a visit, you will I'm sure have an interesting walk around the village.
 

Spring Peeks Around The Corner.

   It's been yet another wet and windy winter thus far and we are still not out of storm season. The country has taken and really hammering from the storms and so many people are flooded out of their homes as I write this blog, you can only feel for them. Yet on my cycles, I smile when seeing the river banks and hedgerows starting to show their wares, those beautiful clumps of Snowdrops, Daffodils and Primerose all adding that colour of early Spring to the fenlands of East Anglia.
   Running through Upwell and Outwell the banks of Well Creek are covered in Daffodils, yellows of every shade and still many many more yet to flower. It's this time of year when mother nature really starts her great show, a show that passes through Spring, Summer and the Autumn months until once more the colder months wrap around our fen cottages.

   My cycling through winter has stayed around the 20-mile mark each morning, my idea to just tick over until the finer weather is here. This last week I have started the longer journies, travelling up to the great marshlands that sit just below the Wash, such an interesting area full of character and one I hope to visit often this coming summer. This coming week I hope to visit Terrington St Clement when I will spend some time looking around the village and taking photographs ready to post here on my blog. I have been there before but never really had time to explore everything apart from their parish church which I must admit is very unique being in that the tower is separate from the main building, but I will explain and show pictures next week fingers crossed.

 

A Fresh Year

   As normal we all spent weeks getting ready for Christmas, cupboards and fridges bulging with food, cake tins full and a good supply of beverages awaiting that one special day. Now that day has passed and we begin the new year this old bead hermit has upped his exercise regimen, so now as well as the 20 mile cycle each morning there is now an hour walk each evening after work, I'm very determined to break that elusive 20 stone mark, was just a few lbs off on Christmas day so felt a bit dejected after all the hard work but I'm sure I'll get there soon.

  We had some crap weather leading up to Christmas with me getting soaked at least three times a week. Now the weather is a lot better, chilly but in the main dry with some winter sunshine, which I must say feels bloody great to have on my back again.

   There have been a few problems with the bike but touch wood these are now sorted and once more I'm back putting in the miles and enjoying the magical flatlands of the fens where the winters are hard, the winds are strong and the summers are hot.
   I would just like to wish everybody I know, those who read this blog and all the fen tigers a very Happy New Year and I hope you once again follow the journey I continue to travel in 2020.

First True Winter Frosts

   I can now say that winter is officially here, my old grandad would always tell me winter hasn't arrived until the "Hoar Frost" gets here and to me, yesterday was the first real thick frost we have had here in the fens. For the first time this winter my back wheel had a mind of its own on the ice-covered fen droves but nothing too serious and I made the 20 mile trip trouble free.

   The great Marsh Harrier who hunts just North of Emneth hung motionless in the cold currents high above me while Whooper Swans flew to their feeding grounds with their conversations clearly reaching my ears. Upwell wrapped in mist sat quietly with her parish church casting a huge dark figure on the bank of Well Creek. Only the lights of village shops such as Mr Tweed's butchers gave a little light to the morning, a morning when even my hand-warmers failed to fight the chill.

   The single yellow rose that still had hope even when covered in natures magical frosted diamonds was like so many of us, facing the inevitable and the river banks wore a coat of white with hem brushed by the gentle winter willows.

    The first ten miles were cold and dark but once the mist lifted and the blue skies spread wide and clear over the fens it was a real pleasure to be out there enjoying the cold but fresh November morning. Now I'm sure I face many more frosted fen cycles in the coming few months that will lead us into Spring again as they do every year.

Now I'm A Man

Now I'm A Man

    I came out here a boy, just a village boy who worked the soil and sang in church, a boy that rang the parish bells, enjoyed Sunday walks and one who would tease the girls of Morden. Just a Cambridgeshire boy that drank from the village pump and rode upon the harvest carts, a boy that watched cricket on the green, swung his scythe, stacked the hay and sat warming by yuletide log telling tales of Christmas past to his baby sisters. A boy I was, one who gleaned the hedgerows for summer fruits, collected bird’s eggs and enjoyed the village dance and in winter raw I would shovel snow and used a snare to fill the pot.
  Now, well now I'm a man, a man who wears the King's colours and fights the King's war, a man who looks out upon miles of mud, blood tinted cold ice-covered mud, a man who longs to hear the blackbird sing, who has worn the scent of another’s blood and has seen what no man should see. I’m just a man who dreads that whistle that signals the slow walk to death, a man who cries each evening while many a Tommy does sleep, one who trembles when the big guns roar and who eats from a tin held in mitten wrapped hands white with cold. Yes, I’m now a man who has witnessed gassed men choke and the mud-caked rats that share our beds while we dream of peace. A man who longs for news of home where the ground is rich with grass and no man lives in a hole littered with the rotting limbs of Tommy and Fritz, but most of all, I’m a man who wishes with all his heart he was still that boy.

You Sit And Wait

 You Sit And Wait

   You sit and wait, remembering family homes, mothers cooking and the smells that fill the pantry on those cold winter nights.
   There you sit, wet, cold and full of fear, looking at the blood-stained, mud-caked wooden rungs on those ladders that lead from hell to heaven.
   You sit waiting upon that whistle, that haunting sharp piercing whistle, the sound that lets heaven's gates know it's time to open and welcome yet more khaki-clad boys.
   Back home, well they sit by fires awaiting any tiny glimpse of hope, they pray and wait just as you do, their fear may be no match for yours but enough to banish any smile that once sat upon their faces.
   You sit and wait, memories of Sunday walk through tree-lined lanes, long summer days and harvest work, hard and warm, but much missed.
  Now you face a different walk, one lined by no trees nor one-paced under the summer sun, for this stroll you will never forget, the mud, the water-filled shell-holes and skin confetti that hangs upon wire barbed and rusted.
   And if you fail to return to those mud-filled rat runs you now call home, in every village and every town we will carve your name in stone and remember you always. For you are our heroes and hell you faced so we could walk free, thank you our brave Tommies of the king.

Fen Churches

   When cycling around the fens and visiting different villages I always try to look around the parish church, not because I'm a religious person, far from it, but because I adore the many skills that were brought together in building such places. When I think of the poor craftsmen who worked from dawn until dusk and the tiny wage they would earn I get a great feeling of sadness come over me. Yes, there are some Victorian churches of which more respected craftsmen were used but with the Medieval churches, these labourers and craftsmen were so afraid of the church that they were basically used as slave labour. Thankfully these days we are more educated so the threat of being punished by God that hung over their heads is not now present and no priest can punish us for refusing to attend their services or can order us to work on their great houses of worship.

   So for me, the only reason I look around these great stone buildings is to admire the work of the stonemasons, the carpenters and the glass artists who produced the stunning windows that tell stories of the bible.
   There are many fine examples here in the fens, some large and ornate, others in dire need of repair like the leaning parish church in Friday Bridge. Luckily most churches in this area are unlocked during the summer months so it's easy to gain entrance, there are a few where I have yet to see inside but I hope next summer I can correct that and will discover more beautiful carvings in both stone and wood.

   The Marshes have their own beautiful churches including the "Cathedral of the Marshes" at Walpole St Peter with its unique tunnel under the nave and the amazing huge stain glass windows that project stunning light shows upon its interior walls.

   Over at the Washes you find the smaller village churches, often Victorian like that of the village of Welney. These churches are often built of brick and alas lack the many beautiful carvings found in those churches from the early and late medieval periods.
   I hope to use the next post here on my blog to show some of the wonderful carvings I've uncovered inside some of these great stone houses of god and further posts on the subjects of stained glass windows and graveyards. I hope you all take a few minutes to look around your local churches and don't forget you need not be religious to admire the work of those who were often forced to build these buildings of grandeur.