Retford

A lovely day for a visit to Retford, my favourite local town - to be honest though I spent most of the time in the pub with my friend Justin.

My Village Checklist

 I like to visit pretty villges when I'm walking in the countryside.Here is a list of what I like to see -

An attractive sign as I enter the village. Only a few villges where I live in Doncaster have one however over the boundary in the Bassetlaw district of Nottinghamshire nearly every village has a pretty wrought iron sign featuring something unique to that village...I frequently photograph them. Unfortunately most villages in the Peak District don't have one; Eyam does though, but I've never photographed it because it's in a difficult to get to location, dangerous traffic and poor visability. 

A village pond, ducks are optional.

A red phonebox.

A traditional pub, ideally with a beer garden.

A mediaeval church with a lychgate.

Thatched cottages - these are rare locally and in the Peak District - there is a row of them at Baslow Nether End though.

Flowers everywhere in the summer.

A village green.

Cobbled streets.

If possible, a castle, defernsive walls and gates...and a large country house or hall.

Stainforth and Fishlake

The local weather forecast for today was for it to be dry for a few hours in the morning and so I caught the Thorne bus to Stainforth and crossed over the bridge and within a few seconds saw the footpath that goes up onto the embankment and followed the River Don for about a mile to Fishlake. 

When I was looking at Google Streetview last night I noticed that there was an old fighter aircraft being stored in a field next to the village hall; unfortunately it isn't there now. I continued to walk through the village and then along a country lane for a mile or so until I reached a path, which according to my Ordnance Survey map led to a footbridge going over the New Junction Canal. Well, when I got there the bridge had been removed so I had to return to the road, a distance of a few hundred yards. A notice explaining the closure would have been helpful.

At the road there was another footpath going off to the left, heading south back towards Stainforth. After only a few yards my route was blocked again, this time by a barbed wire fence; it was obvious that this was a public footpath, you could see the sign at the side of the road. There were two female walkers approaching me, one of them checked her online app and that clearly showed that we were on the currect path; I decided to squeeze between the gap between the two wires and they managed to get around it by stepping into a drainage ditch.

After a few minutes the path continued along the top of another embankment - there were some decent views to enjoy.

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The embankment. and therefore the path, were now going parallel to the road that goes to Stainforth, there were a couple of gates I could have easily climbed over to reach the road, but I didn't. I thought I'd regretted that decision when the path made a sharp left turn because the route straight ahead was blocked by what I'm assuming is a flooded remnant of the old course of the River Don. I'm glad I had to go this way though because I got to pass through a beautiful area right on the western approach to Fishlake...it's shown in the photograph below.

I had a few hundred yards to walk back to the bus stop at Stainforth; fortunately the bus back to Doncaster was waiting there - I dashed to get on and as soon as I took my seat the driver set off.

Brodsworth Hall Gardens

I managed to fit in a visit to the gardens at Brodsworth Hall today, it's free admission as part of the National Lottery Open Week. I'd got a brief appointment in town at 10:10 and then managed to get to the bus station for the 10:35 bus which goes out to the nearby village.

The 203 bus is an infrequent service and although it was actually only thirty minutes until the next bus going back to Doncaster I decided to walk it to the bus stop at Woodlands where there are several buses an hour.

Selby

I should have been going to Ripon and Fountains Abbey with my support worker today, but instead we only went as far as Selby. A few days ago she had to visit four garages before she was able to fill up her car with premium diesel, maybe because of the war in the Middle East, I don't know, but now she's panicking and not wanting to go too far in case she needs to get fuel in an area where there might be even worse shortages.

When we got to Selby the kitchen at the George Inn pub where we usually go for a meal was closed and so we had to go to the Giant Bellflower, the Wetherspoon's pub. I'm okay with Wetherspoon's, but Siobhan isn't too keen; but I don't know any other pubs in Selby that serve food though.