Road to Home 2022 Day 14: Great Oakley - Irthlingborough

30.5 km

The word pilgrim comes from the medieval peregrine, which in turn derives from the Latin per ager, meaning "over the fields". And I spent all day today going over the fields. I shall spare you more pictures of wheat fields, but here are some of the delightful thatched cottages of the villages of Weekley and Warkton.

The tea room in Warkton was closed, so I continued on my way back into the fields and sat down on the grass to eat some cheese and crackers from my backpack. As I was getting started walking again, along came a couple with a large pair of pruning shears, a pair of colourful little buckets of the type used by children to make sandcastles on the beach, and a very, very large dog. I asked if they were doing some maintenance work on the trail, but that was not their mission. "We're guerilla planters," they confided. They were out planting native black poplar trees, a species almost extinct in Northhamptonshire. Without finding out first whom the land belonged to and whether they wanted black poplar trees planting on it. "Now that you know, we shall have to kill you," they joked (I hope). They had succesfully planted a dozen black poplars and went regularly to check up on them and water them from the nearby stream. 

Following the guerilla planters

I walked with the guerilla planters over a couple more fields before our paths parted and they explained the rest of the way to Cranford to me. The teahouse in Cranford was also closed, but I had a look around the village.

Jubilee garden decorations in Cranford

Dovecote

A bridge built to celebrate another queen's jubilee 

Fairy-tale house (it's for sale!) 

Then it was back across the fields to Great Addington and Little Addington (which, curiously, seemed the bigger of the two). 

The final part of today's stage followed the Nene Way, along the Nene River into Irthlingborough. 

The Nene Way came out at a roundabout where my hostesses for the evening, Sue and Elaine, picked me up and took me to their home in the neighbouring village of Higham Ferrers. Sue and Elaine are world travellers, Quakers and members of Servas, an association for the promotion of peace and understanding through travel to which I also belong. and they have agreed to host me not only tonight but tomorrow night too, as I couldn't find anywhere to stay at the end of tomorrow's stage. So tomorrow I will walk with only a lighter pack, and get the bus back in the evening. In the meantime, I have finally put my clothes through a proper wash in a washing machine, instead of just washing them out by hand in a hotel sink! 

Sue, Elaine and Charlie, who wouldn't stay still!