This is a very pleasant little walk. It's not far from Newark, and is a nice combo of farmland, village, and river.

Part-way round the circuit, we encountered possibly the most obnoxious man I have ever had dealings with. But why dwell on him when the rest was so beautiful?









Just before you get to the river stretch (or leave the river stretch, depending on which way round you're going), there are two stone memorials. They commemorate the crews of two Lancaster bombers (both based at nearby RAF Syerston), which crashed just weeks apart in January 1945, with the loss of all lives.

Someone was decorating the monuments in honour of Remembrance Day, so we didn't photograph them, or linger.

But the story of Helen Nall's accidental rediscovery of the buried wreckage is quite fascinating. She begins: "I was unexpectedly given a metal detector by my husband on Christmas Day 2008 (I was expecting a vacuum cleaner, but that's another story!)..."

Soberingly, she continues: "Of the 125,000 young men who served as aircrew in Bomber Command, nearly half were killed (55,573). Of that number, roughly 8,500 died in training accidents. There were 15 aircraft crashes in the local area around Hoveringham during the war, mostly heavy bombers, and around 100 young airmen died in the skies above and in the fields around us in this quiet corner of Nottinghamshire."

Tragic.