Peterborough, Cambridgeshire... Lovely city, but not originally in our itinerary.

So, are you ready for a saga? I'll do my best to keep it brief.

You remember that covid booster we both had back in December? In Derby? Well, whereas Nigel's was duly entered into his electronic record, mine wasn't... I've been trying to fix this since the end of last year, in the course of which attempt I have gained really quite extensive experience of the 119 service... Lovely people, all of them. To a person, they've been helpful and polite. But this was, after all, a monumental vaccination effort, and it's a really tough system to know everything about. So, over the course of the weeks, I've been given a variety of different solutions to my problem. Yesterday, I was finally told that the only way to fix it was to return to Derby where I had the jab done in the first place...

Yes, but why PETERBOROUGH? Well, these conversations made it clear that it would be useful to have our Malaysian vaccinations entered on our UK record. To do that, you have to bring your vaccination certificate, in person, to a designated centre. When I was first calling, at the end of December, there were hardly any of these centres in operation; by mid-January there were more, but not exactly many. Our nearest one was Peterborough, and we couldn't get appointments until today. (The helpful guy who sorted our stuff said that one of his clients had had to come all the way from Bristol...)

Anyway, we didn't have to wait; everyone was masked; everything was well organized. We hope the deed has been successfully done. Now, IF I'd been able to get this appointment earlier (impossible, for the reasons I've just given), I could have had my booster problem sorted too. But alas, no longer... So on Thursday, we'll be heading for Derby...

Meanwhile, we got to enjoy a little bit of Peterborough. Which is really picturesque.





Peterborough Cathedral looks -- to my untutored eye -- more French than English. Certainly, I don't remember seeing any cathedral quite like it on these shores.

It was founded in 654 as a monastic community, and in the medieval period was one of the most important abbeys in the country. It had a turbulent history. Sacked by Vikings in 870; used as a stopping-off point by King Harold in 1066 (en route from York to Hastings); raided by Hereward the Wake in 1070; massively damaged by fire in 1116 (construction of the present Cathedral commenced two years later); visited by various royals, including Henry II (1154), John (1216), more Edwards than I have time to list, and a couple of later Henrys; roiled by the Black Death (about a third of the townspeople and half of the monks -- 32 out of 64 -- died); attacked during the Peasants' Revolt in 1381; sacked by a Lancastrian army in 1461 during the Wars of the Roses; closed -- along with all its brother institutions -- on the orders of Henry VIII in 1539; ravaged in 1643 during the Civil War (Peterborough was Royalist); but largely spared during World War II air raids.

We didn't go in. We don't "go in" at the moment. But we will next time. There are some notable artefacts and royal tombs.












Another thing that's fabulous about Peterborough is its complex of waterways. Nene Park runs for miles along the banks of the eponymous river, and there is also a variety of lakes and meres and sculptures. On a windy blue day like today, it's really beautiful:











On the way home to Newark, we popped in at the Lincolnshire village of Market Deeping. There is a cluster of villages round here featuring the term "deeping" (originally the Saxon word for deep fen or low place), and one day it would be interesting to visit them all. Their growth was hugely influenced by the River Welland, which provided not only food but also transport (all the way from Stamford to the Wash). When the upper reaches of the Welland became impassable, however, the Stamford Corporation was empower by Royal Charter (in 1621) to make an artificial cut, to take craft about 6.5 miles through 10 locks to Market Deeping, and to make the river navigable for 2.5 more miles south of the village.


Market Deeping has a highly picturesque core, built from a very eye-pleasing yellow stone:










The church is dedicated to St Guthlac (674-715). We've seen this unusual name a couple of times in our forays into Lincolnshire. Not surprising, it turns out, as he was a local lad:

"As a young man Guthlac was a warrior in the Mercian borderlands. After nine years of fighting, however, he experienced a religious conversion. He gave up his life as a soldier, and became a monk at the abbey of Repton for two years. While there he was disliked by his fellow monks on account of his desire for a penitential life and his abstinence from alcohol. Feeling that he needed isolation in order to better contemplate God, Guthlac retreated to the fens -- then a marshy, unpopulated region in eastern England -- and took up residence in an ancient burial mound which had been partially excavated by treasure-hunters."




I know I say this ad nauseam, but it would be great to return to this area, which is rich in walks, waterways, and -- of course -- history.

And you've probably already guessed that I've now made it my mission to visit all the other St Guthlac churches... No hurry, though.