Shark Fishing In The Himalayas, by David Bentley

The over gelled Tottingham player has, as far as anyone can tell, never written a travel guide on the delights of snaring snaggle toothed aquatic fauna at over 20000 feet, but I think he should try. After all, he'll only get a game for his team if they are really desperate, so he should have plenty of time on his hands.

That was apropos of nothing, but this is what went down today.

Phill, his missus, and B and moi took a day trip to the lovely market town of Stamford today. When we left Shoesville at around 9:20 am it was minus 3. By the time we had traversed the spine of Northamptonshire to it's far north eastern corner, and alighting mere yards over the border into the Lincolnshire town the temperature had dropped to minus 6. For us thin skinned residents of our temperate isle that is bloody cold. God knows how residents of Toronto or Moscow cope.

A frozen hedge...this is ice, not snow..

Stamford is in a fairly unusual geographic location, being only just inside the Lincolnshire boundary. From a high vantage point within the town you would be able to see Lincolnshire, and within a couple of miles Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, and Rutland.

Have I mentioned it was bloody cold? Mrs P and B went a-browsing and a-shopping while Phill and me descended into our usual bizarre parallel universe. Metaphorical farts were lit. We mused upon a strange church that sort of morphed into a town house. It was as if the builder had got to the point where the spire was supposed to be and thought "....sod that, it's too dangerous. I know I'll stick a house on the end". We found a rather groovy market stall selling home made curries, and I bought two humongous onion bhajis, each about twice the size of a tennis ball! The curry to go with them will be made tomorrow.

A different, and complete church

It was still bloody cold, and warm food was needed to re-stoke the boilers, so after obtaining some highly precise directions from a kind chap in a nice warm shop, off we four trudged through the Arctic blasts that had already be-shivered the polar bears that now live on the Fens, and an exact 8 minutes later as predicted by our guide, we arrived at The Jolly Brewer http://home.btconnect.com/jollybrewer/
Featuring in the CAMRA Guide, and indeed winning several awards for its ale, the first thing we noticed was the enormous furnace of a fire burning in the hearth - marvellous. Then among a good range of ales was my fave Oakham JHB. We ordered food, and not long after three generous portions of home made grub arrived, Mrs P opting to have just a bowl of chips. I had a beef & bacon burger, with a mountain of chips and a good sized salad. All homemade, the food is highly recommended. Another pint of JHB later Phill & moi went back to the car while the girls paid one last shop visit.

As we were sat in the car thawing out, we saw a kingfisher hovering above the river! Neither Phill nor I had ever seen one before. Despite our befuddled attempts to capture it on our mobile phones (with hindsight - why didn't we simply video it? Doh!) it was too darned quick for us. Cursing ensued.

Did I say it was a wee bit chilly? It was now about 1:45 pm, and the thermometer in Phill's car still read minus 6. While thawing out we noticed an imaginary sign (we're back in that other place again) in the park across the small river from where we were parked that forbade the construction of snowmen (Byelaw 702.17b) as Stamford was simply too posh. Any snowmen found by the park attendant would be taken away for DNA analysis and the perpetrators hunted down and and beaten with cudgels.

Did you know that Mason Williams, the guy who had the well known hit Classical Gas, issued an unsuccessful follow-up called Practical Twats? Neither did I.

Thank you and goodnight.