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Wednesday 20th June 2007
Hinckley to Nassington
Not a good start to today - I arrived at Tony's house at 9 as agreed and by the time we got 100m from his house we discovered he had a puncture. Back to his house to replace the inner tube and off for the second time at 9.30. Again the first part of the ride was to be
over familiar territory as we made our way through the villages south of Leicester to Kibworth Harcourt and on towards Tur Langton. There is a distinct lack of tea houses on this route - budding cafe owners please take note - so it wasn't until the pubs opened at 11 that we were able to stop for the first cup of tea. Leaving afterwards what did we find was that Tony's back tyre was flat again. However we soon realised that the valve was loose and slightly bent, so Tony fitted a new valve and everything seemed to be fine.
Our aiming point for lunch was the Eyebrook Reservoir. This is a very quiet stretch of water unlike that of Rutland Water a few miles to the north. We were very luckly to get a close view of a Kestrel which had caught a vole and was flying to a tree alongside the water. The colours of it's wing feathers were beautiful and the view we got was quite different from the normal one where you see the underside as they hover in the sky above. Our lunch, taken under a tree, was punctuated by birds flying close overhead - the Kestrel again, hovering then diving into the undergrowth in front of us to get another vole, a Heron flying along the water's edge, Tern and various species of ducks feeding in the water - and hardly a soul in sight.
Our next port of call was Lyddington with it's church and Bede House built in golden brown ironstone - an English Heritage site. We are not members so today's visit was purely to look round the outside. The church was open and it has some interesting wall murals and brasses on the floor in front of the altar. These brasses are protected under a carpet, but visitors are invited to roll back the carpet to see.
We next crossed the River Welland just outside the village of Harringworth and under the Welland Viaduct - a magnificent structure 3/4 mile long comprising of 82 arches - which carries the railway from Kettering to Oakham and is used to carry freight traffic and occassionally is used for steam trains. You can only see half of it in this picture. From here we moved on to our destination at Nassington past the reservoir at Blatherwycke and the castellated water tower at Apethorpe (is this a joke!?). In Nassington we find that our hosts for the evening are not yet at home, 
so a walk round the village reveals a Prebendal Manor House together with a small museum and dovecote and, surprise, surprise, a cafe selling tea and cake. The pieces of Apple and treacle tart were so big that we couldn't eat all of our evening meal that night!
But the surprise of the night was yet to come. As we walked back to the B&B from the pub after the evening meal, the sound of a brass band caught our attention as we walked by the church. We poked our heads around the door and were invited in to listen. It was the Nassington and Yarwell Brass Band and we spent the next half hour listening to their practice - a lovely conclusion to the evening. They played us out with one of their favourites - it was great but I couldn't tell you what it was called!
The mileage for today was 52.9 miles making a total of 231.4 miles.