Godmanchester

Lying just upstream of Huntingdon, on a couple of turns in the river, Godmanchester is said to be the oldest town in the county dating back to the Bronze age. While it owes its main growth to the Romans, it went on to become a bustling manufacturing and trading point on the roads between London, Cambridge, the east coast and the Midlands.

Now it's a very posh place with pubs, restaurants, hotels, mini-marts, riverside manors and an attractive millpond but it also has lots of houses with 'old' at the beginning - Old Post Office, Old Shoppe, Old Bakers, Old Surgery, Old Mill, Old Coach House Inn, etc, etc - you can guess why.

While we have passed by a few times, we have never stayed there until last week.

Travelling up from Lazy Otter, we stopped at St Ives on the Old Quay moorings next to the ancient road bridge. You would have to look far and wide to find a more attractive place. The town also makes a good place to stock up with food and drink. The Nelsons Head pub has recently been refurbished by Greene King and a very nice job they had done too.

Huntingdon was meant to be our next night's stopover but everywhere was taken so we moved on past the thundering A14 road bridge and around the bend to Godmanchester lock. Taking a sharp left-hander, we turned into the short cul-de-sac that leads to the town. While the place has a wealth of attractive buildings set in enormous gardens, a formal park and lots of places to eat and drink, it only has space for two or three boats - one of which is reserved for the local trip boat. We pinned a stake in to find ourselves too near a wasp's nest so moved a bit further down the line. The good Townsfolk of Godmanchester have been restoring the riverside and moorings for some years now but they really should do a little more to attract us boaters you know.

Anyway, we spent a very nice afternoon with the Mayor at his summer garden party in the park followed by a quiet evening and night moored up alongside the park wondering how many millions of pounds we would have to win to afford any one of the majestic heaps on the opposite side of the river. Now, I'm not one for jealousy or envy but I did wonder if all that wealth and property really makes the owners happy. Give me a well-made pasty and cold pint of Boddingtons on board Skylark any day!

Anyway, Godmanchester is well worth a visit if you're in the vicinity.

This week the river was flowing well and looking fantastic; clear, clean and relatively weed-free. There were lots of fish swimming about, loads of ducks and geese, swans, herons and grebes, and the most Kingfishers and dragonflies we have ever seen. We saw a couple of very young seals in the tidal stretch at Earith but still no barn owls. I suppose you can't have everything.

We returned to our crumbling heap on Tuesday afternoon in time to catch up on a few emails and recharge my batteries (on my camera). Life is so hectic for the retired.

Oh, one more thing. Answer me this if you can - why do some people make all the effort to take cans of drink with them to the riverside and then leave the empties on the grass for someone else to get rid of? Bring back flogging I say!