Thursday July 28 Louth

Heard that the last stock auction in Lincolnshire is still held every Thursday in Louth, a market town less than 30 minutes drive from here, and as we wanted to have a look around the town, seemed like a good day to do it. The forecast was for rain this afternoon, which turned out to be very accurate.

It turned out to be a very small sale, not at all like the size of the one we went to in Melton Mowbray, with only a small number of pens of fat lambs and some store stock. But everyone was very friendly and got chatting with Paul, a stock valuer and auctioneer who explained all about the sale as well as the problems with livestock farming. They certainly are thrilled with leaving the EU, they are sick of being dictated to by unelected bureaucrats from Europe. Interestingly we have yet to speak to anyone who wanted to stay in, but we understand all those in London aged under 40 are not happy!

Meandered down to the town and found a parking area by the Co-op supermarket. It was such a pleasant temperature and we wandered around town, found a nice spot for lunch and then visited the church whose spire really dominates the town. At 90m tall it has the tallest spire of any medieval parish church in England.

The “navigator” with the help of “Jilly” found an interesting route back home through many country lanes that we hadn’t been on before. It has become a bit of a challenge to take a direct route to where we are going, then find a different route home.

Stopped beside a country lane when I spotted some red poppies growing amongst the edges of a crop, don’t know what the crop was but it looked a bit like chard. Got home just as it started really raining, although by tonight it has cleared.

There are still so many really nice butcher's shops selling top quality meat.

Thought you would appreciate this Jennifer, so many tapestry kneelers, although not as fine and perfect as yours,

Louth Church in the centre of town.