At
almost exactly 2 pm, Sheila arrived at Spalding... She's digging deep
into her reserves of stamina and covered the last leg from Horncastle at
roughly 19 kph.
If she can keep up that pace, she will be home before we have had time to make the bed, do the washing up and walk the dog.
According
to Travel About Britain, Spalding “is a warm and charming Georgian town
in the Lincolnshire Fens. The town stands astride the banks of the
River Welland, in an area of reclaimed marshland. It is here that bulb
growers and market gardeners raise outstanding crops in the legendary
rich fertile soil. During springtime, the surrounding area is carpeted
with a glorious blaze of colour from hyacinths to daffodils and tulips -
comparable with the bulb fields of Holland”.
The town was well known
for its annual Spalding Flower Parade, started in 1959 and designed to
celebrate the region's vast tulip production. In its heyday, people
flocked to see the flower-festooned floats which attracted crowds up
more than 100,000. Sadly, attendance had fallen to fewer than 40,000 by
the time of the last parade in 2013.
We don’t have any photographs of tulips in Spalding. Here are some buttercups in Kent instead.
Sheila
has now ridden 780 miles and the next 38 miles will take her from
Spalding to the control point at St Ives, on the outskirts of
Huntingdon. She has 112 miles to go…
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