Fotheringhay (Day 29)

When you live somewhere long enough, the special becomes commonplace.

Hmm. I may want to retract that. I never ceased to be struck by the beauty of Sarajevo, on days when the clouds swept the mountains, on my walks with Vel around Bentbasa...I was daily reminded how lovely the city was.

Now, I live in St. Neots. A market town, here in Cambridgeshire. Not a bad place but not a particularly lovely place either. It is easy to forget that I'm in England, actually. And the day to day routines of work and baby don't allow for much countryside travel (or reflection).

So, there we were last weekend. Anticipating another lazy Saturday with an afternoon dog walk as the day's highlight. Maybe it was the impending move (because still, still it seems we will be back in the U.S. soon....) but I took out the Rough Guide to Britain and gave it a look-see.

We've done so much travel around Cambridgeshire, I thought Northamtonshire....Yes! That's it, Northamptonshire. Surely, there has to be more to see than Oundle. Which is very nice, don't get me wrong, but I didn't really fancy overpriced gourmet olives or a latte.

Then I saw Fotheringhay. Promising. A lonely village, once the place of a very high profile beheading. Mary, Queen of Scots.

What a lovely, magical, even haunted, little place...The castle is no longer there, just a mound, where a section of the castle used to be--and a pile of rubble, all that remains of the castle. What a location, there on the Nene River, right by a footpath. All that pasture, all that land. And we had a rare sunny day to boot. (And a nice pint at the local pub.)

Now, I have an itch to see all these hidden gems. I must kick us into high gear if we are to see even a fraction of them before we leave.

Little Barford, you're next.