We stay at Twenty in a room above a cocktail bar. We don’t partake of the jugs of cocktails, but the room was well-appointed and clean.
On our first night, we eat at Los Burritos Mexican restaurant as recommended by Hollywood actor Rob Lowe (yes, really). I was once in a film with Rob Lowe (also yes really, as an extra). Rich was offered a rowing part in the same film (Oxford Blue - it’s dire) but his crew turned it down. Anyway, Los Burritos is excellent if you ever happen to be in Boston and craving Mexican food.
Twenty does not do breakfast, so the first morning we go to the café in St Botolph’s church, after which Boston is named. The café is in the body of the church itself so we have a cream tea for breakfast serenaded by organ music. We also read about the pilgrim fathers, who originally came from Boston and sailed to Leiden prior to returning to cross the Atlantic. Boston was also the home of Flinders and Banks, the Australasian and Southern hemisphere explorers.
Next we do some stocking up and shopping. We had hoped to climb the stump, but it closes at 2.30pm and the Guildhall closes at 3pm, so we go back to our room and wash our socks, desperately trying to remove all the embedded grass seeds.
Later we meet up with Yvonne, who amazingly has come all the way to Boston with our stuff. We only take some maps off her and, instead, give her more things to take back as we’re desperate to reduce the weight we’ll be carrying. Rich relinquishes some trousers, a jumper and his Kindle. Sadly, I give up my Havaianas, as I can’t really justify an extra pair of shoes. It’s been a pretty successful day and there’s always the stump to look forward to.
The following day, I have some Lincolnshire plum bread for breakfast. Like Christmas plum pudding, it does not have plums in it, but dried fruit. Then the stump beckons. It’s £5 each entry and we’re given a laminated card with a mobile number on it to take with us in case of emergencies. Evidently, Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue practice retrieving a casualty from the tower annually. It is very steep and narrows progressively as you ascend.
We reach the top (which is in fact only just over halfway up as you’re not permitted any higher). I walk round trying and failing to identify distant landmarks. Rich meanwhile is crawling along the tiny walkway. He has terrible vertigo which I always forget as he likes to climb towers. I ask him to point out the Norfolk coast and the Lincolnshire wolds, thereby killing two birds with one stone, and he is soon able to stand upright again.
After lunch, we visit the Maud Foster windmill (only open on Wednesdays and Saturdays). It is a working windmill and it’s incredibly interesting to see how all the machinery and processes fit together. It’s my turn to feel a bit uncertain underfoot. I have no problem with stone churches, but worn, wooden balconies suspended above the ground are not to my taste. The Guildhall is closed for a private event, so we’ll leave that for another time.
All of this makes Boston sound like a great place to visit and it is but this belies it’s deep divisions and problems. Boston is the most eurosceptic town in Britain and it’s easy to see why. Although it was once a wealthy Hanseatic port, it now has boarded up shops and county lines dealers trading openly. There are also a large number of obviously poor immigrants here. A local tells us that the farms are now run by large corporations who bus these immigrant workers out to the fields to do picking crops. Boston has the bones of a beautiful town, but it badly needs investment and bringing together of its disparate communities.
In the church, there is a labyrinth on the floor with the following quote: ‘The simple action of walking, concentrating on the path and not looking too far ahead can encourage our minds to meditate. We stop fighting and striving. With this comes peace in our hearts.’ I haven’t found my peace yet on this journey, but maybe it will come.
We have an early night, as we aim to get going early in the morning.
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