Rossington, The National Horseracing College, Mount Pleasant Hotel, Hayfield Lakes, and Doncaster Lakeside

Now that we're out of lockdown again I'm able to travel locally on the buses and I travelled to the church at Rossington, it doesn't take very long.

I walked down the path that goes through the housing estate until it reaches some playing fields, and then open countryside. I spent some time there exploring, I think it might at one time have been the parkland belonging to Rossington Hall.

I made my way over to The National Horseracing College, which is based at the hall, and then looped back northwards to the Mount Pleasant Hotel before walking along the Great North Road for a few hundred yards until I found a path leading off through the woods.

I captured three watertowers in this shot of the Great North Road.

The path took me to Hayfield Lakes and then the houses at the southern end of Bessacarr. My walk finished by picking up the Doncaster Greenway and going home via the Lakeside area. 

Retford, Babworth, Bothamsall, Elkesley, and Eaton

I had originally planned to go walking in the Selby area because it was forecast to be cloudy in the Peak District but stay sunny for most of the day further north and east. However, when I reached the bus station at Doncaster this morning I discovered that the early bus to Selby no longer runs; I quickly scanned the destination screens and saw that a bus to Reftord was ready to depart - so I ran to catch it. So...the weather today would have been better than the Peak District, but not as good as Selby; it clouded over by mid-day.

The bus travelled into Retford via both the secondary school and the college. The college is on Worksop Road, and since my first intended village to visit was in that direction this is where I got off and then continued walking along the road for about a mile until I reached Babworth. The location of the church here is quite magical; atop a small hill, surrounded by woodland, and at the end of a winding lane lined with snowdrops and daffodils. The timing of my visit wasn't ideal though because the daffodils weren't in bloom yet and the snowdrops were past their best.

Babworth Church is well-known for its historical association with the Pilgrim Fathers.

I headed south along country roads and a bridleway across the fields to reach Bothamsall; as I was walking along here I noticed the last few small isolated patches of the snow that fell earlier in the week.

En route I stopped to eat my sandwiches next to the footbridge over the River Poulter; this spot wasn't as idyllic as it might have been because it was quite near to a noisy quarry. It was a bit of a suntrap though, and sheltered from the wind.

I was impressed with the church at Bothamsall, and the houses in the immediate area.

As I was heading towards Elkesley I kept seeing aircraft which were taking off from the nearby airfield, Gamston Airport.

The church at Elkesley was my least favourite of the day, but it's still pleasant enough to look at...I suppose the cloudy conditions by this time didn't help though.

On the map that I'd printed out I'd marked the route to Gamston, the next village I was going to visit. [I keep a stash of maps in my rucksack for all contingencies] I'd forgotten about the Great North Road though, a busy dual carriageway. I couldn't work out a safe way to cross it and so had to retrace my steps through the village and walk back along the road that I'd walked along a couple of hours earlier. I always consider this to be a planning failure on my account.

A few minutes after leaving Elkesley I had to stop and sit on the vergeside to remove a small sharp stone from my boot. A passing motorist saw me hobble and then go down and stopped to ask me if I needed any assistance. I felt rather embarrassed and was somewhat apologetic - but this experience did restore a bit of my long lost faith in humanity. Next time I must remember to wait until there's no-one driving past.

I got some closer up views of aeroplanes both taking off and landing as I walked along the road to Eaton.

I'm not at all sure about this. I don't drive and so therefore I might be completely wrong...but I should think that the last thing you need to be doing as you approach a blind corner when entering a village is to be taking your eyes off the road to look at your speedometer.

I didn't take any photographs of the church at Eaton - there was scaffolding erected and the builders were busy on site...I think access to the churchyard was blocked off anyhow.

I doubled back a couple of hundred yards and took the footpath leading northwards back to Retford. Justin, my friend, was in town for a few hours and so we arranged to meet up in the Wetherspoon's pub, the Dominie Cross. The woman standing next to me at the bar as I was ordering our drinks turned towards me and said that she was addicted to rhubarb gin. I didn't even know that such a drink, or such an addiction, actually existed...you learn something new every day.

Justin and myself travelled back to Doncaster together on the  penultimate bus departure...there's no evening service.

Bawtry, Austerfield, Newington, Misson, and Finningley

Today I visited the village of Misson on my walk; there's nothing particularly interesting to see there but it's somewhere I've always wanted to visit - just out of curiosity because although the village is in Nottinghamshire, and is the furthest north location in the county, in order to reach there by road you need to drive through areas of either Yorkshire or Lincolnshire.

I started my walk at Bawtry, a small pretty market town on the Great North Road.

I needed to walk along the road to the southern end of Austerfield, and then the turn-off for Misson. Just beyond Newington Hall as I was looking at my map to check the exact location of the first footpath I needed to take I received some verbal abuse from some young men in a white van; I'm good at ignoring this type of thing [it happens to me about once a week] but it's made me become very hard emotionally. If I ever had a soul it's now as hard as stainless steel...and just as cold.

For a couple of hundred yards the footpath went alongside the River Idle; along this stretch there was an unpleasant smell coming from some sort of industrial facility that was shrouded in steam or mist...a pungent, fishy, rotten, sickly odour.

The area near to the church in Misson is quite pleasant, but there's also a lot of bland modern housing in the village.

I continued along a track across the fields which eventually passed right next to Bawtry Golf Club and driving range. I then crossed the busy A614 road and the footpath continued through woodland and some grassy fields to Finningley, coming out quite close to the church.

A black and white day today for photography: Although it was quite dark at times and even drizzled a bit there were still some long periods of sunshine...they just didn't happen when I was taking any photographs.

I arrived home at just after one o'clock - it was only a half day's walking. That's alright though because it should be a much better day tomorrow and I've already got my route worked out for my walk in the Peak District.