The Appeal of Mrs Toogood

In what must surely be a breach of corporate social responsibility, Google have started publicising this nonsense on their search engine. All in all, that’s had mixed results. Bad for the poor innocents who have been tricked into reading it, but good for me in that it’s resulted in some more than welcome pointers about where I might find some of the trees. One such tip, well, the only such tip to be honest, came in this week so when I got a sneaky day off, I decided to head back to Grimoldby on the hunt for a tree that was allegedly planted by William Ingall himself.

The mission started inauspiciously. It turns out that the numbers 53, 56 and 50 all look deceptively similar on the sunshine-obscured signs of rapidly approaching double decker buses. Consequently, through no fault of my own, I ended up flagging down a lengthy series of buses heading all over the county before eventually getting the right one. It’s a good job they aren’t on tight schedules and always have plenty of time for myopic halfwits bringing them crashing to a halt at every stop on their journey.

Anyway, not to worry. The sun was shining and, despite setbacks, I at last managed to swap a tenner for a Stagecoach Adult Day Out ticket. I’m on my way William Ingall! There yet lives at least one fat knacker who has not abandoned your memory.

Unfortunately, by the time the bus reached my stop, the only remaining double seat was the one over the wheel arch on the sunny side of the bus so I spent the journey squashed and basically blind. This must be why my mum always walks 3 miles back to the start of the bus route. I’ll never mock her again. Not for that anyway.

Sat behind me on Stagecoach’s finest omnibus were a couple who sounded worryingly like southerners. After a few minutes chatting cheerfully, they somehow decided the journey would be more enjoyable for all concerned if they belted out a series of Elvis songs at unnecessarily loud volume. I immediately regretted paying actual money to get my ears syringed. Last week I wouldn’t have heard a thing.

His musical repertoire eventually exhausted, Cockney Elvis started a shouting based conversation with someone on the other side and far end of the bus whom he joyfully referred to as Sprocket Gob. I was intrigued despite myself.

Anyway, with the exception of a bit of shouting and some singing that sounded a lot like more shouting, the journey was pretty uneventful. Theoretically, I was supposed to meet my mum for breakfast at Louth Wetherspoons before beginning the second stage of my journey from Louth to Grimoldby and Manby. We concluded negotiations by text message as the bus careered across the Louth bypass. Mum has recently decided to forego actual language in favour of communicating entirely by emoticons. I’m sure she thinks it’s jaunty and demonstrates that she’s young at heart but secretly I just want her to grow old gracefully.

Elvis and his presumably miserable wife got off at the same stop as me in the centre of Louth. Oh no! They were shouting across the bus because Sprocket Gob is in a wheelchair and was stuck in the allocated space at the front of the bus. The whole family are laughing and smiling. Sprocket Gob is beside herself with glee. They are clearly a completely lovely family. I, on the other hand, am a terrible person. I feel sick.

I hid my shame by sneaking into the local newsagent whilst I waited for my mum to arrive. I was struck once again by the frankly staggering amount of porn they stock. Maybe Louth is more boring than it appears to me. To be honest, I was vaguely aggrieved that I was having to wait at all. I would’ve thought my own mother would be slightly more excited to see me and might have been waiting for the bus to pull in. Nope, she decided to wait for me in another part of town. Where the bus stop isn’t.

Anyway, breakfast concluded, I’m off on Shanks’ Pony to my dad’s bungalow to pick up the bike that will transport me to the Ingall Orchard in Grimoldby. It’s well maintained and works perfectly. After years of carrying my lightweight father around Louth, it must wonder what’s hit it. Soon I’m deep in proper Lincolnshire countryside and all I can see are a thousand shades of verdant green. All is right with the world. Have I mentioned how much I love this place?

I have a lovely ride across to Manby, despite my mum’s fraudulent claims that every cyclist on this road is immediately killed by “lairy drivers.” I turn left at the main crossroads delineating Manby and Grimoldby and there before me lies the Village Hall gifted to the locals by William Ingall back in the 1920s. There is neither sign nor mention of him that I can see. It’s cool. If I ever do anything worthwhile (the chances are slim), I think I’d rather it be forgotten in time rather than immortalised on one of those blue plaque things that no-one ever reads.

Just past the Village Hall lies Priory Lane itself. My contact says the footpath lies just ahead, although my sister swears blind the only footpath goes across the cricket field and there aren’t any fruit trees on it. The mystery must linger on until next week’s similarly unwelcome post. No-one deserves to be made to read more than a page and a half of this stuff in one week.