Nice hole. Good spray work.
Sneaky fuckers 
@tsomofficial
Oh. Not this nun then …
I prefer beaches 
I note with approval that they say “rarely” not “never” 
Besides me, @edd9000 lives just the other side of town, and @Valvebloke is an actual genuine local, hailing from Boston. I live in the middle of the above road-trip (well, almost), in a village just outside Spalding, so after 9 years, I’m starting to get to know the area a little - occasionally now locals will even make eye contact, if you can call a wary, open-mouthed stare ‘eye contact’, though we’re still decades from actual speech… The narrator’s descriptions are pretty accurate - bordering on generous… It’s crazy flat, though if you’re accustomed to the Flemish part of Belgium, the topology will feel familiar.
If you’d like to come and explore in person you’d be very welcome to come and stay - we’ve got loads of space, and there’s masses to see and do - though not, perhaps, enough for the whole day… 
(The invite however is sincere, most of the time there’s an entire spare floor we hardly use…)
I live next to the railway bridge.
I was in St Botolph’s church choir in Boston for about 8 years. They were unfussed about letting agnostics in if you could sing at least passably and were prepared to turn up for three 1-hour practices each week and two (sometimes three) 1-hour services each Sunday, plus extras at Xmas and Easter. The pay was derisory except for weddings which even then paid pretty well. The church is absolutely vast. Back in the 13th and 14th centuries the port of Boston handled a large fraction of the export trade in wool from the east midlands to the low countries. In terms of the port taxes paid into the exchequer Boston was second only to London. Local taxes on the same trade paid for the huge church, the view from the top of which, across that dead flat landscape, is stunning and, if you have acrophobia, terrifying.
Colloquially known as ‘The Stump’ or ‘Boston Stump’ - locals don’t lack a sense of humour! 
I don’t know if anyone’s ever come up with a convincing explanation for that. The name goes back centuries, apparently. Like a lot of big infrastructure projects it went through a series of funding crises. The tower was the last part to be finished. It’s been suggested that for a couple of generations all that there was was, literally, a stump of the final thing. But who knows ?
The tower is built very close indeed to the Haven (the local name for the tidal last few miles of the river Witham).
The banks wouldn’t have been piled as effectively 700 years ago as they are now, and the water table is high enough that the tower’s footings are surprisingly shallow. It’s a miracle that it hasn’t sunk at all, or at least started leaning crazily as quite a few of the other local towers have. Surfleet, for example
That’s a good potential explanation, I’ve always just assumed it was a typically reductive, ironic bit of British humour, but you’re right about these vast edifices being built slowly - hundreds of years for most cathedrals.
One of few things you and I have in common is starting life in from towns with outsized churches - Christchurch Priory is also considerably bigger than some of Britain’s cathedrals. Not as elegant, coherent or distinctive architecturally as The Stump, but Saxon in origin and - legend has it - Christ himself had a hand in its construction - apparently taking a dislike to its original site up on St. Catherine’s Hill, he shifted the building materials down to the harbourside night after night until the architects relented, and also adjusted a major support beam that had been cut too short!
The Stump was started in 1309 IIRC but not finsihed until about 1450.
Wow! How did that happen I wonder? 
With all the D Day stuff on the TV I’m reminded of my father.
He hardly said anything about the war except
- People injuring themselves doing stupid stuff training in Achnacarry
- Walcheren. As I understand it the casualties were very high, particularly for the Canadians
- Being part of the occupying forces on D Day+2 or 3.
I don’t even know what country he was in, but he was 23 and prone to stealing anything that wasn’t nailed down*.
Him and his mates got wind that the local head man had buried a case of liqueur with gold flakes in it in his garden to avoid it being looted.
Yeah, there’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
So they went around to his house and beat on the door at 2am.
Took him outside and (this part of the tale he struggled to tell through gales of laughter) and told him to dig a grave, “ooh, over there”.
You can fill in the rest but obviously the guy thought he was going to die, and they said thanks and walked away with the booze.
Such different times that despite the temptation to be pompous and judgey I’m definitely not going there.
* I remember there always being a posh leather briefcase kicking around at home, with a name and address written inside in high German script. He later said he took it off the body of a suicided German officer that he literally crawled into in complete darkness.
Also stole a motorbike from his own side.