To Frisby on the Wreake to Willoughby-on-the-Wolds via Brooksby

There are occasions when my obsession with walking long-distance paths leads me into situations where I doubt my sanity. This morning was one such occasion. We had managed a very pleasant walk yesterday despite the fog and a very pleasant evening and night at the Melton Mowbray Premier Inn; and my hips had recovered from getting rather cold yesterday (oh dear, I'm getting old...). Today's weather forecast had been rather better, but unfortunately it was raining when we woke up, raining when we left the Premier Inn, and raining as we set off walking. We were not sure about parking in Willoughby-on-the-Wolds and I thought that the drive to Milton Keynes this afternoon would be more straightforward from Willoughby, which also meant setting off walking from there this morning i.e. walking the route "backwards" (from north to south). Therefore it was to Frisby on the Wreake that we drove first, parking Richard's car almost exactly where it was yesterday, on Main Street almost opposite the village shop at SK695177. We then took my car on to Willoughby-on-the-Wolds and easily found parking in a lay-by at SK642264. on the outskirts of the village by the Bowls Club.

There are a few things to note about Willoughby. Firstly, and pedantically, it is not on the route of the Midshires Way, which instead follows "Back Lane" to the south of the village. Back Lane is the road which we had driven along from the A46 and which we would be walking along this morning, but I would expect our onward route to be through the village itself (therefore making use of on the Cross Britain Way, the Macmillan Way's younger sibling). Secondly, it is in Nottinghamshire, thus today we would be walking from Nottinghamshire back to to Leicestershire, though I believe we will have another brief foray into Leicestershire later. The guidebook implies that you just hop across the county border before entering Willoughby, which would be true if approaching from most directions. However, on the Midshires Way, you're quite comfortably within Nottinghamshire at this point. Finally, Willoughby is one of countless villages in the area which end with "-by" (and today we'd be passing close to Old Dalby then through Shoby, Hoby, Brooksby, Rotherby and ending in Frisby). The suffix "by" means "farm" or "settlement" and reflects a Scandinavian influence (thanks Vikings...) so Willoughby was "a farm near the willows", "Hoby" was "a settlement on a hill" etc.

Enough of this, time we got walking. It was just before 8.30 am when we set off, re-joining Back Lane and heading east over the A46, past the Nottingham Karting Raceway and on for about another mile. The road was quieter than I had feared it might be, and there was a wide verge onto which we leapt when cars came past. There were good views to a wind farm to the south and, best of all, we could just about convince ourselves that the rain was easing. The sky had certainly lightened and maybe there were patches of blue? By the time we had turned south onto an unsigned track (it is times like this when the OS Maps App comes into its own) and seen enough footpath signs on the route to indicate that we were first still in Nottinghamshire then back in Leicestershire, the rain had definitely stopped. It didn't return all day and we had a very pleasant walk through pretty countryside and rolling countryside with (with one exception) less mud than yesterday. As we headed south the views to our right were back to the wind farm, and the views to the left were down to the village of Old Dalby, rather spoilt by an industrial area beyond.

We reached a road and turned first right and then left, passing various farms. This road was busier than I'd expected, as was Six Hills Lane onto which we turned left at the end. Fortunately we then only had to go a short distance before turning right onto Perkins Lane, a minor road down to Grimston. Grimston may not have the characteristic "by" ending to its name, but it is a delightful place, complete with a village green with a church, a pub, stocks...and a bench on which to sit to partake of a slice of Richard's birthday cake. Then we continued on an even more minor lane down a hill, up which a horse and rider were climbing most picturesquely, to the hamlet of Shoby. There is not a lot to see here, though it is the site of a deserted medieval village and it is easy to make out the shape of the former Priory in the modern-day farm buildings now on the site.

After crossing the A6006 and finding our way around a poultry farm, our route was back on tracks and field edges to Hoby. There were good views of the church spire from some way back with, somewhat to our surprise, a distant backdrop of a city skyline. From the direction, we're pretty sure this was Leicester, but Leicester was some distance away and felt even further. It really felt as if we were in deepest countryside, contributing to my realisation that, like Northamptonshire before it, Leicestershire has beautiful countryside as well as industrial midland towns and cities. The village of Hoby didn't disappoint and, even better, there was a well-placed bench on which to stop for lunch, up above the River Wreake. We had decided to continue to Brooksby on the Midshires Way rather than cutting across to Rotherby on the Leicestershire Round and we soon had a good view to both the church spire in Brooksby (straight ahead) and the church tower in Rotherby (off to our left).

I got a nice photo looking towards Rotherby, but didn't manage to photograph Brooksby and soon we were in the village, with the buildings of the distinctly "closed" Brooksby Campus of Brooksby Melton College blocking the view of the church. I rather wanted that picture, and I could see there was a public footpath through the campus to the church, and hey presto, opposite the old hall, there it was. The college was clearly built in the grounds of a stately home, as were many university campuses etc. This one is a rather old-fashioned sort of campus, as befits the "land based campus" of a further education college of a certain vintage. There is nothing wrong with that, but I was somewhat horrified to see the reserved parking space for the Principal. Nothing against her either, but does she not have legs? The path across the fields to Rotherby didn't look very distinct so we followed the very minor road, now with good views to Hoby to our left. There really is an abundance of pretty villages with pretty churches round here and we were soon walking through Rotherby.

All that remained to be done was to leave the minor road on a bend so as to join the Northamptonshire Round, and then to follow that across the fields, roughly parallel with Rotherby Lane, to Frisby on the Wreake. Simple? Well not quite, as the point at which we left the road was VERY muddy; we realised after getting through the mud that we could probably have avoided it by leaving the road just slightly sooner and following a track until there was a way back to the path. After that, our route was indeed straightforward, taking us past horses and emerging in Frisby at the junction of Main Street and Water Lane. We were soon back at Richard's car and we had a good journey back to Willoughby-in-the-Wolds and then on to Milton Keynes (me) and Norfolk (Richard).

Following leg