You say to-mah-to and I say...

From the top of our church tower (tho' I've never been up there!) you can see green fields on the rise away from the opposite bank of the Nene flood plain. Harry, who's sung in the church choir for sixty years, boy and man, remembers the flood waters reaching to the bottom of Church Way. Nowadays there are houses and the Riverside shopping precinct between us and the river. Only clever water management prevents an Underwater retail experience at times of major precipitation.

I walk a familiar path to Weston Mill and up over the sluice to Washlands reservoir where a notice reminds dog owners that their pooch will be shot if it worries sheep. On the far side of the lake the sheep are being shorn, and with the permission of one of the shearers I briefly share a pen with fifty or so of them in order to follow my path. With which other large-ish animal in such numbers would you willingly share a confined space? If I come back as a farmer, I'd like to work with sheep, please.

A field and a brief ascent of twenty metres brings me to St. Mary's in Great Houghton. I'm very warm. We've crossed from a cold spring to an early summer in the space of seven days. For country Northamptonshire it's an unusually Italianate church, built in the mid-18thC because the former building fell into disrepair. I sit in the churchyard, listen to the birdsong and look over at the heart of the village known as The Cross. There are some lovely houses here and a hollow way where the road to Little Houghton once went. Further up Willow Lane, I stop and ask a question of a gentleman who's doing a spot of gardening. I'm sure he'll be able to put me right, I say, but I remember a colleague once telling me that the pronunciation of the two village names was different: it was Great Howton and Little Hoten (or perhaps the other way round?) He replies that he's lived there forty years and never heard of such a thing, so I ask him to say the name for me out loud, and in the kind of lovely local accent that won't exist another twenty years from now, he gives me a version which precisely bisects the two possibilities. Wistfully, he tells me to walk while I still have the capacity. He used to so enjoy strolling through the surrounding fields and listening to the larks and cuckoos on a day like this. On once occasion he'd turned round to find a muntjac following him. I was able to assure him that these days I hear more skylarks than I did, and indeed as I cross the wheat field to the disused railway line, there they are carolling away.

In Little Houghton I buy Jaffa Cakes to munch on a seat by the south door of their church, also dedicated to the Virgin. Once long ago I taught summer Ancient Greek to the Oxbridge-aspiring daughter of a wealthy village family. I see that the once excellent butcher's shop is now a beauty salon. In Great Houghton I'd been surprised to find that the former Prep school is now the Dexterity dance academy, also offering instruction in gymnastics and Do-jo. Sue tells me to beware of an elegiac tone to this blog: you can only take so much sepia, she suggests. Fair comment. So OK, new wine in new wineskins. These communities are gradually being made over: their needs are changing. And I never approved of Prep schools anyway.

The other side of Little Houghton I find the nearest rape field to our house. The crop may make great cooking oil and look a cheery colour, but on a warm evening the heady, drugging perfume pervades the air miles away. It makes throats sore and eyes stream. Later I'll be able to smell it on my handkerchief after a brief four hundred metre passage through the middle of this one field. At the bottom of the hill, overlooking an old ford across the Nene is Clifford Hill, a castle motte that probably dates from the time of William the Conqueror, although no one knows for certain. The top's flat, because in the 17thC a bowling green was made there. These days no one's going to ask me for money to cross the river, but a notice on the far side warns me that if I use any of the facilities in Billing Aquadrome, I'll be charged the going rate. I miss my way among the serried ranks of fixed caravans, and wonder if my route through the maze of tarmac constitutes a 'use' under their definition.

Oh, the anxiety and guilt of evangelistic challenge! This is a mission field right on our doorstep, since our own church ought to share the responsibility with All Saints, Little Billing. The Aquadrome is a large holiday housing estate with everything a visitor could need for a week or so in the country, but no church of any church serving it, as far as I know.

Even within our own denomination, we Anglicans differ so much. Some of us say to-mah-to and some to-may-to. Howton and Hoton. Ma-ass and mass. But please let's not 'call the whole thing off', like the song (ironically) suggests.

In the churchyard of All Saints, close to the church door, where you can't miss it if you're coming to visit, there's a small section given over to quite recent child graves. I sit and look. To my right a woman kneels, clears the space around the memorial to a family member, replaces her flowers, and waits silently for a minute or two. When she rises to leave, I say 'Have a good day'.

Stats man. 17000 steps i.e. nearly 13km. 28 people encountered en route. No incumbents. No blisters, despite boots. Lots of birds (OK, I know that's not a stat, but they were really enjoying the sunshine!) One possible stone scraper of antiquity, but in reality more likely ploughed than knapped.

And did I say?  I'm Vince Cross. www.vincecross.co.uk if you want to send me a message or check me out.

Lord,
Here I am in this caravan park,
A little bit lost.
I can't see where I'm going because of
all these other people's experiences,
their opinions,
their edifices,
their washing lines.
It's snobby I know,
but I really don't like what I'm being made to look at.
Help me not to judge, lest I be judged.
Help me to be in this world but not of it.
Please help me find my way,
And Lord, please help them too.
Amen.