Mere Memories

A Memory of Raby.

My memory is not so much of the Wheatsheaf, although I did visit a few times during my youth, a nice place to take a new girlfriend for a drive.
But nearby is the Mere, a huge lake in the middle of an agricultural area. When I was a kid there were rowing boats that could be hired for a trip up the river. I can remember there was a small penny arcade near an old garage with flip ball machines and even a "what the butler saw" for a penny. The area was always clean and the air smelled of freshly cut hay, except maybe when one of the local farmers was "muck spreading", the process of enriching the soil by spreading pig or cow manure across the paddock by tractor and machine.