EVERY bearing frost sends my memory back to the Fens
of Huntingdon and Cambridge, where alone (unless the rivers freeze as in '61 and '82) skating is a real mode of motion. The most famous of the Fens in ice-time is Lingay, because it has seen so many skating championships, and it is a skaters' paradise ; but you have the freedom of an immense area of new country if you penetrate the fenland from the L.N.E.R.'s. main line south of Peterborough, say at Holme, or, if you prefer, the branch line to Chatteris. There is no more delightful form of exercise to be taken than a day's skating along these great dykes, though it is enhanced if the Nene also is frozen hard. You find yourself in another Holland. It is of course best to don fen racing skates ; but any skates serve so long as they are not excessively rounded. I would put such an expedition in front of any day of winter sports in Switzer- land or the Pyrenees, which the French hope to make rival even Wengen or St. Moritz. Certainly some of the undulating plateaux of the more easterly Pyrenees, or by Luchon, have supreme advantages, especially for less expert skiers.
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