Susan Calman's Grand Day Out

Susan explores the second largest county in England as she takes in the gorgeous rural sights in and around the Lincolnshire Fens. She arrives to lush greens, as pops of yellow punctuate the vast, flat Lincolnshire landscape. This may be the perfect place to pootle.

Susan stops by Sir Isaac Newton's family home, Woolsthorpe Manor House, where she hears about this great man- and sees the very apple tree that inspired the discovery of gravity. Susan can't resist testing out the laws of motion herself. Luckily, there's a home-made rocket launcher on site. It may look simple, but Susan doesn't find it altogether straightforward to operate.

For a famously flat county, Lincolnshire manages to make the most of the hills it has. She meets a participant in the local Coleby Downhill Challenge- a soapbox racing derby, and finds one has been styled just like a certain little van of her acquaintance. In her ‘mini-Mirren' she has her first go in a soapbox. She had no idea her knuckles could get this white…

At the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre she meets Andrew, the grandson of Fred and Harold Panton who built this place up over time as a tribute to their eldest brother Christopher Panton, shot down and killed on a bombing raid over Nuremberg in March 1944. They bought an out of use Lancaster Bomber which is now being restored to its former glory. Susan is given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go for a taxi ride along the runway in this icon of British history.

At Lincoln Cathedral, Susan is let into the secrets of the ancient art of illumination- one of them being the use of the illuminator's ‘skin grease' in the process. It may not sound very elegant, but the end result is a thing of beauty.

In Spalding, she helps preparations for the return of a flower festival in what was once the tulip capital of the UK, and she finishes in a delightful little spot in the Lincolnshire woods, where a 100-year-old cinema still proudly sits. It's a treat to remember the joys of classic movies and of watching with her grandmother, and she gets to see the Chaplin classic that was the first film played here a century ago, complete with live organ music to evoke the very spirit of the silent era.