A Dull, Dreich Derbyshire Dales Day - 22nd July ‘22

I woke up to the familiar sound of rain on Brunnehilda’s roof. We’ve had a very dry month culminating in a heat wave but, as if the clouds were waiting for her to be unleashed, Brunnehilda leaving her berth was enough to send in the rough weather. 

I honestly can’t ever remember being too hot in Brunnehilda but by jingo she’s got wet over the years! To be fair, rain always sounds much worse when you are sitting in a tin can. It sounded like it was pouring but in fact it was no more than heavy drizzle. What ever it was, it didn’t give me much motivation to jump out of bed and fling open the doors and windows. So I slept in. Indeed I slept in for so long Tilly joined me on the bed!

It was past 10.30 before I was up and breakfasted on tea and toast. The weather app suggested the rain would go down from 98 to 70% during the early afternoon so I needed to kill a couple of hours. Luckily I’d brought along some report writing work - so that’s what I did.

I headed out at 12pm. I needed to be back by 3 at the latest so I planned a 2 hour walk. It was a part new and part old walk. Even with my super dooper new App I didn’t totally trust myself to not get lost in the rain.

The walk lasted 2 hours. Starting in the drizzle but finishing in the dry. Route shown below.

I walked down to the A6, along the top of Wye Dale, through Blackwell and then dropped down Chee Tor to the River Wye. The grassy slope was incredibly slippy. In fact without my walking stick I would have spent more time on my bum than my feet. 

Walked by the Wye then up the steps to get on The Monsal Trail. Walked through a couple of tunnels and over 3 bridges before arriving in familiar territory where Chee Dale meets Wye Dale.

I then climbed up the Dale side via The Pennine Bridleway (over 200 feet) to get back to the A6 and the entrance to the farm. The 4.5 miles had taken me 2 hours.

The good news about the weather was that there were very few people about. I met a couple of blokes walking on their own, an oldish couple on bikes and a youngish couple on bikes. The oldish couple generated my normal negative feelings of jealousy and wishing illness and pestilence on at least one of them - nice eh? Had a chat with a jolly chap walking on his own (early 50s?). He too generated negative thoughts - I really didn’t want to end up like him. Although he seemed happy enough, as I’m sure I did to him, I really don’t want to end up as that bloke who walks on his own!

The dogs were reasonably behaved and my ankle / foot held up well. So all in all, a good couple of hours.

The Waltons and pop chips with marmite humus for lunch. Really enjoyed it until I read I had just consumed 2 days recommended salt allowance in 10 minutes!!

I gave myself a good scrub down and headed out to Helen and Karl’s at Ashbourne for a cuppa. Had a lovely 90 mins in their garden catching up. Helen was going out on her horse for a ride so Karl twisted my arm (he didn’t have to twist it too far!) to join him down the local village pub. Had a really nice time in the pub garden, sheltering from the rain under a gazebo and chatting with John, Kate and Cocky. John and Kate were a super nice couple and Cocky was the local character - very funny and entertaining.

Headed home to Topley Bank Farm at about 8.30. Beans on toast, more Waltons and more report writing before climbing into Brunnehilda’s big Teutonic bed. Given the worst than average weather it ended up a better than average day. Mainly thanks to a bracing walk and the company of good people!