THIS IS THE 200th TRAVELS WITH BRUNNEHILDA BLOG! Charting the highs and the lows of travelling with a caravan. Thankfully lots of fun and happy memories contained in that time.
I was due to leave on the morning of the 25th but there was a Canons Ashby talk at Morton Pinkney scheduled for the afternoon so I decided to go to that first. It wasn’t a difficult decision to put the trip back 1/2 day - as usual, I wasn’t looking forward to it much!
Anyway, the man from MOLA finished his talk at about 4.30 and I was hitching up Brunnehilda at 5.30 for a 6pm getaway. There had been a lot of floods this week in Chesterfield so I went the lower route via Ashbourne. All went well and I arrived at Topley Head Farm (my usual site) at about 8 pm.
There was no one there and the grass was even longer than usual - and of course soaking wet after the days of torrential rain. My first thought was what a great opportunity to practice my backing - pitch black and no one watching / judging but … it was very wet / squelchy ground and I was tired so I went straight to the motor mover. I gotta say it was a pretty miserable job setting up in the dark, cold and wet. I usually feel a bit sorry for my self when I set up on my own but this one was off the scale!
By the time I was finished it was 9 pm and time for a Tesco ready meal, a cuppa, Cadburys chocolate and 2 episodes of The Tudors. It all felt very usual / predictable. If it felt familiar for me, I can only imagine how boring it is for you to read about it again! I need to mix it up a bit - at least get a different brand of chocolate to eat!!
Up this morning by 9 and cooked myself a big breakfast. The forecast is rain showers this morning and just dull this afternoon. By happy coincidence England were playing in the Cricket ODI World Cup at 9.30. A perfect opportunity to waste 2 or 3 hours while the weather sorted itself out! It would have been except England let me down! It was no fun watching them get thrashed (again) so I turned it off at about 10.30 and headed out to Hartington.
My old Volvo buddy, Andy Johnson, who happens to be a native of these parts, told me about a nice circular walk he did from the village of Hartington - about 10 miles from the campsite. And it turned out - he wasn’t wrong!
We parked up at the picturesque little village. The large “pay and display” car park was completely empty. I found a “free” space on the Village green / square. The rain had still been coming down on the drive over but it had stopped now and we were just left with very low cloud and that horrible damp / wet air.
I quickly found the correct footpath (God bless the OS map on my phone) and soon realised I was in for a very different kind of walk - the ground was sodden, slippery under foot and loads of mud and standing water everywhere. Thank goodness I had my walking stick and the rain had stopped so it was only my boots and the bottom 3 inches of my trousers getting wet and muddy!
The route involved walking 4 different Dales. For 3/4s of the walk I’d be walking by the streams / rivers. I started walking down the small but very pretty Berresford Dale.
This joined Wolfscote Dale where the river seemed to have widened and there was a much better path to follow - National Trust land. The views would have been magnificent if the low clouds had allowed. At the end of Wolfscote Dale we had a food / drink stop. Unlike every other walk where the dogs have been desperate for water, they just ignored the bowl I put out for them. They had been drinking from so many puddles that they had had their fill!
I did consider doing the longer walk down Mill Dale but I didn’t want to push my luck with the conditions. So we turned for home and headed up Biggin Dale. This was quite hard walking as the path had turned into a steam so we had to pick our way up the Dale to the side of the main path.
During the entire walk I met about 4 couples and 3 young families - all met with a jolly hello and a bit of chatter about the conditions. I also met a bloke with a very impressive beard walking on his own. He blanked my greeting and just stared ahead. I muttered something under my breath and wondered if that was what the future had in store for me - being a grumpy old solo walker with a big bushy beard.
The final bit of the walk was a steep climb out of Biggin Dale to pick up a farm track and then a tiny road (with no traffic) that took me back to my starting place - the village of Hartington.
And what a lovely village. A few interesting shops and several pubs and coffee shops. I decided on a coffee shop and immediately wished I’d chosen the pub! This was just the sort of place Kim would have loved. The cuppa and ham sandwich on my own (with the dogs!) was something I tried hard not to dwell on and compare with times past but … I failed!
Before I left, I visited The Old Cheese Shop to get a couple of local cheeses - well it seemed rude not to. I tied up the dogs to a bench and when I returned they were being terrorised by 2 big geese. They seemed quite pleased to see me!
The walk had only been 6 miles long but because of the conditions it had felt longer. There were however good points about walking at this time of year - not many sheep and no flippin threatening signs about keeping dogs on leads to save the birds - by late October they had all obviously fled their nests!
I headed straight back to Brunnehilda getting back at about 4pm. I was due to see Mandy this afternoon / evening but she has a poorly dog to look after so we’ve put it on hold. That meant I had a long night in with the dogs. I did check for a cinema in Buxton but the next film isn’t due to be shown until Monday!! I even considered going to Buxton Theatre to see a Travelling Wilburys tribute band. I persuaded myself it would be rubbish but I think the real reason was a boring lack of motivation to do anything different on my own! I need to work on that!
So more Ready Meals and Cadburys chocolate - my bloody diet is appalling. I did mix it up with my viewing though - after a couple of Tudors I watched The Wolf on Wall Street. Believe it or not, I hadn’t seen it before. It was very entertaining and who doesn’t love a bit of Leo?!
Blogging in bed and a quick chat with Thom on WhatsApp. Oh, and I have a new neighbour - a caravan arrived at about 7pm tonight. He backed his van beautifully onto the pitch in the dark without the need for a motor mover- bastard!
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