I nearly didn’t bother with the blog this time but I decided I should probably make the effort in continuing to document every night away in Brunnehilda. Plus, at the end of the day I didn’t want to disappoint my 3 regular readers!
Lots of things that make this trip another Groundhog Day:
I wasn’t looking forward to it - I never am!!
I was off to the Derbyshire Dales - I usually am. Northumberland or Derbyshire!
It was raining and lots more was forecast - if you changed your plans to avoid rain in the UK, you’d never get out the front door!
The big difference though - a different caravan site. Albeit less than a mile from my usual one! Beech Croft Farm Caravan Park is actually in the small pretty Dales village of Blackwell. It’s a bigger and better kept site (about 30 hard standing pitches) with toilet, showers, shop and a wee cafe (open at weekends). I couldn’t face my usual site in the winter as the grass was so long last time. This site has fully serviced pitches so the set up (water tank fill) was very quick and easy.
Everything went well. Brunnehilda’s battery was flat so there was no option to use the motor mover. I backed right onto her at Welton Lodge (a gold 🌟 for me!) and then I picked a really easy pitch at the site to back onto. The sun came out as I hitched up at home but the weather was dull and drizzly by the time I got to Blackwell.
The journey took the usual 2 hours. It was a bit scary going through Ashbourne though. There were hundreds of people in the centre and yellow coated Marshalls were getting ready to shut the roads just as I passed through - phew. It turned out it was the annual street football match. Just an excuse for a mass fight / brawl that’s been going on every year since medieval times. Lucky escape for me though.
As soon as I was set up I went on a quick 4 mile circular walk. One I’d done a couple of times before - more Groundhog Day!!
Gee it was muddy! Really slippy especially going down hill. It didn’t actually rain on me and it was quite mild so the dismal, grey and low cloud weather could have been a lot worse. Oh my goodness the mud and the puddles though. If any bloody water board executive anywhere in the country announces a hose pipe ban this summer I will personally ram their performance based bonus up their sewage spewing a*se!
So the walk was onto the Pennine Bridle Way, dropping down to the River Wye and picking up the Monsal Trail. Then getting off just before Miller Dale and clambering up the very steep Chee Tor back into Blackwell. NB the time shown below is wrong. I was chatting to my neighbour for 30 mins when I got back so forgot to turn it off!!
It was a pleasant walk. Surprisingly quite a few walkers but thankfully, no cyclists or bird watchers!!
When I returned I hosed down the muddy muts and had a long chat with my neighbour. A really pleasant chap from Warrington. He and his wife were new to caravanning and had been going out most weekends since August. Most annoyingly he backed onto his pitch much much better than I could have done!
Back to Groundhog Day this evening with more:
Sainsbury's microwave Ready Meal.
Raspberry Trifle.
2 episodes of The Tudors.
Cadburys chocolate.
Blogging.
The dogs seem quite knackered - as am I. Early night tonight for us all. Not a particularly romantic day though! Kim and I never really celebrated Valentine’s Day so today hasn’t felt that strange. We never really understood why you needed a special day to tell / show someone you loved them!! Surely that’s 365 days a year, not one?!
Brunnehilda’s big old German bed is a warm, cozy but “half empty” place every night not just the 14th February!
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