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And a quick summary of our last day’s camping effort, our short and sweet weekend trip to Derbyshire. More inspirational photos to follow later, but I feel the need to get this text down quickly before I forget what happened. My vast readership of about three people demands such a rapid response. And, admittedly, this exciting prose is of limited interest to those people who don’t know who my various friends are, I’ll just have to paint the best picture that I can of them.

The first thing to note is that yesterday there was huge drama in the camp when Jonathan lost his sardines. Rumours were flying about that Richard had stolen them to give as presents, but he fiercely denied these allegations and blamed Steve. I, of course, stayed out of this debate. Anyway, Jonathan, after much debate and searching found them in his bag. It was all something of an anti-climax if I’m being honest.

So, day three was the beginning of the end of our camping trip, with a requirement to take down the tents. The three campcraft experts took our tents down and then waited for Richard to dismantle his palatial tent. A team of five builders came in to take down the foundations and outhouses, whilst Richard dried his tent with paper towels. It was such a glamorous sight to see, along with Richard moving his fridge back to his car. The fridge had remained warmer than the air temperature for the entire weekend, so his milk had gone off, but otherwise it had been really useful as a storage container.

Richard chose the breakfast option for us, which was the Cool River Cafe and Patisserie in Matlock. He built this place up to sound like it was as good as the best Greggs in the country, so our expectations were sky-high. We arrived there and it was shut. Marvellous. Richard’s name was mud, but I didn’t say anything.

So, we went to another cafe and had a delightful breakfast, with the only problem being that Richard was given beans on his breakfast. I thought they looked delicious, but Richard insisted that they were removed while the rest of us were enjoying our rolls. It was also the first experience we had of the Government’s eat out to help out scheme, which seems to be generating huge volumes of trade for pubs and restaurants.

Then it was time for a little stroll around Matlock, with the highlights of a war memorial beautifully towering over the town and then my hunting for some eighteenth-century graves in the graveyard. I probably need to get out more…. Anyway, lots more photos of these to come later on. Our efforts to get food failed in the town, the Government’s eat out to help out scheme meant that everywhere seemed packed. No matter, we managed to go elsewhere in the end, but that was pretty much the end of our weekend. After some strolling and meandering, we went our separate ways and then headed back to sunny Norfolk, with the memories of a happy weekend to look back on. And leaving me with a huge heap of blog posts to write and photos to upload, I’ll amuse myself for the rest of the week doing that.

The camping was a success, even though I was initially sceptical, and we were fortunate with the weather and the choice of campsite. My highlight was the exciting descent from Kinder, along with the visit to Thornbridge Brewery’s tap-room. But that combination of walking and drinking is always the best way to spend a weekend, alongside food and history as some added extras. I’m also pleased to report that we didn’t see any snakes as if we had seen some when camping then I’d have likely never gone back to Derbyshire again.

On that, I shall now go back and fill in a fair few of the blanks that I haven’t yet written about in these summaries. I’m sure my limited readership can hardly wait….

Sunday was our second full day of camping and it started early, since living in a tent does rather make that inevitable because of the sun lighting everything up. The morning wasn’t quite as warm as the day before, but the four of us across our four tents slept well, with Richard coping well in his palatial sized tent. Steve managed to assist Jonathan with his lighting of a gas stove, but Steve did manage to set fire to a tissue and nearly a tent. I would have liked to get a video of this, but I was still resting in my tent. I didn’t say anything to Steve about how dangerous fire was, I don’t get involved.

The decision for the day was to go walking and the expedition that we decided on was to go to Kinder Low, this time going in Steve’s rather lovely Skoda. All we discussed in the car was where the bloody hell Jonathan’s sardines had gone, which was a topic that was of great concern to us all. We think that Richard took them as a prank, but he denied this and said that he was more worried that they’d blow up in his car. We still don’t know where these blasted sardines have gone, but I’m sure that we’ll find out in future months.

Richard wanted a large-scale breakfast, but as professional walkers we didn’t have time for that rubbish. So we went into a grocery store in Edale to get provisions. I found myself a healthy and balanced lunch of Skips, Scampi Fries, a mint Aero and then Steve said that there were pork pies for sale. So, I rushed excitedly to the fridge and then Richard decided to copy me, showing a distinct lack of individuality. Unfortunately, other customers had already taken all the pork pies, which caused some indignation from Richard as I got the last one. He complained at me, which was ridiculous, I can’t be held responsible for the shop’s stock. We ignored those complaints though and Richard decided to get the most expensive bread in the shop to show off. Jonathan wanted to find something to replace his lost sardines, but he didn’t find any delicious ham, but a lump of cheese appeared at some point.

Anyway, I digress. After Richard’s pork pie incident we set off on the walk, going to the top of Kinder via Jacob’s Ladder. The first part of the route goes along the Pennine Way, which is the route that the saintly David Morgan walked just a couple of weeks ago. The route went up via Jacob’s Ladder and was a relatively easy path to the top. The walk was all rather leisurely and there was nothing too technically difficult. Lots of photos of the views to follow shortly, I’ll save that for another post.

We got to the top of Kinder and then had lunch. I had my delicious pork pie and the others had their snacks and provisions. The only problem with my pork pie was that it was a family-sized one, so it took me a while to get through it. Jonathan gnawed through his loaf of bread and Richard did something with his bread which had cherry tomatoes glued to it. Richard then pointed out the state of Jonathan’s shoes (which had multiple faults), which gave Jonathan something to worry about on the way back down. Steve also enjoyed his small pork pie, which Richard looked at jealously.

The next part of the walk gave us some beautiful views and even more of these photos to come later. We were following a GPX route that we had downloaded and the next part of the adventure was the most exciting. It was a moderate scramble down a few little rocks, so all four of us nimbly edged our way down the hill. Well, when I say four people, I mean three people. Richard was faffing about talking to locals, so we had to sit and wait for him to appear. Apparently he wasn’t talking to locals, he was struggling to get down these few little rocks, but we didn’t complain to him. This was all fine with me, I had one of my beers from the Thornbridge Brewery visit, and I’m a very patient and understanding person.

Richard then appeared and told us off, but I didn’t get involved, as it was clear that he wasn’t referring to me with his series of complaints. Anyway, it was all good as we only had a few more minutes before we were back to normal paths. 95 minutes later we got to the normal paths and I think Richard was very pleased that I had been quite accurate with my time estimates. He only made a few complaints, I think around 140 or so comments, but I said motivational things to encourage him.

The walk dropped back down into Edale and after I had a quick look around the town’s church and former churchyard we then went on to Castleton to have a look at a Good Beer Guide pub. Unfortunately, this looked rather full and we couldn’t park anyway, but on driving out of Castleton into Hope our expert driver and tour guide Steve noted the Swiss Tap which transpired to be a new pub operation which opened towards the end of last year. This was excellent, much more on this in another post, but it’s one of the best pubs that I’ve been to this year. Richard’s highlight of this trip was the Snyder pretzel bites, which were flavoured with honey, mustard and onion, that were served at the pub. He was absolutely delighted with this and soon after he excitedly told us that he had bulk purchased a box of them on-line, so that’s a pleasant surprise for him to get delivered later on during the week.

This was then followed by a trip to the village of Hope and the Cheshire Cat pub which is listed in the Good Beer Guide. There’s a theme here…. Anyway, more on this in another post (I’ll be writing for a good few more days yet to cover all of this), but we were very pleased with the food and service, although Amexshopsmallgate took place. But, I had fish & chips which was of a perfectly decent quality and the pub itself is a few hundred years old and full of character.

Then it was time to go back to the campsite and this is where we are now, sitting around whilst I type this and Richard waits to see what I’ve written about him. It is quite cold here at the campsite, because Richard forgot to bring a heater. He’s brought a fridge, but no heater. He also told us that his tent has a secret hole in it which is for his electrical power lead hook-up, it’s like a letterbox with a zip. I’ve had a little play with it and posted stuff through it, but I won’t tell Liam about this.

Anyway, back to Richard, I’m entirely sure that he’ll agree with everything that I’ve put, which is all rather positive. He might be a while reading it though because he’s talking about campcraft at the moment to Steve and Jonathan. We’re going back tomorrow and after a short walk in the morning that means that this little camping adventure will be over. But, we’ll see how tonight goes before I make a final comment on whether I enjoyed the camping, it’s best to only judge these things at the end of the trip.

That though is my short little summary of the day, I might try and get some photos uploaded now to the next few posts.

Here I am in the tent listening to Steve’s air bed rustling in the nearby tent and the servants servicing Richard’s tent complex of buildings.

As a quick summary, we had a rather lovely breakfast at the Yondermann Cafe before going to the plague village of Eyam, all very apt at the moment. We didn’t know if it was pronounced Ee-am or I-am, but we realised that it’s neither, it’s Eem. After that, we parked up and had a little look around the churchyard, which had no shortage of seventeenth-century stones. There were a lot of history boards, but I’ll write more about that in separate posts. I liked that church though, some real stories to be told amongst its graves.

We then walked to Mompesson’s Well to have a little look at one of the boundary stones of the village where supplies would be left to be picked up by villagers. Then we meandered back along a path to come back into the village and go and look at another boundary stone, where coins were left in vinegar in exchange for provisions. As a long story cut short, the plague hit Eyam in 1665 and they segregated themselves so that the plague didn’t spread.

After some more meandering, and a walk to Stoney Middleton, we did some rock climbing. It was agreed by everyone that I asked that I was the bravest of the group, summiting some quite high rock summits. So very brave is all that I can say. We watched some professional cavers, but I’m pleased they didn’t see me as they might have been disheartened that an amateur was so good.

We meandered back to Eyam, although Richard had a bit of a drama and stumbled over on the pavement, nearly causing a major injury. Fortunately, he avoided drawing blood and the Florence Nightingale of the group (me) looked after him and ensured that he wasn’t going to die of anything. What a place to die Eyam would be. Anyway, I digress.

There was a lovely sausage roll and Fanta (it wasn’t Fanta, it was something posher) at a posh cafe, where I told everyone my story that banknotes can’t be photocopied due to the pattern of small circles on them. Richard looked very interested, whereas Jonathan looked moderately confused. After this excitement, and Richard having to apology to another table for his cough, we strolled off to the Riley Graves. Lots of fascinating stories, I’ll catch up on these parts of the village’s history in later blog posts. However, this was where some more drama occurred when it was realised that Richard had left his Ramblers water bottle at the cafe. I thought about running down to get it for him, as I’m kind like that. However, I couldn’t be bothered, so he went back, but it was a nice thought of mine.

Then it was a walk back into the centre of the village, to look at the stocks and then to look at the outdoor church which was established during the plague that enabled villagers to socially distance. Centuries ahead of their time….

Now, I got a bit muddled up next and instead of directing the car to Bakewell, I accidentally stopped us off at the Thornbridge Brewery taproom. This was delightful, I had four different beers, albeit it in small measures, before getting some crisps and then some beers to take away from the brewery shop. A lot more about this in a separate post, but goodness knows when I’ll catch up on all of this. This was one of my favourite parts of the day though, Thornbridge was a little treat…..

Onwards and upwards we went to Bakewell for a tart, but Richard explained that we wanted a pudding. More on all this in future posts, since it’s 23:30 and there’s a limit to what I can get through here, but we also went to a pub and Jonathan bought some reduced bread to go with his sardines. It’s all a bit Heath Robinson for my liking…. The rest of us went to the famous Bakewell pudding shop and after standing in the queue for twenty minutes, I purchased my first every pudding, which is similar to the tart but doesn’t have the icing. It has a fair amount of the sugar though and that’s the main thing here. We sat by the river, three of us eating our puddings and Jonathan gnawing at his loaf of bread.

After that we drove to a pub for food, which was all a bit average, despite being in the Good Beer Guide. What the pub lost in its offering, it gained in the beautiful views over the fields, but more on the Lathkil Hotel in another post.

After arriving back at the camp-site, we were pleased to discover that the tents were still there and no-one had raided the country estate that is Richard’s tent. So, after two of us drank a few beers and two of us drank a few coffees, what better idea than to have a night hike until 23:00. Less a night hike and more of a late evening hike, this was a warm-up to something longer tomorrow that I’ll drop into the conversation. I also discovered that my head-torch worked perfectly with the only problem that the beam of light hardly reached the ground. Fortunately, Richard was walking about with a head-torch that was like one of those landing strip lights at an airport. We didn’t have any problems seeing, although a land-owner looked moderately confused why we were walking through his fields in the dark.

Anyway, since it’s getting late, that’ll have to do for now. A very lovely day and I’m quite getting into this whole camping thing….. I have to write these things down now, otherwise I’ll start to forget them. I will say though, I’m starting to get into this camping thing…