Dinner last night was very nice thank
you and we spent a very pleasant evening with our new found friends.
We gave the entertainment a miss, might see what is on offer tonight.
We both slept pretty well for a first
night in a strange bed, possibly due to a double nightcap of
drambuie.
Last night the coach driver, yay got it
right, told us that he would be parked outside waiting for us this
morning at 0930, and he was. Breakfast was the full English version
which lasted us all day.
So where have we been today, are you
sitting comfortably? Yes, OK I'll begin.
Unfortunately
the pretty hill country views we were hoping to see on our drive over
to Buxton remained hidden in the very low cloud. At what we thought
was the top was peak View Tearooms, not a lot of point stopping there
today. The road was quite winding and by the end of it I was feeling
just a tad off. The feeling quickly vanished as we came out of the
cloud and drove through several small country towns. Lots of the
paddocks we drove past were littered with molehills, interestingly
enough, well we thought so, they appeared to be in straight lines. We
were also struck by the dry stone walls that divided the fields,
often into reasonably sizeable field too. We speculated about where
the stones might have come from. Even if it was only off the fields
it would have been a huge task to collect them up. A job that would
probably have fallen to the farm workers wives and children. We even
saw one of the dry stone walls being repaired, a dying art in
anyone's book.
I
don't now that I would call the grey looking town of Buxton pretty,
its more picturesque than pretty. With two hours in hand we set off
to explore. Unlike the other passengers The Man and I turned away
from the High Street and crossed the road to have a wander through
the little park we had spotted opposite the parking area.
A good move
as we soon found ourselves strolling under autumn coloured trees. We
walked the circular path around the park before following our coach
mates
down
the High Street. Plenty of charity shops here so no prizes for
guessing which establishments attracted my attention. At the other
end of the High Street we climbed up to look at the war memorial ,
not only commemorating WWI and WWII but more recent conflicts
including Afghanistan.
Back on the coach, the driver soon had us at our next stop of
Bakewell. Yes that is where the world famous tart and pudding is
from. We had a short walk into the town, over a short bridge where
the eagle eyed man spotted several trout, including a couple of
reasonably big ones. The river flowed out from a weir where kids were
having a ball feeding he ducks and seagulls. I saw an almost adult
cygnet, but didn't see any parental swans.
We'd
seen a church spire on the way in and this where we headed first.
Reading the old headstones in the churchyard marking the graves of
previous town residents, close to the building was what I thought
might have been an old Celtic monument, was a cross shaft. Dated
around 750 – 1000. In the porch of All Saints Church were more
pieces of old stone monuments, recovered from the churchyard at
various items. The interior of the church was in places quite dark,
but at the rear a better lit and more modern looking chapel we came
across the oldest grave, that of Sir Thomas Wendesley who died in
1403!
Back
in the town we wandered around some very old shops, impressed by the
dates of a couple of them with 1783. And what did we buy here in
Bakewell? Well what else but Bakewell tart, the pastry based and
almond flavoured pie.
One
of the cutesy towns we drove through on our way back to the hotel was
Dove Hole, I kid you not, it really is a place called that .
Time
for The Man and I to go down to dinner. I wonder what it will be
tonight?
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