Camping – Day 3 (Summary)

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….