The northern, dog–friendly,
log-cabin-with-hot-tub, mid-week break with Grandad and Bruv is becoming a bit
of a feature of our Summers. This
year, we bagged some decent weather as well. Even in the Peak District.
Travelling up the M1 in 32-degree
heat was no joke though, especially with my hairy dog twitching between my
legs.
Ahem.
Nuca is a Tibetan terrier
(mostly), more accustomed to biting winds channelled through Himalayan passes
than a super-heated asphalt motorway. She doesn’t like car journeys at the best
of times. In that heat, we were reluctant to put her in the back with all the
luggage. Hence her nominal berth in the footwell on my side of the charabanc. I
say nominal because she spent most of the time on my lap with her head out the
window and tongue lolling into the hard shoulder. Drool and sticky dribble
everywhere.
The dog’s reluctance to travel in
the car at all – any part of it - had found a new manifestation only the day
before. We had all met up with Mrs A’s family in MK for Fathers Day, leaving
Nuca in the dining room. Or so we thought. When we returned several hours later,
we found the animal in the garden, tail spinning like a child’s windmill,
ridiculously delighted to see us. A screaming hot day and we’d left her outside.
We felt terrible. Bad doggie parents. She did have water and shade, I should
add.
Packing up the car for the Peak
District trip, she spotted the keys coming out again. In a flash she turned
tail and headed for the same spot under the bistro table (dahlings…) where she
dodged a bullet the day before. Curious canine psychology. Searing heat or no,
she was prepared to play the same card again rather than face a car journey.
I say having the hot dog in the
front seat was no joke. At one point it actually was. We overtook a dirty white
Transit somewhere near Leicester, only for him to undertake us in a 80mph manoeuvre
up the inside lane and then slow down to our pace.
“What the
hell is he playing at?” screamed Mrs A.
I was about to dish out one of my
best non-driver low eye-brow scowls when White Van Man met my face with a beaming
grin, leering in at the car. His little Jack Russell terrier was on the
dashboard doing giddy jumps and yapping away at Nuca on my lap. The driver thought this was hilarious
and kept pointing at the pair of them. He must be a barrel of road-rage laughs on
a long distance journey.
Enough about the dog. Oh, not
quite. The park, about which were scattered the 30 or so Scandinavian-inspired cabins, was
extensive enough (just) for a woodland walk. Perfect for an amble with the dog. Had I been paying
attention to underfoot conditions rather than reading a charming biography of a
Californian Redwood posted by its trunk, I would have prevented Nuca dragging
me into a mound of nettles in pursuit of a squirrel. Instead, a cloud of
mosquitos rose from the vegetation to silently sink their probes into my
bloodstream, condemning me to days of itchy grief the like of which I have never
experienced in England. They think I’m tasty, the little bastards.
On that walk there was a wishing
tree where visitors had hung up home made offerings and gifts so that the fates
might smile kindly on them. Amongst the dream catchers, twisted ribbons and paper hearts, someone had hung up a dog poo bag. I ask you.
The park was just outside Ashbourne.
The town is a good solid, medieval shape built of millstone grit into the
surrounding hills. The old town has a couple of cobbled public squares at its
heart and there remain plenty of signs of affluence from previous centuries in
the proud public buildings, handsome town houses and attractive shops.
It is dealing less well with a 21st
century problem: choking heavy industrial road traffic. A local cab driver told
us that the town has been waiting for a bypass for 40 years. There are four
quarries nearby which mean the narrow streets are rocked by 26-tonnes lorries
carting roadstone down south. We also noticed loads of bulk haul milk lorries
and refuse skip hauliers. The trucks absolutely thundered past the entrance to
the park down the A515 into the town, making the more prosaic agricultural
traffic seem like light relief.
One of the best walks in the area is
the Tissington Trail, following the approximate route of the A515 between
Ashbourne and Buxton.
As we ambled along the track I mused how ironic it used to be a railway to Buxton until 1962, and could, if still open, be taking some of the freight strain off the nearby death-road.
“Yes”,
said Mrs A, “but we wouldn’t be able to enjoy this lovely walk would we?”
Damn. There’s more to this
environmental stuff than meets the eye.
On that particular day we looped
around the village of Tissington itself and back via the pub in Thorpe for a
beer and a burger. Tissington is an estate village of the FitzHerbert family,
residing in Tissington Hall since 1609. The village is pristine, with all the
houses constructed in the same style dating from a rebuild in the 19th
century. Cables, aeriels and satellite dishes are all discreetly tucked away
round the back. The Lord of the manor probably has half an eye on lucrative
contracts for period TV shoots.
The pub in Thorpe was an
altogether more informal experience. The Old Dog, it was called. No jokes
please. There were certainly none for me. No matter how much I cajoled, I
couldn’t get Mrs A and the hound to stand under the pub sign for a pic.
Much as we liked the cabin, with
its uninterrupted view over the fields and the hot tub on the balcony, it
appeared to be built for giants. We couldn’t get a cup of tea or a glass of beer
without standing on a chair to reach the cupboards over the sink. Someone
eventually had the bright idea of taking all the crockery and glassware out and
lining them up on the worktop to enable easier access. Genius.
This height-ist guff was a bit of
a feature of the park, come to think of it. Bruv, the girls and I booked an
archery session during which we were subjected to flagrant abuse.
“If you
find the top of the bow is catching on this roof beam”, said our instructor Aaron,
caressing said beam, “you can stand back there instead”.
He glanced at the four of us,
grinning at him from our frames that did not breach a five-foot-five-inch threshold between us. The beam would not be an issue.
The archery was a right laugh. I
was staggered how good the girls were, given that they had previously shown no
aptitude for any other sport ever invented. In fact daughter No 1’s hapless
slapping when attempting to catch balls of any description could almost be a
new sport. And yet here were the both of them fizzing arrows into the bullseye
from 30 feet away after only the most rudimentary coaching. Bruv was even better.
At the end of the session, Aaron invited
us to fire off ten arrows to accumulate our best haul. The top score at the
park was 98. We were incredulous. Then Aaron said that this had actually been
recorded by a medalling Olympic archer, there on holiday a couple of years ago.
“He only told me afterwards.”
We revised our view. Only 98? How
did the he miss out on two? So the real top score, for mere mortals was 84. Brave promptly knocked that off the leader board with a blitzing 86.
Pretty impressive, given that he
was carrying an injury. The shower head had fallen off its hook earlier that
morning and smashed into Bruv's foot, raising a lump the size of a golf ball in
double quick time.
He also managed a 6 mile walk with
Mrs A, the dog and I over to Dovedale, with only minimal limping. Tough as
teak.
Dovedale is splendid limestone
gorge north west of Ashbourne, where steep cliffs flank the twisting river.
I’ve been there before but not for about twenty years. The stepping stones at
the valley bottom are a bit of a visitor honeypot. However, we tramped over Lindale
from Thorpe and didn’t see a soul. The path followed the Lin, no more than a
stream at this point festooned with attractive clumps of Monkeyflower. These
are yellow, antirrhinum-like flowers with contrasting red blotches on the
petals. Dovedale is one of the few spots they are found.
Only when we emerged at the
confluence of the two waterways did we meet groups of people who had walked
from the car parks downstream. Our circular route rounded Thorpe Cloud on our
left and the main path on the opposite bank where we saw consecutive snakes of primary
school kids on outings from the coach park to the stones and back again.
We engineered enough time for a
scrambled pint and burger in the Old Dog, almost our second home in these
parts, on the way back. It would have been less of a scramble if I hadn’t
missed the turning at the top of the village and instead sent us plunging on a
mile (or so!) detour down to the River Dove again. Still, it was nice and cool under the trees.
Dinner on the last night was in a
fancy brasserie called Whites. Easily the best place we ate all week. They
looked after us really well in there and I like it when the owner makes an
effort to come over and speak to new customers. The girls were sampling
cocktails.
“Ever
tried a Tom Collins?” I asked Daughter No 2.
“I went to
school with someone called that. And he dribbled. So it puts me right off, to
be honest.”
Fair enough.
Waiting for the taxi home, the
girls decided to re-enact the Werthers Originals telly advert with Grandad and the sweets handed out
by the restaurant. Grandad needed some coaching, claiming to have never seen the white-haired
gentleman in his high backed chair handing out boiled goodies to his
grandchildren. The ensuing pseudo-mugging that played out on the steps of the
restaurant had the owner raising an eyebrow from the other side of the glass
door and wondering if he really should have made such hooligans as welcome as
he did.
Same again next year?
Comments