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A Long Weekend
Thursday, October 2nd, 2014 03:11 pmI’ve learnt one lesson from last weekend and that is simply that I really need to do something about my abundant weight. I mean, it’s hardly a secret that I am 9o0fficially one steak dinner away from being two people: I couldn’t pretend otherwise, could I?1
After further tribulations with healthcare issues for Mum, and general annoyance/inconvenience etc. from the Shrewsbury and Telford National Health Trust that saw me waste three days in Shropshire for meetings with the Social Services that failed to materialise, we went on a long weekend break to Buxton in the Derbyshire Peak District. The events were not related – we’d planned the long weekend sometime back, it was just a lucky chance that it came exactly at a time I needed to unwind.
I’d never been to Buxton before, if you discount as I think you can, a midnight drive through the place in the late 1970s when as students we regularly piled into the car and drove aimlessly for miles just for the shits and giggles. Anyway, Buxton is a very pretty little town set in some beautiful countryside.
We arrived early on the Friday afternoon, checked into the hotel and then went to explore. The only ‘sight’ we investigated that afternoon was Pool’s Caverns famed for its stalactites and stalagmites. We had the last tour of the day and it was very much of the bespoke variety, with just Furtle and me being led along by the guide, which meant we could ask rather more questions than if we’d been in a larger group. It is a little expensive, but recommended. Sadly, like the doofus I am, I left my proper camera at the hotel and as it turns out, even after performing a factory reset on it, my HTC One with its 8m camera performs dismally in poor light; so no photos from me on that score. (In fact, unless I can be bothered to import some tonight, when I get home, there will be no photos of the trip at all. I must try to remember; I know you all like photos, especially when I forget to resize them or place them behind a cut and demolish the carefully designed layout of your friends’ page).
On the Saturday, we got up unreasonably early (about 8am), breakfasted and then wandered up to catch the bus out to Ashford-on-the-Water, where we picked up the Monsal Trail. The Monsal Trail is a series of walks ranging from 6 to 12 miles in a loop around the peaks. Being unfit city dwellers unused to exercise, we set aside an unfeasibly long time and chose the shortest route to walk, broken into three approximately equal stages.
The first two-mile stretch was entirely uphill. Not especially steep, but two miles of uphill. This tub of lard is rather ashamed to report that he had to stop at frequent intervals to cool down and push his lungs back into his chest. Luckily we had the foresight to make sure we had bottles of water with us. As it turns out, this stretch was also the least interesting scenically. Lots of views across the countryside to be sure, but nothing massively spectacular, until we got to Monsal Head at the end of the first stage and looked down over Monsal Dale. That was pretty spectacular and the photos I took almost uniformly fail to do it justice. You simply can’t tell from them what a view it actually is; there is no feeling of distance or depth. Maybe I need a better camera.
There is a pub at that point on the trail, so it being midday, we stopped for a pint and a bag of crisps before launching out on the second leg of our walk.
This part of the walk went much quicker and with rather less effort. It was nearly all down hill. We went down the side of the gorge, through the trees and paused by the weir to look at the stream that is laughingly called a river (the River Wye), before walking the remainder of the stretch to a car park just over the A6, where we stopped to eat our lunch. I managed a few photos along this section, but it was quite heavily wooded, so apart from a couple of views of the river and the weir, there’s not much to picture.
The final two-mile stretch was a mixed bag effort-wise. The path rises steeply into the woods and required puny me to stop and gasp for air a number of times more. The woods though, are very pretty and I took a fair number of pictures which again largely fail to convey their beauty, but are good enough to provide an aide memoir for the pair of us. It was a little troubling to be overtaken at one point by an enthusiastic bunch of ramblers of varying ages, but who, on average, were probably 15 to 20 years my senior. I refer you, dear reader, to my opening paragraph. Despite all this and a few moments of grumbling/gasping when we couldn’t find the path (autumn is rather more advanced up there than it is in Ilford), I think this final leg of the walk was the one I enjoyed most, though like Return of the King it had several false endings, where we thought we were done and there was just another bend in the track…
Sunday was Chatsworth House.
This was very enjoyable, with lots to see: the House, the gardens and the farm and so on. It was not, however, cheap. A day pass for everything for two of us came in at a cool £42. Rather than whiffle on about the inside of the House itself and struggle for hyperbole, I shall just do a separate entry later with a heap of photos (actually, it’s on my FarceBørk page, so I’ll sort out a link to that tonight). Look particularly for the photograph of the statue of the ‘Veiled Vestal’, which is frankly amazing. Who knew that a sculptor could make marble look diaphanous?
Anyway. That’s me done for now. I’m off to ponder ways of losing about a third of my bodyweight without killing myself or undergoing surgery. I fear that it will involve eating less and doing more.
Edited to add: Here is a link to my FarceBørk album for Chatsworth House: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152657798446391.1073741828.532046390&type=1&l=bde4c6eb98
1That said, my body image is somewhat smaller than the actuality and I get caught out sometimes because in my head, whilst acknowledging that I am overweight, I don’t see myself anywhere near as overweight as I really am.
After further tribulations with healthcare issues for Mum, and general annoyance/inconvenience etc. from the Shrewsbury and Telford National Health Trust that saw me waste three days in Shropshire for meetings with the Social Services that failed to materialise, we went on a long weekend break to Buxton in the Derbyshire Peak District. The events were not related – we’d planned the long weekend sometime back, it was just a lucky chance that it came exactly at a time I needed to unwind.
I’d never been to Buxton before, if you discount as I think you can, a midnight drive through the place in the late 1970s when as students we regularly piled into the car and drove aimlessly for miles just for the shits and giggles. Anyway, Buxton is a very pretty little town set in some beautiful countryside.
We arrived early on the Friday afternoon, checked into the hotel and then went to explore. The only ‘sight’ we investigated that afternoon was Pool’s Caverns famed for its stalactites and stalagmites. We had the last tour of the day and it was very much of the bespoke variety, with just Furtle and me being led along by the guide, which meant we could ask rather more questions than if we’d been in a larger group. It is a little expensive, but recommended. Sadly, like the doofus I am, I left my proper camera at the hotel and as it turns out, even after performing a factory reset on it, my HTC One with its 8m camera performs dismally in poor light; so no photos from me on that score. (In fact, unless I can be bothered to import some tonight, when I get home, there will be no photos of the trip at all. I must try to remember; I know you all like photos, especially when I forget to resize them or place them behind a cut and demolish the carefully designed layout of your friends’ page).
On the Saturday, we got up unreasonably early (about 8am), breakfasted and then wandered up to catch the bus out to Ashford-on-the-Water, where we picked up the Monsal Trail. The Monsal Trail is a series of walks ranging from 6 to 12 miles in a loop around the peaks. Being unfit city dwellers unused to exercise, we set aside an unfeasibly long time and chose the shortest route to walk, broken into three approximately equal stages.
The first two-mile stretch was entirely uphill. Not especially steep, but two miles of uphill. This tub of lard is rather ashamed to report that he had to stop at frequent intervals to cool down and push his lungs back into his chest. Luckily we had the foresight to make sure we had bottles of water with us. As it turns out, this stretch was also the least interesting scenically. Lots of views across the countryside to be sure, but nothing massively spectacular, until we got to Monsal Head at the end of the first stage and looked down over Monsal Dale. That was pretty spectacular and the photos I took almost uniformly fail to do it justice. You simply can’t tell from them what a view it actually is; there is no feeling of distance or depth. Maybe I need a better camera.
There is a pub at that point on the trail, so it being midday, we stopped for a pint and a bag of crisps before launching out on the second leg of our walk.
This part of the walk went much quicker and with rather less effort. It was nearly all down hill. We went down the side of the gorge, through the trees and paused by the weir to look at the stream that is laughingly called a river (the River Wye), before walking the remainder of the stretch to a car park just over the A6, where we stopped to eat our lunch. I managed a few photos along this section, but it was quite heavily wooded, so apart from a couple of views of the river and the weir, there’s not much to picture.
The final two-mile stretch was a mixed bag effort-wise. The path rises steeply into the woods and required puny me to stop and gasp for air a number of times more. The woods though, are very pretty and I took a fair number of pictures which again largely fail to convey their beauty, but are good enough to provide an aide memoir for the pair of us. It was a little troubling to be overtaken at one point by an enthusiastic bunch of ramblers of varying ages, but who, on average, were probably 15 to 20 years my senior. I refer you, dear reader, to my opening paragraph. Despite all this and a few moments of grumbling/gasping when we couldn’t find the path (autumn is rather more advanced up there than it is in Ilford), I think this final leg of the walk was the one I enjoyed most, though like Return of the King it had several false endings, where we thought we were done and there was just another bend in the track…
Sunday was Chatsworth House.
This was very enjoyable, with lots to see: the House, the gardens and the farm and so on. It was not, however, cheap. A day pass for everything for two of us came in at a cool £42. Rather than whiffle on about the inside of the House itself and struggle for hyperbole, I shall just do a separate entry later with a heap of photos (actually, it’s on my FarceBørk page, so I’ll sort out a link to that tonight). Look particularly for the photograph of the statue of the ‘Veiled Vestal’, which is frankly amazing. Who knew that a sculptor could make marble look diaphanous?
Anyway. That’s me done for now. I’m off to ponder ways of losing about a third of my bodyweight without killing myself or undergoing surgery. I fear that it will involve eating less and doing more.
Edited to add: Here is a link to my FarceBørk album for Chatsworth House: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152657798446391.1073741828.532046390&type=1&l=bde4c6eb98
1That said, my body image is somewhat smaller than the actuality and I get caught out sometimes because in my head, whilst acknowledging that I am overweight, I don’t see myself anywhere near as overweight as I really am.