A Pint At The Strines Inn.

Hello everyone, how are you today? Here are the final pictures from last weekends walk.

From Burbage Bridge car park we continue in a north easterly direction to the next edge, this one is around 4 miles in length and is known as Stanage Edge and will take us to the A57 road.

After a very short climb we gain the edge and seem to be on top of the world with excellent views all round. We are now in to wild desolate country, the wind on this occasion being very brisk and with a cold bite to is so much so I decided to get down amongst some rocks to finish off the last of my food.

One of the many views along the edge, not a good picture I know, the light was very strange. Thats my excuse anyway.

We are now approaching the last three miles of the walk, we're headed for the centre of the picture, the A57 road can be seen crossing the centre of the picture. Here we can look over the wall at the Strines and Dale Dike reservoirs in the distance. We are now walking on a tarmac back road that will in a mile or so deposit us outside the Strines Inn and our destination for this walk.

The Strines Inn. I didn't actually take this picture, I was that desperate to get inside for a pint of Fosters that I completly forgot to take a picture. There again maybe I was just so overjoyed to see Vicki that I just never thought! Anyway she had brought my mum and dad plus Tippy & Tommy along for the ride so we all went in for a drink before heading off back to my mums house back in Rowsley which is where I started from that morning.

This walk was 19.5 miles in length and took 10 hours and 20 minutes at an average speed of 2 MPH. I could have done it quite a bit quicker but I had plenty of time so didn't rush and took plenty of breaks.

Bob.

The Edges.

Hello everyone, I can't pretend that I'm very happy tonight so I think I will just get straight on with telling you about the pictures.

After the climb out of Baslow you will find yourself on a high gritstone edge over looking the derwent valley. In this picture we're looking back over where we have walked so far.

This is looking down on the villages of Curbar and Calver.
After Curbar Edge we enter Longshaw Country Park which if I rcall right is now owned by the National Trust. Its pleasant walking along a good level track, becareful where you sit down and rest though as the place can be crawling with wood ants, especially when warm and sunny.
I will show you this little path because I thought it idylic wandering through the trees and down to the stream the way it does. We won't be taking this path today though, instead we turn in the opposite direction and head towards the main road to Hathersage. For any Robin Hood fans Hathersage churchyard is supposed to be where Little John is buried.

We don't go near Hathersage on this occasion, instead we follow the track below Burbage edge...

...where you will be able to watch in awe the climbers on the rocks. People are not meant to be in such places and it shows.

Finally we reach the car park at Burbage bridge where there is an ice cream van waiting for you, don't be too long about it though because there are still some miles to be covered and we want to be there before the pub closes.

All the best,

Bob.

Baslow.

Hello everyone, thank you for comeing to read my blog. Take a look at what I found when I checked out the conservatory this morning. For those that don't know I will tell you that its a Strelitzia or Bird of Paradise plant. This plant was one of only a handful of indoor plants that was still alive when I took over the gardens here and this is the first time its flowered so I am really pleased.

Tonight I am going to show you some more pictures from the walk I did on Saturday. This will take us through part of the village of Baslow as we start the hardest part of the day, the climb up Eaton Hill and then Bar Road to the gritstone edge which we will follow for the rest of the day - more of that tomorrow.

This picture was taken on the bridge over the River Derwent, this is where we leave the river which we have been following from Rowsley. Note the row of thatched roof cottages on the left of the picture.

Leaving the bridge we head straight across the green in front of us to cross the busy main road. If you fancy a break this is a good place to take it as there is a shop, cafe and a couple of pubs just around the corner to the right, the shop being on the left where the bus is parked.

Once across the main road we start our climb up Eaton Hill at the top of which we turn right on to Bar Road.
We exit Baslow on this road, which is at first has a tarmac surface but this soon becomes a narrow rough track always climbing but nothing too serious.

Part way up there is a spring in a shady spot, a nice place to stop and catch your breath. I removed my fleece and took a drink, not from the spring though but from my water bottle.

Now we're almost onto the open moorland and the worst climb of the day is over. Tomorrow we will see some wonderful views so please come back and take a look with me.

Bob.

A Walk In The Park.

Hello everyone. As I think I told you me and Vicki spent last weekend at my parents house. On Saturday I went for a walk while Vicki and my mum went to see some of the Welldressings, Vicki may tell you about those on her own blog sometime.

I walked from Rowsley to the Strines Inn which is over near Moscar, a distance of just over 19 miles. The walk went much better than the last one although it has to be said that the walking was easier but I did walk a lot further however it was much cooler so it suited me better. I will show you some pictures I took along the way, not all at once though as I took rather a lot.

This was taken entering the village of Calton Lees after a steady walk from Rowsley long the banks of the River Derwent.

You are now in the surrounds of Chatsworth Park, part of the estate belonging to the Duke of Devonshire. Here is an old flour mill, its been out of use since the early 60s after a tree fell on it during a gale.

The walk continues on through the park always by the river towards Chatsworth House.
Chatsworth House, this is where I had my first job when leaving school at 15, I worked as a gardener, this is where I learnt my trade.
A view from the park of the cascade within the gardens.

This is the hunting tower that sits high on the hill over looking the park. This is where the ladies would go to watch the gentlemen hunting in the park, this was many years ago and no long happens.

This is the cricket ground, where the estate cricket team plays. When I worked at the house, after a while one of my jobs was to come down here once a week to cut the grass, a job that took me all day. I used to enjoy it being away on my own for the day.

This is where I was to exit the park and enter the village of Baslow which I will post pictures off tomorrow. As you will notice there is quite a lot of blossom out at the moment which added to the pleasure of the walk.

Today has been wet and miserable, its the first rain we've had in weeks so can't complain and it will do nicely for getting some planting done. Its also meant I can get caught up with some repotting. I needed to get some done but with the weather being so nice it seemed a shame to spend it indoors potting up so I've been putting it off as much as I can.

I've not had any news from the hospital yet, in this case no news is good news because they only get in touch if they need to see me again for something.

By the way, Vicki has done a post of her visit to Chelsea flower show on her blog. If anyone is interested you can find it by clicking this link http://vicks-floral.blogspot.com/

Well I will get off now, take care and I will see you again tomorrow with more pics of my walk.

Bob.

Why Not Give This A Try.

Hello everyone, Tonight I have a bit of a different post. My brother in law John passed this email on to me, it concerns the cost of fuel, something which is affecting us all, not just people who own cars but everyone who buys things transported/delivered buy truck etc. It all goes on the price you have to pay. Anyway here is the mail, it will explain itself and if you wish you can copy and paste this to an email and send it to as many friends as you can.

See what you think and pass it on if you agree with itWe are hitting £1.15.9 a litre in some areas now, soon we will be faced with paying £1.20 a ltr. Philip Hollsworth offered this good idea:This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the 'don't buy petrol on a certain day campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to hurt ourselves by refusing to buy petrol. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT,whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work.Please read it and join in!Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a litre is CHEAP, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the market place not sellers. With the price of petrol going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of petrol come down is if we hit someone in the pocket by not purchasing their Petrol! And we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. Here's the idea:For the rest of this year DON'T purchase ANY petrol from the two biggest oil companies (which now are one), ESSO and BP.If they are not selling any petrol, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact we need to reach literally millions of Esso and BP petrol buyers. It's really simple to do!!Now, don't wimp out at this point... keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!I am sending this note to a lot of people. If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) ... and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers! If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it... ...THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!Again, all You have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all. (and not buy at ESSO/BP) How long would all that take? If each of us sends this email out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8days!!! Acting together we can make a difference . If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on.PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE 69p a LITRE RANGEIt's easy to make this happen. Just forward this email, and buy your petrol at Shell, Asda,Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons Jet etc. i.e. boycott BP and EssoWorth a shot? I think so.

Well I will get off now as I need to get my hiking stuff together as I plan on taking a walk tomorrow and hopefully it will turn out better than the last one did.

Have a good weekend,

Bob.

The First Dahlia Flower.

Hello everyone, I'm not really feeling much like writing at the moment but I just thought I would do a quick post. Vicki is on holiday and is away for a few days, she is staying the night with her sister in Coventry as they have gone to london to visit the Chelsea flower show. She will be back tomorrow though as her and Jo are doing the wedding flowers for Jo's sister who is getting married on Saturday. Also its Vicki's birthday on Friday so this weekend we are going to stay with my parents and on Sunday have a little celebration dinner with the family at a local pub. Last Monday I had to go to the hospital for a check up so at the moment I'm in limbo waiting to see what the results will be. If everything goes ok I can get on with planning my walk on the Pennine Way. Vicki is thinking that I should stay bed and breakfast rather than camping, it seems a bit of a cop out to me and also bed and breakfast isn't all trouble free but then I guess that just makes for a different challenge.

Today I noticed a couple of Dahlia's just coming in to flower so I guess summer can't be far away now. We are doing very well, no rain for weeks now, its about time though.

The First Dahlia Flower.

Well I will get off and go do the washing up, take care and I will see you again soon.

Bob.

New Fire Surround.

Hello everyone, how are you all doing? I've been busy cleaning out the lily pond today. I call it the lily pond but it doesn't have any lily's in it, in fact its pretty rubbish as far as ponds go, its always green no matter what I do to try and stop it. It would probably help in that respect if there was a lily in there to help shade the water a bit as it gets the full sun nearly all day long. Anyway I've got it cleaned out and am trying a bag of barley straw to see if that helps at all.

We've had a couple of Vicki's friends Doug and Linda over this past couple of days putting in a new fire surround for us. Doug has been doing the fire surround and Linda has been keeping everyone supplied with tea and coffee. As you will see from the pictures below he has made a really good job of it. We have to paint it yet but I think Vicki is wanting to do out the whole room so she may leave until then, I will send you a picture when we get it done.

Before.

After.

Also today at work I planted out my climbing french beans, its a bit early yet really but they are starting to wrap around each other in their pots so I thought it better to risk planting them now than have them all get tangled up. If it looks like being frosty I will have to put a bit of fleece around them. I also sowed my row of Alderman peas, these are a tall variety so they are going on the bean row to climb up some netting - thats if I can get the darn stuff untangled. So as certain people were moaning last year at having to top and tail runner beans I've split the bean row in to three parts this year, as I say one third is climbing french bean, another third are the Alderman peas and then there is one third of ordinary runner beans for the non lazy. If you remember back to last summer I used to go and pick a few to eat raw for my lunch, they are really nice if eaten that way, you have to pick them young though.

Gone Walking.

Hello everyone, its nice of you to come and visit me again. I'm afraid I'm off walking today but if you've a mind too you can come and join me at the link below.

http://peakdistrictwalker.blogspot.com/

Bob

6th May 2008

All readings are taken from a sheltered location in our

garden and cover a 24 hour period starting at 6pm.

Low Temp: 8.1C

High Temp: 25.7C

Rainfall: 0.0mm

Strongest Gust of wind: 3.7 mph

Weather Today: Warm and sunny, hotest day of the year so far.

Bob is in the secret garden tonight if you want to pop on over and see him I'm sure he will be pleased. Just click the link below.

http://ukbob-secretgarden.blogspot.com/

Bob's Bloomer's - week19 (Bluebells).

All readings are taken from a sheltered location in our

garden and cover a 24 hour period starting at 6pm.

Low Temp: 6.6C

High Temp: 25.1C

Rainfall: 0.0mm

Strongest Gust of wind: 2.4 mph

Weather Today: Warm and sunny, hotest day of the year so far.

This week Bob has chosen the Bluebells for his best bloomers post. The picture below doesn't really do them justice as these are just a few we have in the gardens in flower at the moment.

By the way, I will just point out to any would be thief that the earn isn't worth stealing, its been all patched up at sometime and would most likely drop to pieces if you tried to move it. There is another one right on the corner of the lawn, I don't know why someone put it there, it frightens me to death every time I go near it with the lawn mower in case I happen to catch it. I would like to move it but dare not risk it for the reason stated above.

The family came to visit at the weekend and much to her ladyships delight I was able to provide them with new potatoes and fresh lettuce. I also sent my mum and dad packing with the four tomato plants and a stray Fuchsia.

Talking of which, Tippy is highly delighted to see that Matron is going to be able to make use of her tomato cuttings tip. Matron mentions using a rooting compound which you can do. I didn't mention this because I was trying to keep it simple and didn't want to put off the people with brown thumbs. So if you do have some then by all means use it but if you don't have any rooting compound don't worry as you really don't need it. I didn't use any and all mine were rooted in 10 days.

New Pelargoniums.

Hello Everyone. This weekend we've had my parents staying with us so today we took them to Fir Trees Pelargoniums at Stokesley in North Yorkshire. Its not the sort of place to go if you just want to buy a load of plants for summer bedding, its more for people who like to collect different kinds of Pelargoniums, ones that you won't usually find down your local garden centre. Below are some pics of the ones we bought today.