Wednesday 5th August 2009

Our tent is on a downward facing bank which, in the conditions, makes getting away in the car very difficult. In fact, our car got stuck in the mud: the wheels whirred frantically, spraying some mud my way after I had tried giving the car a push. I subsequently sought the guy with the tractor and applied a tow hook at the front of our car. The tractor man eventually got us to the top of the slope. Buy that man a drink if we see him at the bar later.

There was a stationary convoy of traffic to the Bakewell show which brought back memories of getting stuck in similar on the way to last year’s Dunster show. In what was still a slightly fraught journey we went a long way round around Bakewell. We decided to catch a steam train to Matlock from the Rowsley South stop. When, on arriving at Rowsley South, I saw a penguin bin at the end of the ramp to the station it cheered me. A chap on the opposite table of our train didn’t agree and thought the bin to be naff and aimed at the children. But it was the exception as all the other characteristics of a steam train station were in place - the old world signs and slow paced guy manning the ticket booth who was eventually roused from his activities to serve me. On the train there was even some people making disapproving noises of Lord Beeching’s rail legacy on the next table up.

We followed the long riverside walk into the town centre, ate out (beans on toast for Ed) and bought another lamp for our tent and batteries for our existing wind up lantern. This period marked a change in the weather. When we got back to our tent the mud had dried a little, campers had shed upper layers of clothing and there was the smell of barbecues oozing around. We laid out our picnic cloth, cooked some Linda McCartney sausages and I began to see the potential of doing this. With the encroaching darkness after 9pm we were also able to read in altogether brighter conditions.

Thursday 6th August 2009

We learnt our lesson from the previous days and didn’t put any shoes or socks on Ed. By the end of his morning of running around the field, his toe nails were black. ‘Make sure he has a long soak in the bath later on’ said Jan.

As we packed up in the morning, it occurred to me that it’s not setting the tent up that’s the hard bit – it’s packing the thing. Several times we tried to straighten out the tent after taking it down – we folded it in thirds, physically rolled across it whereby the air content would bulge at the other end from where we were folding it.

We adjudged thus camping trip to have gone reasonably well and have committed to a second bout of camping in Ripley later in the month. A full compliment of good weather days would go a long way. Note to self: Buy some wellies.