Life in the country

For the last official weekend in summer, we hired a car & headed north to the Peak district, located in the midlands of the UK. We stayed in the town of Edale, at an historic cotton mill. The mill was built in 1795 and was restored by the Landmark Trust in the 1970s. To the left is an obligatory photo of Beth & Anne on the deck chairs in front of the mill.

During our relaxing weekend we visited the town Chesterfield, famous for the “crooked spire”. The girls bought a variety of goodies from the markets and cooked an end-of-summer BBQ feast, including a scrumptious dessert – fondly named the “Edale mess”, composed of jam roly-poly, sweetened cream & summer berries – yum!

On Sunday, we joined a few locals for a horse ride through the rolling hills. It was a popular area for mountain bike riders. In the 2 hour ride, we must have past about 30 bikers, many of whom were doing it tough! In the afternoon, we visited Chatsworth House, the home of the Dukes of Devonshire. The house & its extensive grounds have been used in several movies, including The Duchess (Keira Knighlty) as well as Pride and Prejudice (ie, Mr Darcy’s Pemberley residence). We had plenty of time to enjoy the grounds & get lost in the maze (honestly one of the hardest mazes I’ve ever done!). After searching through the house & all of the relics, I'm pleased to say that I did eventually find Mr Darcy! :)

We finished off our weekend on Monday at the a agricultural show in the town of Hope. We had a few hours of breathing in the fresh air, watching the sheep dog trials & horse dressage, looking at the craft stores and of course eating some of the local produce. The photo on the right is my favourite photo from the trip. I was brought up with the competition of “How many jelly beans are in the jar”… well, this is the country version – “How many balloons fit into a tractor?” Classic!