'Hip Hip Hooray' We're Back on the Road Again!

'Hip Hip Hooray' We're Back on the Road Again!

And on September 15th we'll be celebrating 6 full years of full time living on the Road shared between our Motorhomes and Caravan!

Hello, 👋👋👋 and it's great to be back on the road, but once again, this tour will be within the UK and allow us to visit some of the lovely parts of our own country rather than  travelling any further afield.  

However, before I get onto that I'll tell you a little bit about what we've been doing while we were at 'home'.  (Home to us is a tiny campsite that lies between the towns of Ripley and Swanwick in Derbyshire, and it's the place where we always stay when we want to be near our family). 

We arrived back there from Barnard Castle in County Durham on 24th July and set up camp on our usual pitch, and there we stayed  for the next 52 days.  Our first week was spent looking after John's Mum (Rose)  while his sister (Val) and her husband (another John) had a short holiday in their motorhome.  Then after that, it was back to work for me (vaccinating at our local vaccination centre), so our days for outings were somewhat restricted and John ended up spending a lot of time on his own while I was out doing 12 hour shifts.  However, we did fit in lots of visits with our family and also several walks and bike rides both locally and a bit further afield in the Peak District.    

All our lovely Grandchildren 💞💞

Thomas at the top, Evelyn just above and Jack (all ready for his first day at Big School) and Max to the right.  

We enjoyed walks over the Stanage Edge (Which is a gritstone escarpment just a few miles away from Hathersage), and on another day we visited Higger Tor with it's weird and wonderful rock formations.  Other outing took us to Curbar Edge and also the plague village of Eyam.

Stanage Edge

Higger tor

The Village of Eyam - The Plague Village

Between September 1665 and October 1666 the people of Eyam completely quarantined themselves to stop the plague infecting other villages around them, and in so doing they must have saved a great number of lives.  History tells how a flea infested bundle of cloth arrived from the then plague ridden London and was handled by a tailor's assistant called George Viccars.  Before long he was dead along with other members of his family and also some of his close neighbours.   

The Plague Cottages

As the disease spread the villagers turned to Reverend William Mompesson for leadership and a number of precautions were put in place try and slow the disease's progress and these included a rule that families must bury their own dead and that they were prohibited from leaving the village.  Additionally, rather than attending the local church for services they would go to a near by open air amphitheatre called Cucklett Delph where they could 'socially distance' 😂 - does that sound somewhat familiar 😂.  As well as this anybody selling goods to the village would leave them on marked rocks and the villagers then made payment by leaving their money in holes filled with vinegar in the hope that this would prevent any transmission of the illness.  

A Well Where Money Might have been Left!

The plague lasted for 14 months in the village and over that time 260 individuals lost their lives leaving only 83 of the total population as survivors!  But several of those seemed to be immune!  A lady called Elizabeth Hancock was uninfected despite burying six of her children and her husband in eight days and the gravedigger Marshall Howe also survived despite handing many of the infected bodies. 

Catherine Mompesson (wife of Rev Mompesson) was the only person buried in the local church yard during the time of the plague.  

St Lawrence's Church, Eyam. 

Then, on the 18th of August, our daughter Sarah acquired a free pass for 6 (because she worked for the NHS) to visit Chatsworth House and it's surrounding gardens and farm adventure playground.  In total it's value was around £140 so when she invited us to join her we jumped at the chance. However, to make 'a day' of it we decided to go for Brunch first.   And for that we chose a newly opened Cafe in Ambergate called Bridge House - the breakfast was ASTRONOMICAL!!!

So, mostly after that we didn't need feeding for the rest of the day (but later we did mange to fit in a small picnic and ice cream 😂)  

Sarah, John, Me, Thomas and Paul.

When we arrived at our venue we first of all wandered around the park lands, then the house itself (which was interesting, but because John and I are philistines it didn't really float our boat), and then we took in the gardens which were excellent and much more our cup of tea. 

 

Then after that we had a short time to explore the farm and adventure playground which we'd visited many moons ago when our children were knee high! 

There, amongst other critters,  we met a little 3 day old donkey who had yet to be named - he was very cute! 

Another family day out included a trip to Wirksworth so that  Sarah, Paul and all of our Grandchildren could board the Eccalsbourne Valley Steam Train to watch a pantomime.  Unfortunately Grandma and Grandad couldn't travel with them because of Covid restrictions (but we did provide additional transport) (only 6 allowed in a compartment) but we very much enjoyed their company later at the National Stone Centre at Middleton

Evelyn, Paul, Thomas, Max, Jack and Sarah.

Grandad with all 4 Rouges😂

Then, for our last week at 'home' we looked after Rose again while John and Val had another little holiday!

And finally, after 54 long days at 'home' our time came to break away and start what we hope will be a 3 month tour taking in some very lovely parts of England!  

Monday 13th - Sunday 18th September 2021

Our first stop was at the Camping and Caravan Club's  - near Tamworth were we met up with our very good friends Keith and Jackie who we first met in Spain a couple of years ago.  We spent 6 lovely nights socialising 🍷🍷with them and exploring the old gravel pits that now make up 16 lakes, part of which belong to the RSPB and thus provide a  home to numerous water birds along with lots of other creatures.  Our mornings were spent either walking or cycling amongst the ponds and our afternoons and evenings indulging in chatting and dining in grand style!

 

The Konik ponies that were introduced to the area to keep the grass short where machines
couldn't reach.  The dark horse is Wilfred who is leader of the herd.

And that more or less brings us to the end of our first stop, however we're booked for a month at Wareham Forest Tourist Park and then for 2 weeks at Verwood CCC site where our kids and grand kids will be joining us for half term so there will be lots more tales to tell.  

Bye for now 😘

Click here to see our present camping spot