Tea at the Darcy's

I am back in London. Town sans backpacks and wellies. So far my brain goes “Why?” I miss all the sheep and the little cows living next door and Mr Darcy’s estate. I stayed at a farm and every morning I was greeted by a bunch of adolescent cows staring at me. Real cows mind you, not little blue plastic ones.

The Peak District is fantastic, mainly due to the absence of the general public and its replacement with countless sheep. That works oh so well for me. And the buzzing (as if!) city life fades quickly. We had the wire thingy but the mp3 player ran out of battery and the sun was shining all week long so no need for wellies either! So what?

On the first day we went to the Chatsworth estate for cream tea with Mr Darcy. Me and my mother often lock horns on the question of who is the one and only true Darcy? She thinks it’s Colin Firth. It is obviously Mathew Macfadyen. My sisters are taking my mother’s side in this. So are my aunts. I am tempted to hide my brand new Little Dorrit boxset from them as a form of punishment. I tried using it as a tool of persuasion but all they had to say was “oh he gained weight since Pride & Prejudice hasn’t he?” Sadly I am rubbish at girly arguments so I have retreated from this dispute after my last contribution was “well but he isn’t married to Keeley Hawes is he! And she is so cool!” I really have to work on my debating skills, maybe I should take some classes in that.

How did I get here?

Yes Chatsworth. We weren’t allowed in the farm bit because it had gotten later than we thought. I was disappointed, I wanted to see the farm! Then I remembered that I am staying on one so I just went home and said hello to the cows who were joined by a grumpy pony.

Next Castleton. Now it might sound exciting to sit in a boat and be shipped through an underground tunnel but sadly it really is not. It just isn’t. Nothing to ad. But the “Remember the guide on your way out, thank you” was a very nice little send off to our next stop which was Hadfield. There we took endless amounts of pictures with the war memorial and the man in a shop asked us if we’d agree that we might be 10 years too late wandering through the streets of Royston Vasey. He was right but we were happy. Unfortunately we couldn’t find Bernice’s churches. Apart from that I was in League of Gentlemen - nerd heaven to be perfectly honest with you.

The next day we went to Crich and Matlock where trams and cable cars were closed so off to the Snake Trail it was and that was heart rendering! So beautiful!

Now I have returned and what have I brought back from my holiday? Have a guess! Yes indeed twelve new pens. One of which says “Pauline’s Pen” and another that looks like Shakespeare.

Highly Efficient Holiday Preparations

Holiday Time! How exciting! I am about to embark on a week in the Peak District and I am SO excited. Far far away from the general public. “You need two things” I told myself. Wellies and a nice little backpack. So I left the crowded house I live in and went into town one early morning only to walk through streets of closed shops. It was Sunday and shops open shockingly late. So disorganised me and a lot of perplexed tourists clutched coffees in paper cups and went window shopping. Then I came upon an utterly frightening sight! Hordes of general public members stacked up in front of Primark. As if that wasn’t enough I then realised that Primark had already opened its doors to avoid traffic chaos I presume and the crowd was slowly moving like a large insect. Primark you will be surprised to learn is the only shop I did not expand my quest for a backpack or a pair of wellies to.

I spent hours combing through the shops on Oxford Street. Hours! No wellies, no backpack. That is wrong I found one backpack which was pink and flowery and actually quite horrendous. As well as expensive. I got annoyed. Yes, again. I do get annoyed with London often. Then I realised it wasn’t London’s fault really, why not just wait until arriving in the Peak District, surely there are wellies to be bought there.

Then David called and asked me to get “one of those wire things to connect an mp3 player to the car radio.” With a new sense of purpose I marched into next hmv and bought one. Despite the underachievement in the shopping list department and a shocking overachievement in the buying-random-other-things division I was in the best of moods enjoying my outing into sunny London and the begin of my holiday. But as usual a slight panic grabbed hold of me while manoeuvring through Piccadilly Circus probably aided by the absence of breakfast.

So, as it happens, I found myself a few minutes later in the Haymarket Cineworld with a large coffee and a bag of Revels watching Bronson. Why Bronson? Well it was the only film showing at that time...and ... and that is my only excuse. I was rewarded with utter underwhelmedment (yes I know that that isn’t really a word!)Well to be fair I liked Tom Hardy a lot, he’s just fantastic! There just should have been a less self-congratulatory film around him. Or maybe just a better balanced one, there are some truly great scenes in this and many more that were unbearably not so good at all and worse.

After the film I carried all my shopping (!) to the bus stop only to find a text from David telling me he found that wire thingy for the car and that I could return the one I bought. I will forgive him, he also found my wellies.