Raine-y Days

Friday morning we packed up Willow and prepared to head off. Bob came over to say goodbye and offer us the visitors book to write in – I struggled to think of an appropriate entry and settled on “a unique and insightful WWOOFing experience” which I felt could be taken pretty much any way and hold true ;). I did go on to mention how very helpful and informative Bob had been and that we were very grateful for his hosting too.

Bob had arranged for us to visit a neighbouring farm – Riddings Park Farm and we were unsure as to whether we were actually working there or just visiting. It quickly became clear that we were to be given a guided tour and a cup of tea and a chat and then they would be grateful for us heading off and leaving them to their very busy day. Do look at the website though – they are *very* close to my end dream and do it very well with a variety of rare breed animals, a very small area of land, holiday cottages, yurt camping, B&B, a teashop, educational visits etc. That was a great couple of hours and they were very informative about the whole Bob and Mary situation too which helped us to feel better that it wasn’t just us who thought the whole place was bloody mental!! 😆

We had a few hours til Babs would be home so we decided to head in that general direction, call in to a supermarket when we found one and see where the road took us. We ended up driving through Matlock, where Ady and I had been with my parents abouy 15 years ago and often talked of since so as a parking space at the end of a run appeared with perfect timing for us to just pull into we did that and decided to get some food and have a look round. The parking space was limited to an hour so we headed straight to the bath aquarium where we blew a quick tenner on admission and dashed around. The thermal baths were just as we remembered them with carp swimming about so we fed them and read the signs explaining about the water source, the origins of public baths and local history then walked round the aquarium, the hologram gallery and the petrifying well. To be honest an hour is probably as long as you could spend there anyway so that was great – we all really enjoyed the holograms.

Then we had chips and ice cream for lunch (we had a definite food deficit to make up so felt quite justified in eating crap!) before getting back into Willow to carry on to Babs’. The brakes on the van have been playing up a bit on downhill roads causing Ady some sleepless nights. He was very stressed about it on this journey as it was particularly hill-y so we decided to take advantage of the fact we were in one place and not actually sleeping in the van for a night or two and take it to a garage while we were at Babs’.

We got to Tescos at Chesterfield and stocked up on emergency food supplies for the van (having been so very grateful for things like tinned ham this week we wanted to make sure we had adequate stocks for the future), some snack food and alcohol contributions for Babs, some more pants for me as it had become clear a one week supply was not enough and in the scheme of things having excess pants is definitely better than not enough pants! Davies and Scarlett both came to us with pleading looks on their faces and a dvd each in their hands which we agreed to but were still quite shocked when the total was over £100 – we then went to Halfords and bought a set of levellers for the front wheels of Willow too having had several occassions recently where we’ve struggled to find level ground to park on and had to use blocks of wood to do the job. Rather regretting that little spend up now with the brakes to pay for 🙁

That took us to about 6pm so we headed to Babs’ arriving not long after they’d got home. Chris was out for the evening and after some online research at takeaway / delivery pizzas we ended up nipping to Asda to buy some and had a feast of pizza which was delicious. We utterly failed to get the kids to bed before Chris came home so we eventually chased them off and followed them some hours later 😉

Saturday morning Ady headed off with Willow to the garage. This was about as poorly executed an idea as possible – he woke me up to say he was leaving NOW and so I was out in the street, in pjs with bare feet and no contact lenses trying to think of all the things we might need out of the van for the day. Retrospectively we should have taken loads more things out AND thought about the possibility of an overnight stay away from us too. I only just remembered to get the dirty washing out as Babs’ had said we could stick a wash (or three!) on, but forgot clean clothes, my pillow, fleeces and various other things including the alcohol still in the van.

Ady arrived, the mechanics looked at the brakes and said yes the back ones did need repairing and the front ones were okay but would probably need replacing at some point soon so we decided to have the whole lot done. No idea really if we are spending money we don’t really need to spend yet but I guess brakes are something you don’t really take risks with and as Willow has barely cost us anything so far in maintenance (the work Alan did for us only cost £50 in bits and the flat tyre ended up being a valve that was fixed for free) we are happy enough to splash out on her I guess.

Ady was then stranded at the garage, about 6 miles away, in the rain, with a texted list from me of all the stuff we needed out of the van, a failing mobile phone battery, no cash and no real idea of the way back home again. Chris and I were at home with no car to come and rescue him and struggled to even locate him on googlemaps and give him directions to walk. Ady did check with a taxi rank he walked past how much it would be to get a cab back but they said about £20 which he wasn’t up for paying so he continued walking in the rain, hauling bags of stuff until Kirsty and James rang me to offer to rescue him. By then he had found a pub to sit outside so he was easy enough to find and bring home again!

We had a lovely afternoon and evening with everyone including Bab’s sister Suzy, eventually drinking the house dry and resorting to mulled wine with cherry brandy and watching youtube clips of Sorry I’ve Got No Head – always a winning evening! 😆

Sunday More chatting / playing / drinking tea / watching TV / sitting on sofas – all the things that are a novelty to us this year ;). Babs had put so much thought into food for us and got a leg of lamb so we could have a roast dinner, which was just delicious 🙂 We all pitched in with peeling, chopping, cooking etc. and sat down to a communal effort dinner in the evening, followed by a much earlier night all round 🙂