Ashbourne and Jack's birthday

We left mid morning for home along with many others stopping at Ashbourne to look around the charity shops. At least Rosemary did, I retired to Costa for a Cappuccino. 

We followed the sat nav directions to Kedlston Hall and arrived at the exit, several times, Covid changes I suppose, but went in anyway. Quite busy but parked in the grassy area for yet another picnic and then managed to have a quick look round the open parts of the hall as they were closing the doors after us. It was all done and dusted by 4:00 pm. Rosemary managed to buy a pashmina in the shop sale and we joined the busy traffic around Derby to call and see Jack on his 9th birthday. We had some coffee and cake and a nice chat with Clare and Karl, a Fortnite demo from Jack and got home around 7.00pm. It was a nice few days away but rather dull weather and a noisy camp site. Different to normal!!!

Dovedale and Carsington Water

We set off for Dovedale up and down the winding roads only to find the  NT car park is just that, cars only, so continued on to Ilam Hall. No problem there so wandered around the grounds and along the river with the sheep for a while before having a picnic in the van. 

 

We drove over to Carsington Water where we might have stayed and walked up to the stone circle.   

Then set off south to take a look at Belper and it's heritage mills but by then we were too late to do the tour so just looked at the river gardens. Not much else to do in Belper except to fill up with diesel before returning to site for the evening. We were unable to contact Norman as we still had his old phone number in the address book.

Ashbourne CCC

Decided on Ashbourne as a base for a couple of nights as it gives us the opportunity to call in and see Jack on route and maybe contact old friend Norman who lives a few miles away. We left around mid-day and called at a Farm shop for lunch and a bit of food shopping on the way. 

The weather forecast was for cloudy skies again and it was quite accurate. Dullest August for some time I think. Arrived at 4:00 o'clock on a fairly full multilevel grassy site with plenty of children around. Hope for a bit of sun later. Sure enough the bank of cloud drifted south to leave a sunny evening and a cool night.

Derbyshire Dales

We are going for a short visit to the Derbyshire Dales before the bank holiday.

Breakfast and return

We had booked breakfast for 9:15 so after a shower in the excellent facilities I enjoyed an Anglers breakfast (a full English) and Rosemary had bacon and sausage bap, both very good. Came back the long way via Market Rasen and Sleaford taking in a couple of farm shops on the way and arrived home at 6 o'clock. It was long trip which did not live up to expectations but nice to see Fonaby Top again.

Fishing on Heron Lake

The forecast was for a strong breeze so I decided to fish on the bottom lake which had a bit of shelter. Just as well as all the pegs were taken on the best match lake. First fish was a bream which I haven't caught for a while. I missed a lot of bites so switched to lighter tackle and started to caught some roach.

It was getting very gusty so I had decided give up. Although I hadn't seen any sign of carp in the margins I put a chunk of luncheon meat on my roach tackle and made a final cast close to some rushes about 10ft away. I wasn't paying much attention until my rod started to disappear over the front of the stand. Just managed to grab it and eventually landed a very lively carp of about 5lb on a size 20 hook to 2lb terminal tackle. That was an interetsting end to a relaxing day on the lake.

What was to follow was not so good. We were looking forward to a nice meal in the 5* restaurant and wandered over at 7:00 only to be told that as we had not booked they could not accomodate us. The place which has 100 seats was almost empty but apparently only one person in the kitchen so we had had it so to speak. Very disaapointing. We did not have a plan B, it was our last night away and no meal in reserve. Rosemary managed to russle up some beans and cheese so we did not starve.  

Caister and Fonaby Top

So its off to Fonaby Top again. This brings back memories of working for EMGAS when there was a microwave repeater site on the hill near the small town of Caister. It's A46 all the way from Leicester, not a single place to stop on route so we arrived on site quite early. It's a very compact camping area and we have a pitch by the side of the tortoise enclosure. Back to back pitches are not ideal for a rear door van. 

I had a walk round the lakes which are dominated by water side lodges taking up many fishing pegs. The restaurant looks nice with a big tank full of Koi carp outside. We cooked some lamb steaks for dinner and intend to have dinner in the restaurant tomorrow.

Fishing break in Lincs

We decided to have a short trip into Lincolnshire for a spot of fishing and found a 5 star site on Pitchup with a restaurant and 3 lakes so sounds ideal. Almost zero planning.