Miles today = 140
Miles so far = 1760
Where are we? - Bollington in Cheshire (no me, neither)
So, a good day (apart from the thunder hailstorm on the Cat & Fiddle - more of that later…) meandering through the Midlands; Northants, Leicester, Nottingham, Derbyshire, Cheshire, but not necessarily in that order.
First stop, Melton Mowbray, of the famous pies and, as it turns out, the delightfully quirky Nigel’s cafe. The eponymous Nige, not only bonkers, managed to give us the wrong directions out of Melton and send us to Nottingham city - which we avoided by a swift u-turn and a short dalliance with signs that said things like M1 South!
Eventually we found Ashbourne on the south edge of the Peak District and managed to see the last few overs of Australia’s cricket semi-final innings while rehydrating and munching a sandwich. With fingers firmly crossed for England’s reply, we set off through the Peaks for the famous Cat & Fiddle road between Buxton and Macclesfield. Just as we set off up it, the heavens opened, and as we pulled off to put on waterproofs one of us (who shall remain nameless) left his helmet upside down hanging from his handlebars. One very wet helmet! They don’t call us idiots for nothing.
Through the hail we crawled up the Cat, only to find clear weather at the deserted top, and dry roads on the way down the other side. Eric, didn’t care by this time as he had established that England were 95 for 0 wicket in reply to Australia and just about to dump the old nemesis out of the World Cup. Decision made - find a pub in Macclesfield to see the end of the match and then find the hotel. Which we duly did. Now we have to find a place to watch the final!
To call the hotel a faded glory is to be kind - plaster hanging off the ceiling, beds that should have been replaced probably years ago, but friendly enough and thankfully, since it is well outside the village it has a bar - and the food was surprisingly good.
So ends another day, in the adventures of 3 idiots. Tomorrow, we have decided to head further north, then over to Cumbria to pay my old dad a visit at the weekend! Watch this space…