A week in the Peaks

Those giddy days of August when we could travel across the country and spend time indoors with other people seem like a lifetime ago (!), but I’m remembering what a pleasure it was to travel by sorting out the masses of photographs we took during a week in the Peak District in late August.

After the craziest fortnight of work where my team battled with the shifting situation with A level results and university admissions, I was so ready for a break – and the Peaks turned out to be the perfect spot for it.

We completely lucked out with the accommodation I booked – the beautiful Old Dairy at Brosterfield Farm in Foolow was surrounded by the most glorious countryside. Just look at this view:

As soon as we arrived, we followed the first footpath sign we saw outside the cottage and stretched our legs. My city children were full of smiles meeting the resident sheep and cows and scrambling over styles.

The weather forecast was pretty changeable for our week away, so we made the most of any clear weather we had. I was up early on our first morning, so I pulled on my trainers and went for a long run through the fields to the neighbouring village of Eyam. It was a total joy and the best start to the week.

My parents joined us for the first half of the week, and they joined us for a hike from Pilsey to Baslow. I was a bit worried we’d made a bad choice of walk for them as it involved a very steep descent down a valley, and then inevitable scramble up the other side! But thankfully, after we all managed that without slipping, it levelled off and was a lovely stroll.

We had to stop for quite some time so that the children could personally meet every cow that we passed!

We enjoyed a picnic lunch by the river in Baslow. Then mum and dad headed back to Pilsey on the local bus and we walked back through the fields.

It was a lovely day followed by a beautiful evening – and we took the opportunity to enjoy the sunset from the fields surrounding our cottage.

We packed as many walks as we could into our week. I’ll share some of them in separate posts (there are just too many photos for one!), but one lovely hike we did was from Monyash along Lathkill Dale. It was a drizzly morning, but it meant that we had the fields to ourselves!

The first half of our walk was through open farmland and woodland before following the river back through the gorge, past waterfalls and old mining cottage ruins.

Towards the end of the walk, the sun came out and we enjoyed the late afternoon light as we made our way back into Monyash (where incidentally we had the most delicious cakes at The Old Smithy Tearooms – if you’re passing by, do drop in!).

I have more hikes to share with you in the next few days, but for now I’ll close with some silly pictures we took at our cottage. After months of lockdown, Alex and Sophie adored having time with their Grandparents (and we adored the opportunity of an actual date night at the local pub!)