This post will be a masterpiece of procrastination. Looming over me is this week’s Blogging for Photographers homework blog post but, as I discover, doing one to order is strangely inhibiting. Having tidied the desk, answered emails, made a few urgent (?) phone calls I now feel compelled to talk about dogs with some genuinely very important guidelines for dog owners in the Peak Park…

Firstly, how dog-friendly are we? I was challenged about this the other day by the very charming owner of a young greyhound who needed an enclosed paddock to race around in for several hours every day. There is no question that we could help. We have a largish garden, Tom’s Barn has its own charming self-contained little cottage garden and out of the back gate lies a whole uncultivated valley of trees and fields. But, there is nothing to contain a wildly energetic and tireless dog. There was no beating about the bush, and of course I didn’t try. The story ends happily, because I was able to recommend our friends Deborah and Martin Hofman at Wheeldon Trees Farm who do take dogs and who do have a fully enclosed paddock for dogs to race around in.

And talking about racing around, the Peak Park National Authority have just issued a plea to all dog owners living in or visiting the Peak District, to take particular care to keep their dogs under control to protect young animals and ground nesting birds during the breeding season. Alt the more reason for dogs that need to be let of the leash for long periods of time should stay somewhere where they are able to run free in an enclosed paddock. We love our dog owners and their dogs that com to Tom’s Barn and would never want to put any of you off and you all seem to manage to have a lovely time with your dogs, enjoying vigorous country works without any problems. But in reality, we are more heavily weighted in the dog-owner friendly than the pure dog-friendly category.

Two local pubs hit the headlines today. The Sycamore, our Parwich pub, has been declared winner of the rural pub of the year category by The Ashbourne sub-branch of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). While the Sycamore does not pretend to major on food it is praised highly for ‘an excellently well-kept range of Robinson’s ales.

The George at Alstonefield is featured nationally today in the first of a new series on ‘country trails with a pint en route’ in the Sunday Times Travel section, page 19 (10th February 2013). The author, Vincent Crump, speaks admiringly of the two pints of Jennings Cockle Warmer he drinks there (this is obviously a double dose ‘pint en route’ walk). He does not mention any other names, but the George is widely admired for its ‘well kept real ales, carefully selected wine list and real pub food’. Horses for course: this is more expensive, ‘finessed food’, not by any description the more affordable standard pub grub such as people enjoy at the Sycamore.

But I am not meant to be writing about food, or beer, but about the circular walk from Hartington that is described in this piece. Because we don’t have a Times subscription we couldn’t access the link to it, which would have been by far the best option. Instead, I shall massacre Vincent Crump’s charmingly written article to extract the bare bones of the walk he describes so evocatively, in order that friends and guests can try it for themselves. (We shall put a photocopy of the article in the walk file in each barn as well so if you’re actually staying here you can use that.)

Definitely have an Ordnance Survey map with you so you can plot the route for yourself. Crump’s description is more poetic than scientific and after lunch it becomes even more disquietingly vague. My translation may do nothing to help but I truly am doing my best to extract the facts.

1.Start at Hartington.
2. Walk up Hall Bank towards Hartington Hall, now the Youth Hostel.
3. Opposite the hall gates turn right onto the ‘Leisure Lane to Dovedale’.
4. After a ‘swift mile the path collapses abruptly into Biggin Dale’.
5. Cross the Dove on a ‘dinky footbridge’ at Wolfscote Dale then ‘walk all the way to Alstonefield’. (Forgive me if this doesn’t sound very helpful but it’s what he says. I’d say, at this stage definitely look at your map!)
George stop for a pint or two… and lunch…then set off back to Hartington again
6. The hike back ‘arrows north on a field path, cleaving the small green bosoms of Narrowdale’.
7.Rejoin the Dove ‘as it squidges between cliffs through Beresford Dale’.
8. Then, he concludes, ‘before I know it I’m in Hartington again’.

Let’s hope you are too!

Once again, smitten with guilt (and disappointment because I really love what feels like a personal letter to ‘you’) I try to cover up an embarrassing week’s absence from the blog.

There seems to be a lot going on in all the different sectors of my life, more than I sometimes find easy to squeeze into the day. One way and another we have had a very full time recently, partly work, partly pleasure, the former tending to have to be squeezed in rather late into the evening when all other commitments have ended, which does nothing for the maintenance of youthful looks or joie de vivre of the next day (and so on)…

Tonight half the village, clutching cushions and bottles of wine, hurried to the village Memorial Hall for the eagerly awaited Parwich Cinema’s one-night’s showing of the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Like many others we has already seen it, but enjoyed it so much we very much wanted to see it again. As John and I approached the hall we were surprised to see that dozens of people were walking away in the opposite direction. Was there some other excitement to which they scurried? No, it turns out the cinema remote control had gone missing since the last village wedding. The spare was safely locked up in the house of someone on a far-off holiday, so the film could not be shown.

So back we all trudged but at least it means I now have time to return to the blog! So it’s not all bad, and the film will be rearranged for a day when the remote control becomes available…

To think back to last weekend, we went to a very memorable 50th birthday party of a friend in Lichfield, followed by lunch with another friend, owner of the beautiful Bronte, who has just moved into a wonderful new to her but very old timbered house near Repton. We sat in the sun all afternoon, something that has not happened very often this year. There followed then a couple of days of meetings and ‘catch up’ then we had the great pleasure of seeing Lorna, a friend from childhood (our parents were friends and we never have not known each other, if you know what I mean) but who now lives in Gloucestershire so we don’t see her that often.

They came to supper on Wednesday, then yesterday, Lorna, her husband and two friends asked us to join them on a walk up the Dove from Dovedale. Having dropped us at the car park, John and Lorna’s husband were to transport the picnic to Milldale where they would meet us for lunch. This significantly meant I had no back up camera pro at my side and would have to rely on my mobile phone camera.

It was sunny and warm and peaceful, once we had passed the scores of school parties on ‘educational’ trips clutching clipboards with questions they could hardly read. One little group of very young boys who approached us for their ‘survey’ were struggling so hard to read their questions they were relieved to pass them to us to read them out to ourselves before answering!

We stopped to photograph a heron (or was it two? We weren’t sure) on the water, patiently waiting for lunch to swim his way. The Dove is so clear we could see the little minnows that he occasionally snapped up, but we could also see what looked like a trout, over a foot long, skulking in the shadow of the overhanging trees. Either the heron didn’t spot him or we were too impatient, but he suddenly flew off. So when we came across another (?) heron later we weren’t sure if it were one and the same.

In my enthusiasm I over-zoomed my mobile phone camera so all but a couple of photos are hopeless. However, to my fortune and pleasure, who should we bump into but Martin and Sue, who were staying in Douglas’s Barn! What a small world… They very kindly gave me their two photos of the heron so all was not lost!

There followed a lovely picnic in the sunshine at Milldale; having had lots of heron views, but no kingfishers. Maybe next time?

A quick 90 second flit over the hills to Brassington to one of our very favourite pubs, The Olde Gate in Brassington. Now, there’s a challenge – can you do it in less? See below…

In fact the walk takes an hour at a reasonably vigorous rate but this speeded up video will show you the route in a minute and a half. Many of our Tom’s and Douglas’s Barn guests – like we ourselves – love nothing better than to walk over the hills for lunch at the Gate, and then back again (only don’t go on a Monday or a Tuesday because they won’t be open!). Before they go for the first time our lovely guests usually – trustingly – ask us for the best route; we then go into elaborate detail and after the first ‘turn right then immediately left over a stile’ their eyes glaze over and you can tell you there are already lost even before they have set off. They consult maps and always get there in the end, but sometimes by a less than obvious route.

This August Bank Holiday our son Nick and (English) daughter Ruth (as against our Australian daughter, Sara) came home for the weekend. Nick arrived a day earlier than his sister and we confided to him our problem and he immediately offered to do a video. Needless to say we accepted with alacrity, so much so that I did not think of changing into more elegant walking gear than my unironed ‘work’ trousers and an old cotton top.

Off we set, without any to-do and certainly no time to think of a more fetching outfit. It soon turned out that his idea was that I should be filmed from behind, as I stride purposefully out, clearly negotiating each turning in the route. I fancied pointing out the beautiful views and the particularly attractive farm one passes, but Nick felt this would be nothing but a distraction when the whole aim of the exercise was to get to the pub, order a pint of Pedigree and decide what to eat from the list of Specials.

I was allowed a sneaky ‘cuckoo’ at the Cuckoo Gate not far from our house for which I am grateful. We love that echo!

This is very much a first, tentative attempt to provide a visual route map. We would receive any suggestions and advice gratefully, and above all, please let us know if it gets you to the Gate without a hitch, even if not in 90 seconds.