Grand Day Out

This weekend saw me attend the Grand Shop opening of Chimera, where my friends the shop owners had laid on a prizes and caricature drawings by Mark, the shop was very busy and had a nice buzz about it.

I woke up on Saturday morning with badly pulled muscle in my right shoulder, I've no idea how I did it but it was bad enough to need pain killers. This did not go away and while driving made looking over my shoulder excruciating, one junction which needed me twist right round and to keep looking right while a endless queue of cars came made my eyes water, the pain is was less this morning but I still needed to drive all the way to Buxton so took a few more pain killers, and at the time of writing this its only just starting to subside.

Julie and Dave arrived and we went to the shop for mid morning, talked with the odd fellow larper from Ascendancy before setting off to the Hurt Arms (I now thanks to Julie think of a man bleeding badly from arms, although if you read the link the pub is named after a Francis Hurt who built it) at Ambergate for a spot of lunch.

After that we did a short tour of Cromford, calling in at Cromford Mill which is very much a work in progress as far as a museum goes and lacks heating, in fact the walls seemed to absorb any heat in the room, their were a couple of shops selling your usual crafty gift stuff, but nothing inspiring.

Then we followed that by driving across the road to Scarthin books which is basically a old fashioned 2nd hand book store full floor to ceiling with books in every nook and cranny, most nooks only big enough for one person to enter, and the crannies requiring you to breath in to get between the books.

While at the book shop we stopped in their cafe for a tea and cake, the cakes were yummy and good sized portions, the tea unfortunately was not so good. They brought a tea pot with just tea bags in and no hot water, and after staring at it for ten minutes, and realising yes they really had forgot the hot water and no it wasn't a quaint local custom, we sent Dave to tentatively ask for tea that was slightly less dry.

By the time we travelled home with me pointing out the local tourist sites of interest that you could not see in the dark it was early evening so we exchanged a few presents, played with the cat and a cardboard box, drank another cup of tea and then Julie and Dave left never to be seen again until next year.

Today which is Sunday my brother had booked another lunch time meal at Buxton in Derbyshire this time to celebrate my mums birthday. Buxton is about an hours drive from me, so I picked my mother & sister up and then followed my brother, before calling for my other brother at Cromford, then we went in convoy of 3 full cars.

The restaurant which was empty, but the food was good, unfortunately the tea wasn't. I ordered a pot of tea, rather than coke or wine like everyone else and did not notice the tea bag had burst, spitting tea leafs is not pleasant.

Then spent the rest of the afternoon ironing and watching telly. (hmm while out I learned by brother still takes his ironing to my mums, missed that one)