What a mad few weeks it’s been. Holidays, gigs, socialising, my feet haven’t touched the floor, I’ve not caught up with any of my usual blogs and I’ve crammed so much in that it’s hard to remember what I’ve done. Fear not, I’ll pick up where I left off last time, and tell you about the rest of the adventure. I also realised, I took very few photos on this second day.

Since it was a flying visit to this part of the world, on the following day we were packing up to leave Bobbin Cottage and head home to Yorkshire. First up we took a wander around the village, checking out the historical church and enjoying breakfast in the Aisseford Tea Rooms. It was delicious.

The weather was glorious again, and we decided to prolong the holiday feeling by heading to nearby Matlock first. Now, when I lived in the Midlands, Matlock was a regular daytrip destination for me, or so I thought. When I arrived in Matlock this time around, it looked nothing like the Matlock that I remember. This was a quaint market town with an amazing play park, whereas I’d remembered somewhere with a river on one side of the road and some quite touristy shops on the other and always lots of motorbikes. Reviewing the map, I’m not sure if that was Matlock Dale instead. I’m still not sure because I didn’t venture any further up the road, so if you know where I’m talking about please let me know.

So, we arrived and parked up in Matlock and first stop was an amazing antiques emporium. It was filled to the rafters with all sorts of treasures and was exactly the sort of place that I love to peruse. Unfortunately, they had a ‘dogs must be carried’ rule that meant I couldn’t peruse as much as I would like since, while Thelma is a small dog, she’s definitely not lightweight. So, we had a little look around but I didn’t buy anything. Then we crossed the bridge into town.

There we found a delightful market where I bought some crystal jewellery, before we wandered through part of the park and to a tea shop for much needed refreshments. The sun was beating down and I was admonishing myself for having forgotten a sun hat.

We pottered around some lovely independent boutiques, and of course some charity shops. I bagged myself a fabulous little wine rack for a bargain price in one of them. I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled for a wine rack for a while, but I hadn’t come across one as cute and neat as this before. I’m quite limited for space for wine, and I don’t really need to keep an abundance of it anyway, but this fits perfectly on my ‘in development’ cocktail shelf.

We stumbled upon the delightful Peak Boutique where the lady (a fellow pug lover) welcomed Thelma and little miss in, and spent ages talking to us about her delightful pugs. I had to exercise a lot of self control in this boutique, the things she sold were exactly my cup of tea, but I was very good and only bought a kaftan type top, which, spoiler alert, will pop up in a future blog post.

Once we’d finished here it was a slow wander to the play park. This was Little Misses highlight of the day. With climbing apparatus, water features and it’s own small boating lake, it really was far better than your average play park, and the weather could not have been kinder. After she’d worked off some energy on the climbing frames, we hired a little boat on the lake where I precariously tried to avoid sailing into any ducks. Those little motor boats are harder to steer than you think. We finished the day with dinner in the cafe in the park, before heading for the car for the long drive home.

The weather didn’t give for much of the way home. It was hot! There’s never an in between with British weather, it’s either soaking you or cooking you! Nonetheless, whilst the trip home was somewhat arduous in the heat, we got back eventually, tired but with some happy memories made.