St George's Day and Our 29th Anniversary

St Mary & All Saints Church, Chesterfield

Today is not only St George's Day but our 29th Wedding Anniversary. We went away over the weekend to the Peak District, staying at a Best Western hotel in Mosborough, courtesy of using Tesco Clubcard vouchers ...... so it didn't actually cost us anything! And Free is Good :)

We went up on Friday and visited the nearby town of Chesterfield, famous for its Church's twisted spire. It really is amazingly twisted!

We had to wait quite a while before we could go into the Church as a funeral was taking place. A very formal affair with a horse-drawn glass hearse ..... such lovely horses. I was sorely tempted to take a photo .... but didn't seem quite right somehow!!

We took my Mum away with us as well, as a very old friend of hers lives near Matlock that she hasn't seen for 18 years! On the Saturday, we dropped her off to visit her friend and we went off to Matlock to do a bit of walking.

We got a surprise when we parked the car in the railway car park at Matlock ...... a steam train came through!

John had worked out a route that took us up into the hills around Matlock so we could view Matlock and the Heights of Abraham.

Looking down on Matlock

The scenery in the Peak District is stunning! We were also very lucky in that, although the forecast was for a lot of rain, we pretty much missed it! However, where I have had a horrible sinus problem and haven't been feeling all that well for some time, our lack of recent walking was definitely apparent! We both felt a bit unfit and weren't able to do as much walking as we'd like! We only managed about 3 miles but this did include some very steep ascents; we climbed about 650 feet!! Nevertheless, thankfully, at long last I think I'm getting the better of this sinus infection (that has hung on since Christmas!!) so hopefully we'll be able to sort that out soon and get out and do more walking.

View from the Heights of Abraham Cable car

We then drove round to the cable car that goes up to the Heights of Abraham. The views from the cable car are fantastic!

And here is my Mum and her friend, Rene. Amazingly, Rene is actually shorter than my Mum :)

My Mum (on the right) with her friend Rene

On the Sunday, we visited a lovely garden called Renishaw Hall and garden.

Most of the garden is a formal layout with lots of box and yew hedges and formal planting.

There is also a more informal woodland area with a sculpture trail.

A really peaceful place with lots to see. Any garden lover would love it!


A perfect weekend to celebrate our Anniversary :)