Best fronds

Backblip because busy

Up early and at Waverley early for my train to Derby. Things went wrong almost straight away, when we didn't leave on time, or even slightly on time. There was then the announcement that someone had driven into a railway bridge near Dunbar, and all trains were stopped. Thanks to them pulling up the route to Galashiels and Kelso and Berwick and Alnwick back in the day, and rebuilding the Galashiels route on the cheap, there is no diversionary line available between Edinburgh and Newcastle without going all the way to Carlisle on the west coast mainine and going east via Hexham. After 45 minutes we were told to take the next train to Derby, and magically that one was running as scheduled, while our original train was cancelled. So we were only an hour late, but now the train had twice as many people onboard, and it was rammed.

Passing Chesterfield or thereabouts I spotted the unmistakable Emley Moor transmitter towier on the horizon. And not too long after, we reached Derby. After a ticket barrier lottery which I lost, such is the stupid design of the station, and a quick call with Ms BikerBabe who was collecting me, and some more ticket barrier nonsense, we were together again, bags installed on Biscuit, and soon on the move.

The afternoon was young and neither of us had had any lunch yet, so we rode to Elvaston Castle country park in search of big trees and a bench. The big trees were soon located: two giant sequoia and a Coast Redwood that we spotted by chance, IDing it by the shape of its needles. By the tower house-cum-castle-cum-country house-cum-mansion we took up residence on a bench and munched through banana and peanut butter sandwiches on homemade bread, and relaxed.

From Elvaston it wasn't very far to our hotel for a couple of nights. After coffee and chats it was time for late tea of delicious pizza, and a dark wander around the locale for fresh air before turning in.