Wednesday 9 September - National Forest Way

There's an argument that this post should reside on my walking blog rather than here, but the walking blog has pretty much become just a record of things done in the past plus ongoing Marilyn-bagging, hence I'm putting it here.

I'm contemplating doing a continuous walk of either the National Forest Way (NFW) or the Staffs Way next year, and to decide between them (or to see whether I want to do either), I thought I'd go and do some recces. I have covered significant parts of them before, but some sections were quite some years ago.

There being no time like the present, on Wednesday Mick gave me a lift to Branston Water Park, from where I intended to cover 26km of the National Forest Way, to end in Alrewas - a location I could have reached in 7.5km if I'd just ambled S along the canal towpath, rather than turning off it to wind my way through lots of fields and past various National Forest plantations. As it went, I did cover 26km, but I veered off the Way (intentionally!) at Wychnor to meet Mick in a location more convenient to him.

The most notable thing about the outing was that I got stung by a wasp. I've never been stung by any insect before in my life, which is probably quite a good record for someone in their 6th decade. I immediately phoned Mick, because I had no idea whether I was allergic and, being in the middle of a field at the time, it would have been an unfortunate place to discover that I was. Happily, no adverse reaction happened, except for the expected: smarting and swelling, followed by days of intense itching.

Sun rising over Branston Water Park

I'm not sure whether I've ever seen one of these self-closing gate latches before. I liked the design, although arguably it is over-engineered compared to the usual two-way latches.

There was a perfectly good track going around two edges of this field, but I stayed true to the line of the RoW and took the more arduous route through the long grass. 

Good margin around this field of maize. 

Apparently, I should not have come down this track and climbed over the locked gate. I've checked the most recent OS maps in both 1:50k and 1:25k and the RoW/NFW is definitely shown as following this track. When I came out onto the road at the end of the track, the 'public footpath' finger post pointed along a path that runs adjacent (which I'd been on, until I realised that the map showed that I should be on the track).

The bit of the field that had been harvested was fine. Then I squeezed my way between rows of maize, as the field margin was unpleasantly overgrown with spiky and stingy things. 

The squirrels are loving life, pending the rest of the maize being harvested, with trails of eaten cobs heading off in every which direction. 

Lots of new gateways installed. I particularly approve of the liberal use of gravel around them all which should hopefully mean that none of them become mud and water obstacles in winter. 
 

  

 

  

Getting Value out of our National Trust Membership (Part 2)

Another catch-up post, just for my own records. 

Calke Abbey 

It was 1 September, at the tail end of the school holidays, that we took a day-trip to Calke Abbey. I'd not read anything about the property in advance, so it was a surprise to find that it's not an abbey at all - one of its owners, in the early 1800s, just decided it sounded better than Calke Hall and changed its name accordingly.

The National Trust has taken a different approach to this property compared to their others, in that they opted not to restore the vast majority of the hall or outbuildings, instead preserving them in the condition they were in when handed to the National Trust in lieu of inheritance tax in the 1980s. They thus refer to it as their 'unstately home'. 

The grounds are also vast and it was a good day out.  

I was standing next to the king as I took this photo

 Look, there he is

(One of the most notable things about the inside of the hall, of which I apparently didn't take a single photo, was the vastness of the collection of taxidermy, stones and shells. Nobody needs that many examples of such things!)  

I was most taken with their dahlia walk. Alas, my on-the-spot research about whether it's a flower suited to my level of gardening was a definite 'no'. 

The array of children's games in the walled garden was impressive, and if we had visited a week later, when schools were back, we would have played on more things, but being 'growed-ups', we restrained ourselves and (mainly) let the children get on with it.  

Completely unrelated to Calke Abbey, that evening I finished my second Nordic Mix sweater. I knitted my first one (in black and gold) twice, with the first attempt being far too small and the second (after ripping back the first) being wearable but still a bit on the snug side. I thus decided to make another one, a size bigger. I then had to modify the neckline to make it more comfortable (it seems a lot of people have had issues with the neck coming out too small), after all of which I laid it out on top of my original only to find it's the exact same width. Hopefully it will relax when I wash it!

Sudbury Hall

Just two days later, on 3 September, it was a trip to Sudbury Hall. To the best of my recollection, we've never had the need to visit Uttoxeter before, then in the space of two weeks we have had been there twice, for entirely unrelated reasons. On the first visit (and being unaware at the time that we'd be back again so soon), we figured that with Sudbury Hall being such a short drive away, we may as well pop by, even if only for a cursory look.

As it went, we gave it more than a cursory look, visiting the cafe (that goes without saying really), the house and the museum of childhood, before taking a brief turn around some of the grounds that became curtailed because after so much warm weather this year, the stiff breeze was just a bit too cool for how we were dressed.  

Excelled myself with the camera today. This is the only photo I took.

Longshaw Estate

There's no house or formal gardens here, but it's a good location with a huge car park and a cafe. A friend and I have (somewhat accidentally) fallen into a series of walks that we're calling 'Life on the Edge', in pursuit of which we've already visited Longshaw Estate twice this year (there are a lot of edges to walk in this area!). The first time I only paid for 4 hours of parking and we cut it rather fine. The second time I paid the full £8 day rate. This time, on 6 September, I got a bit more value out of our membership by getting free parking (I did give back, as we drank considerable amounts of tea, along with having snacks, in the cafe once we were done on the edges).     

Froggatt Edge (I think; it may have been Curbar Edge) 

We got a fly past from the Red Arrows, complete with red, white and blue trails. 
 

Shugborough Hall

I had a different property pencilled in for 10 September, but plans changed when a need cropped up to visit my sister, and as Shugborough Hall wasn't much of a detour, we made a short visit there in the afternoon. We've walked through the Shugborough Estate a number of times and visited the property when we last had National Trust membership 20-odd years ago. It turns out that we remember almost nothing about the place. Mick had recollections about the routes we walked; I had a recollection about Patrick Lichfield (photographer), although I began to think I'd made it up as we made our way through the house with no mention being given of him. Eventually we reached the apartment in which he lived from when the property was given to the National Trust, until his death in 2005, so at least not all areas of my memory are completely shot!

We didn't walk the grounds to any notable extent, so when we next find ourselves in that neck of the woods, we may pop by again for further re-acquaintance.  

Once again, I only took one photo, and again it was of the back of the property.
 

Biddulph Grange Gardens

I don't think this one really counts towards our efforts to get as much value as possible out of our membership, as only Mick visited, and he did so not because of any desire to walk around the gardens by himself, but just because it gave him free parking and a cafe in a very convenient location, having dropped me off in Mow Cop (which is still Cow Mop in my head) and before picking me up in Rudyard some 3.5 hours later. Had we not had NT membership, he would have found somewhere else to go. That said, not only did he enjoy a scone and a coffee in the cafe, but he did take a turn around the gardens too.

 

Cumulative entrance/parking fees saved in 3 weeks of membership (and excluding Biddulph, which would have been £14, for the reasons stated above): £208 

(If we were paying as we went to visit these properties, I would be finding that the pricing bears no resemblance to the level of entertainment available. Coventry Charter House, where there's not much to see, would have cost £10 each, yet Calke Abbey, with a huge house to tour plus a church and extensive gardens and grounds to walk, was only £15. Sudbury Hall was probably slightly lower than Calke in terms of potential hours of entertainment, yet it's £22. The gardens Mick visited today were £14, yet there is no mansion to maintain or heat - although admittedly, those hedges must take a huge amount of work.)

Thursday 27 August - Baddesley Clinton, Coventry Charterhouse and Coventry Cathedral

Weather: Wet!

When I'd started thinking about this trip, only a few days in advance, the weather forecast had been pretty good, with just a few showery periods over the course of several days. By the time we came to leave home, there were weather warning out for thunderstorms and flooding on Wednesday and Thursday. 

Whilst it did rain on Wednesday evening, there was nothing extreme and we didn't get a storm. On Thursday it started raining early, and the forecast said it was only going to get heavier, with no let-up until early afternoon.

We thus opted against an early start and it was gone 10.30 before we made moves to head the 2 miles back the way we'd come, to the National Trust property of Baddesley Clinton. 

Greeted by the same chap who had greeted us at Packwood House the day before, we opted for a time-slot for visiting the house over an hour hence, to give us time to start our day in the cafe, giving the rain time to ease off. 

Alas, when we reached the till to order our brunches, after a lengthy wait, it was to be told that brunch service finished at 11am (surely, by definition, brunch should last at least until lunch time?), and it was now five past. We settled for scones, in which neither of us was disappointed. 

Rain jackets went back on for the walk over to the house - a striking place - and we managed a circuit of the moat before heading inside, but neither of us had any enthusiasm for wandering outside any longer. Neither Packwood House (yesterday) nor Baddesley Clinton were offering guided tours, but the volunteers present in each room at Baddesley were far more forthcoming than those at Packwood had been, so we gleaned more information about this property, and delivered in a far more entertaining way than by me reading out the first couple of pages of the written guide in each room. 

Emerging back out into the rain some while later, it was clear that the day was not going to pan our how I had imagined. There was not going to be a couple of hours of wandering the grounds in the sunshine. What to do: give up and go home, returning to finish the trip when the weather was better, or cram two properties into one day, conceding that we were going to miss out on the grounds of both. We retired to Erica for lunch to consider.

It was 2pm as we left Baddesley Clinton for the half-hour drive to Coventry Charterhouse, giving us a maximum of 2 hours at the property, which seemed like it would be plenty if we were going to be inside only. It turned out that 2 hours was enough to visit the property, have a cup of tea in the cafe, browse the bookshop, walk the mile into Coventry to see the cathedrals and walk back again. There's not a lot to the Charterhouse - the rooms are mainly bare, with downstairs housing a text-only exhibit about the history of the building and upstairs housing two rooms with 500+ year old wall paintings. The latter were the main event, and were worth seeing. In fact, the whole place was worth seeing in my opinion, but it wouldn't have been worth a special trip from any distance. 

The other activity I'd had planned for Coventry (pencilled in for day 4 of this intended 5-day trip) was the Herbert museum. There was no time to cram that in (it was closing as we walked past on our way to the cathedral) but it was definitely in the 'whilst we're there we may as well' category, rather than being a reason for the trip. 

So, after two days we'd visited the places I'd intended to spread over three, albeit at the cost of not wandering the outdoor spaces. With the rain forecast to continue, and having failed to find any indoor accommodation meeting my quality/price requirements, we thus headed home. 

Thursday evening saw some extreme weather. The rain was monsoonal, and I don't think I've ever seen so much lightning in the UK, with barely a few seconds between flashes and a constant rumble of thunder. Friday morning was slightly different with only a few massive flashes and some huge bangs, with the storm directly overhead. Our lawn has transformed from crisp and brown to green in the space of a few days. 

(As for getting value for money out of our membership, in one week we've achieved £90-worth of entry fees. I've got two more properties pencilled in for next week, weather permitting.)

The house entrance at Baddesley Clinton. The moat was a later addition and was never a defensive feature.

Looking across the moat into the courtyard.

Coventry Charterhouse. Didn't think to take a photo of one of the upstairs painted walls, although I'm sure there are images available on the internet.

The old cathedral at Coventry was extensively damaged during the war, yet the tower escaped almost unscathed.

The altar, at the opposite end. An information board told us that the cathedral continued to hold services, down in the crypt, for some years after the main building was so badly damaged, making it the smallest cathedral in the UK during that period. 

The last time I visited Coventry was in the 1990s, at which time I wasn't at all taken by the design of the new cathedral. I don't mind it so much now. Unfortunately, we couldn't nip inside this time as it closes to non-worshipping visitors at 4pm.
 

  

Wednesday 26 August - Packwood House

Where's Erica? She's on a small (14-pitch) campsite on a Christmas Tree farm (Santa's Field) near Chadwick End (postal address Solihull, but it doesn't look that close on the map), at a cost of £15. Electricity is available for an extra £5.

Weather: hot and humid with a weather warning for thunderstorms and lots of bubbly clouds developing as the afternoon has gone on.  

I joined the National Trust this week, having last been a member some 20 years ago, and in keeping with that previous experience, I see it as a challenge to get our money's worth as quickly as possible. I thus started planning this trip, with three properties potentially on the agenda. Admittedly, the week running up to August bank holiday isn't the most obvious time for a retired couple with no children to entertain to go away, but we were fed up of being at home, and surely Coventry and the surrounding area isn't an obvious holiday destination that would be rammed with an excess of traffic on small roads and overflowing campsites. After hours of trying to come up with a sensible plan of where to go, where to stay and which vehicle to use, my original intention for a 5-night trip became a flexible 'somewhere between 1 and 5 nights' plan (we were going to be so close to home that it made more sense to commute to the places I wanted to visit than to pay for expensive campsites or accommodation).  

Today, via a quick detour via Edgbaston where I had an appointment (it's over a decade since I last drove in Birmingham; I'll quite happily go another decade before doing so again. These days there's the added stress of not taking a wrong turn and accidentally straying into the Clean Air Zone), we headed over to the National Trust's Packwood House, where a few hours were spent wandering around house and gardens. 

After refreshments in the cafe (which wasn't exactly 'refreshing' as it was so hot in there), and a turn around the lake (where rain drops were seen on the water, but only three hit us), we headed on over to the campsite, on a Christmas tree farm, where we settled Erica onto a hard-standing no-electric pitch (thanks to having a functioning solar panel, we were confident that we could run Erica's fridge without hook-up*) and contemplated that it looked like the forecast thunderstorms could arrive at any minute.  

You might say that it's because of the location that there were only five units spread amongst the 14 pitches on what would be perceived as such a busy week for accommodation, but it's in keeping with our experience even in more obvious holiday destinations: we've never struggled to book the Church House in Torver (Lakes) on a day's notice in late July, and when we found the small campsite by Milnthorpe to be empty the same week a few years ago, the owner explained that their main customer base is retired people, who perceive that the school holidays are busy, so they stay away, but in reality most families overlook little Certified Location sites and flock to commercial sites. 

(*Erica's fridge was an emergency purchase in June 2025 when the temperature for a 24-hour race I was taking part in was forecast to be in the 30s. We've now used that fridge quite a few times but it was only as the evening drew on on this trip that we realised that we'd never slept in Erica whilst the fridge was plugged in. Because Erica wasn't designed with a fridge, it doesn't have a dedicated spot, so it travels on the floor (by accident, not design, the space in front of the toilet is the perfect size to hold it in place whilst driving), and then lives on the kitchen work surface when we're parked up. The problem with it being out in the open, on what is effectively a sounding board, is that it's noise when the compressor springs into life, in such a small space, is too loud not to risk disturbing sleep. Not having an immediate solution, we simply turned it off overnight.)

 Photos in a slightly random order:

Packwood House, viewed from across the lake (which is unsurprisingly low on water)

Excellent scone, but marks deducted for the drizzle. No scone needs a drizzle - it just makes the top half unavoidably sticky to eat, once it's cut in half, without adding anything.

Approaching the entrance to the house.

Looking down the yew topiary garden, to the rear of the house.

Looking from the rear of the house towards the topiary garden.

Erica's Solar Panel

Sometime between June and August 2023, Erica's solar panel (originally fitted in August or September 2020) ceased to function. Had it been a standard panel, screwed into brackets, we would undoubtedly have whipped it off and replaced it in a matter of weeks, but with it being a flat panel that was well adhered to the roof, I got as far as buying a windscreen removal saw (cheese wire type), then we procrastinated on the job until 3 years had passed. 

We managed just fine for those three years, with the leisure battery only being charged via the split charger, but when the engine battery gave up due to old age in June, we decided that a new panel would be useful (the split charger works both ways, so with a solar panel, the engine battery would have been kept topped up too). This time I didn't opt for the expensive aluminium-backed semi-rigid job, but a cheap and cheerful alternative with a longer warranty. 

Removing the old panel seemed, as we started the job, like it was going to be an absolute nightmare of a task, but once we worked out the technique with the cheese wire saw, it went reasonably swiftly (the first 1/10th of the removal probably took as long as the final 9/10ths). 

With the old panel removed, that still left me with quite a clean-up job:

The old, dead panel, half way through sawing it off. The new panel doesn't look anywhere near as nice as this one, but it was a third of the price (and being on the roof, it's not like anyone looks at it very often!)
 

Starting the clean-up process, seems I didn't take a single photo once I had the roof in a nice clean and shiny state. I also didn't photograph the new panel in situ.

So, I spent a chunk of hours, spread over a week or so, sitting on Erica's roof, cleaning it up. Being a very hot and sunny summer was restrictive; every time the sun came out, I had to stop, as it was just too hot up there. The glorious weather was also restrictive for getting the new panel glued on as our chosen Sikaflex adhesive relies on humidity to go off, and after weeks of sunshine and heat, the daytime humidity levels were lower than was ideal. So, we waited and we waited for a cloudy afternoon, then we waited until evening to minimise the length of time until humidity would rise as night fell. 

Finally, three weeks after starting the task, the new panel was installed.

As for the failure of the old panel, I suspect it was (kinda) our fault, and thus we did things a little differently this time.  We used fewer beads of adhesive and used nylon spacers to make sure the adhesive beads stayed at least 5mm deep, thus maintaining an adequate air gap underneath. Perhaps most importantly, we didn't apply silicon along the sides of the panel, thus maximising under-panel airflow, and also allowing water to escape. I think the silicon along the sides was probably one of the biggest culprits for the failure of the old panel, as water had clearly pooled on one side, and if it did that in winter and then froze, it would have put undue pressure on the panel, eventually causing broken connections between cells - however, I'm not fully taking responsibility for this poor choice, as it was exactly what the original panel's fitting instructions told us to do. My theory, back in 2020, that water that got under the panel would have a clear route out via the troughs in the roof didn't take into account that water that was under there when Erica was parked up wouldn't be able to escape from the lower side of the roof until she next moved. The question now (and only time will tell) is whether flexing of the panel due to it being a less rigid design combined with having less adhesive coverage, will cancel out having solved the issue of water getting trapped underneath it. 

Monday 25 to Sunday 2 August - Clapham

Just for my own records: 

Where was Bertie? He spent six nights at a Temporary Holiday Site at Clapham (the N Yorks one) at a cost of £8 per night. 

Weather: general pattern of cloudy mornings, with a short spell of rain most days, then clearing to a sunny afternoon.

Mick's knee wasn't up to doing much, so it was a very gentle recovery week for him, with the daily activity being a cafe visit. 

Tuesday it was Goat's Gap cafe, just a few minutes' drive from the campsite. Wednesday we met up (after I'd been out) at The Old Sawmill Cafe for lunch. Thursday it was an outing to Settle (did we go to the Old Naked Man or the one next door? I think the latter) where we chatted to a mother and her 4-year-old daughter out on a day-trip from Kirkby Stephen, as the daughter had been obsessed with going on a train journey, being able to see the train line from their farm. Friday it was back to the Old Sawmill, and on Saturday Vicky and I met up with Mick at the Old Sawmill after our outing. 

Other than that, I nipped up Ingleborough twice. On the Wednesday, when I got caught in some horrible weather on the upper reaches, I was chuffed to do the route in almost exactly the same time as I managed the last time I did it - two years ago to the day.

On the Saturday, friend Vicky & I did a very chatty Ingleborough circuit in good weather. The combination of being the weekend, in the middle of summer, and with fine weather meant it was busy indeed on the top. Unsurprisingly, early on Wednesday morning with lashing rain and no visibility, it was deserted.  

We failed to attend any of the social events at the campsite, such as the Wednesday scone and tea ("bring your own chair and mug") or Saturday night bingo. Sunday morning's breakfast social (same rules as Wednesday's scone and tea) was just starting as we left to head home. 

(Posted 26 August, but back-dated to early August, more in keeping with the timing of the trip)  

 

 

Sunday 25 July - Torver

Where was Bertie? He returned to Church House Inn campsite at Torver where this time it cost £30 (with electricity)

Saturday night didn't involve much sleep. I'd grabbed an hour and a half in between midnight and 0130, when I'd started watching for Mick going through the final Check Point, after which there was no time before I needed to get fully waterproofed up to head over to the school to see him finish.  

It was 0430 before we were in bed, and 0630 before I was asleep. 

Fortunately, we didn't have to go far on Sunday and there was nothing we needed to do. Even more fortunately, the rain that had fallen in the previous 24 hours had been mainly light and had hit ground that hadn't seen rain in weeks, so there wasn't the issue of needing to exit the field before it turned into a mud bath and people started getting stuck. It was thus gone 11am by the time we called Church House Inn to check they had room for us and tootled off for the <10-minute drive to get there.

I think we've stayed at Church House on Lakeland weekend in four separate years and, off the top of my head, I think we've stayed there on both the Thursday and Sunday night in each year (maybe not on the Sunday 2024, as Mick didn't run, so we wouldn't have been sleep deprived), however, we've always opted to just stay in the car park, without electricity, rather than in one of the camping fields. We again chose to stay in the car park today but with electricity. The price without electricity is £20, and based on current trends, we hadn't expected the 'with' price to be more than £26, so it was a surprise when the owner asked for £30. We also both got the impression by his slight hesitation that he was thinking of 'how much can I get away with charging?', as there are no published rates. Even though there's another campsite almost next door that we knew to be cheaper, as we were already there and parked, we paid up, but with the feeling that we were being ripped off. £10 for electric hook up isn't unheard of, but it's unusually much. 

Why the need for electric? Well, we could have managed without, but Mick had come back with all of his kit absolutely sodden and the fastest way of drying it was in front of the fan heater in Bertie's shower room. I'd like to say that we were at pains to use as much electricity as we reasonably could, and we certainly made an effort to get all electronics fully charged, but then I had an aberration and both boiled water and cooked lunch on the gas hob - doh!

There's nothing much to say about the rest of the day. Mick's knee was very disgruntled and wasn't going to be walking anywhere, so we stayed in, watched the live stream of the L100/50 awards presentation, watched some cricket, slept for 3 hours, watched some more cricket then went to bed.  

 

(Published on 25 August but back-scheduled to 1 August, slightly nearer to when it was written!)