scene_again | Calke Walk :-) (Reply)

rosie55 thought this post might go down well over here, so I've crossposted from my journal with a few minor edits.

Yesterday we went for a walk out to the nearby village of Ticknall and back via the National Trust property at Calke Abbey (They have a cafe. We're not entirely daft :-)). The start of the walk has been improved mightily by the installation of a pavement on the bit of Cockshut Lane that had previously lacked one. Normally I'm not keen on gratuitous tarmaccing, but that bit of road was quite dangerous to walk on without a pavement.

It had rained overnight, but we didn't think it would be too muddy. We were this : wrong.

If anything, the track through Robin Wood was even squelchier than last time we did this walk, though fortunately there was a diversionary path through the trees that bypassed the worst of it. Just out of Robin Wood we passed this rather splendid tree in which someone has built a treehouse :-

The weather was good for most of the morning - sunshine and light winds. We made decent progress and got to Calke around twenty-five to eleven.

I was rather taken with the green iron gatepost on the way in :-

We didn't have to pay to go in, not having a car to park, and the nice lady on the gate told us about the lambing marquee where we could go and coo over the new lambs :-

Having duly admired the woolly babies we set off in search of tea. Just outside the cafe, which is in part of the Abbey outbuildings, I came across another piece of interesting metalwork:-

Not bad for the stable drains!

There was a shop at the cafe and they also sold plants. I was absolutely delighted to find they had Bowles Mint, a variety that my mother has been after for years. I'm not sure why she was so keen on this particular one, but it's lovely to be able to give her something she particularly wants, there being so few things that fall into that category.

On the way home there were some lovely cheerful primroses out :-

The picture really doesn't do them justice - they were so bright and vibrant, it was lovely.

I was also amused by this fallen tree, which from the angle I saw it from looks rather like a quizzical dog's face :-