Camping at Barn Farm

Another lovely weekend spent at Barn Farm in Derbyshire - we went with Matt and Marina and Gemma & Andy. We got our lovely new tent to use - there were some pros and cons....

Pros....

• tent was very quick to pitch (in fact M&M pitched it for us on Thursday to enure a space on the campsite)
• it was chucking it down when we were packing up, tent took less than a minute to get it into the bag - no struggling in the rain and a few appreciative stares from campers around the field
  
• decent amount of room for sleeping (2 people)
  

Cons....

• in the wet weather there wasn't anywhere to sit or cook
• the front door slopes inwards therefore when it's chucking it down, it chucks it into the tent as well (probably need to buy the tarpaulin to go over the entrance for when it's nasty weather)
• I'm not really one for having food stuff alongside your sleeping stuff so we kept most of it in the car - this was OK when it wasn't raining but when it was....it was a bit of a p. in the a.!

On the whole a positive experience. It'll be good when quechua bring out the bigger version - or (take note quechua) when they make a modular tent which fits together several of the pop up sections into one big tent!

On Saturday, Sgt Major Connor marched us up to the top of the hill on a nice walk which was a little challenging for a start but meandered through some lovely countryside to finish. It was about 5 miles and very pleasant indeed! We all subscribe to walkingworld.com which is a great resource for finding walks - not only does it provide the walk on an OS map section for you to print out, but there are descriptions of each stage as well as photos of the landmarks on the way so you can be sure you're at the 'right stile' of have passed the 'correct tree'!

Saturday evening we were booked into the Druid Inn in Birchover (walking distance from the campsite). The decor is lovely and the food was fabulous - unfortunately we think they were a bit short staffed as the service wasn't all it could have been towards the end of the meal. It just slightly took the edge off what was a really spectacular meal.

After dinner, Dan & I went for a lie down, it was only about 8:30 but we were pooped after the walk and hige dinner! Anyway, we both woke up about 3am dying for the loo....! So much for a wild night out. The rain had started overnight so we snuck out for a swift wee in the pouring rain...it didn't stop by morning so we all decided to pack u and go home. It took us about half an hour from start to finish. I'm very impressed.

We then all headed for the Grouse & Claret in Matlock for a lovely fry-up to finish the weekend off. Smashing! I'd not have been really into cooking in the rain!!!!