Going on Adventures

I've been out adventuring!

Mind you, the first adventure was trying to get The Vixen out of Khartoum Road. Bloody great big van parked in the middle of the road half way up. The Vixen is quite long. Khartoum Road is quite narrow. Took me ages to turn it (the car, not the road) round so I could get out, not liking to reverse down the road and around the corner (other cars come burning up quite quickly and the road is narrow and there are cars parked on both sides). Bloody vans!

Anyway. I had the morning off work, being on the late shift and I was off to Chesterfield on my own to inspect a house (perhaps I should start a separate, House-Hunting blog!!) Freyja had intended to come with me to act as navigator but had got out of this task by organising a free haircut elsewhere. The Builder is working in Mansfield this week and had vanished almost before dawn had properly cracked. In the end, though, I got there quite easily, and ahead of time.

It was alright, as houses go. On the southerly edge of Chesterfield. Pebble dashed semi. Three bedrooms. Fantastic views over the valley looking towards Wingerworth. Many birdies singing. A common of some sort behind. There was a downstairs loo and a cupboard with the washing machine in -- truly; it was about the size of a large airing cupboard. There was another loo upstairs in the bathroom, which also had a bath and a separate shower. There were many good things about this house. Except. It had night storage heating which is absolutely horrid, very inefficient if you happen to work during the day, and very costly to run. It would have needed replacing, expensively. The garden (one of the essential requirements) was no bigger than the one we've got now. The kitchen would, eventually, have needed modernising. And someone else had already put in an offer which was about what I would have thought the house was worth. Would have matched it but not raised it. Most significantly of all there was NO MOBILE PHONE SIGNAL. This had not been on my list of essential requirements. It is now!

Righty-ho then. What shall I do now? The weather is drizzly but not especially cold. I have loads of time and nothing particularly pressing to do. I shall go exploring. In my internet searching I had found some houses being renovated in a model village original built for colliery workers in a village to the south east of Sheffield. They look very sweet (though they won't do, there being no garden at all!) I might head out that way and have a poke about, especially since I don't know that corner of the world at all. Off I set, bravely and intrepidly (no navigator, remember?). Driving through Brimington I thought: Richard had this as a definite "no". I wonder why. Seems quite a pleasant village. Quite sweet, really. Must remember to ask him. (Apparently bits of it are prone to flooding.) On I trundled. Looked around me. Gosh. Where the hell am I? Looks like a very down at heel, thoroughly failed Lancashire mill town. But it can't be. Last I looked I was in Derbyshire and the two counties are not contiguous. Ah. Staveley. An absolutely emphatic "no" from Richard about Staveley. Wondered at the time why he was quite so adamant. Can see why now. Staveley is dire. Absolutely dire. Move out of it purposefully and as fast as the law allows! But truly, it does have the feel of those sad and depressed failed mill towns in bits of Lancashire. Goodness knows what it's doing down here. Creswell, on the other hand, is not dire. It's very sweet indeed. The model village is lovely (but still unsuitable). A complete contrast to Staveley, despite them both being former mining villages. Perhaps I might consider moving out here. There are crags and walks and lakes and stone age cave paintings out this a-way to add interest to life. I headed back to Sheffield. And really quite enjoyed the drive - until I got to the edges of Sheffield. Driving through the south eastern suburbs of Sheffield was very dispiriting indeed. Couldn't possibly do this every day. I'd be Dead with Depression by the end of a week. (Though, when I came to reflect later, I decided that the people I know who do live in villages on that edge of Sheffield and commute in are not Dead with Depression -- from which I conclude that there is another way in to the city centre. As there is!). But perhaps Creswell, cute though it is, is a bit of a hike for daily commuting. It's not the distance so much as the lack of roads you can drive fast on!

I enjoyed my adventuring. I hardly ever just hop in the car and go out exploring. All those years when there wasn't a car for random treks out, I suppose. Should do it more. I know shamefully little about that side of Derbyshire. Usually head West when I go out into it. And we must go and visit the Creswell Crags.

Got back to find that ANOTHER bloody white van was parked in the middle of Khartoum Road. I hate the way van drivers seem to think they can just abandon their vehicles anywhere to suit their convenience and bugger the rest of us. They do it on the road leading to Ecclesall Road all the time and they're a bloody menace.