Janet came with us to the Peak District, so called because of the very undulating land with rocky peaks quarries and mines. It was the May long weekend, one of the first weekends leading into summer, weather was lovely and warm and people were seen in shorts, but proper Englishmen were still well dressed in coat and tie when picking up their morning papers. We had a very nice B&B located in a small village called Oakamoor for the two nights. Interestingly the other guests were mainly younger couples ie in their 20s, away for a dirty weekend? No, to go to Alton Towers Adventure Theme Park! We spent two days driving around the area and never say the park, saw lots of signs to it though. Our village had once been a cooper smelting town with railway station, industrial siding, canal for moving the ore, housing for the workers, water mills, cable drawing plant (first trans Atlantic cables made here) - must have been a very polluted valley . Production only stopped in the 1960.s.

We visited Calke Abbey where we could only see the basement and a couple of rooms showing how the house was found in the 1980's, some of the conservation strategies and the enormous task ahead, as timed tickets were required for house.On to Keddleston Hall designed by Robert Adam, where much of "The Duchess" with Keira Knightly was filmed and many of the costumes from the film are on display. We travelled up the Derwent Valley to Cromford where Arkwright's Cotton Mill stands one of the first large water powered mills. Close by is Matlock Bath, a lovely spa town on the river where there were hundreds of bikers. This is a favourite meeting place for them as the surrounding roads have sharp bends, hidden crests, blind corners where they can crash when overtaking cars over double line!! There were warning signs all along with death statisticsbut it didn't seem to make much difference.

Next day we caught the Peak Rail for a return trip between Matlock and Rowsley starting at the rail yards at Darley Dale. They were running their newly restored 8F.engine built 1943 (same model as the Hornby wind up made for the baby boomers) for the first time. Quite a large volunteer enterprise - fine dining on board as well as bar and buffet car, meals at platform cafe, many shops, stalls as well another crew with the other steam engine doing track work. It was a very scenic piece of track with hundreds of train spotters on route. We went for a walk across the moors and up some peaks close to Blue John Cavern. We had our picnic lunch at the Nine Stone Ladies, a prehistoric site (like a mini Stonehenge) set on a hill way away from the road on the edge of a forest overlooking the adjoining valleys which contain the town and rivers we had passed - it's all so green! Such a change from when we arrived in winter -then there was grass, mud, bare trees and dead leaves. On the way home we headed further away from London in the busy weekend traffic and had a fleeting visit to Chester, managed a park in the middle of the main street so Di and Janet had a quick walk. Janet had not been before so a good city to revisit. Turning back to London traffic was not bad so we revisited Ironbridge which was very busy. This is the site of the first bridge built entirely of iron and it is over the gorge where many iron foundries were established - the foundations of the furnaces of Bedlam are still visible. These sites bear evidence to the start of the Industrial Revolution.