John Edward Cooper’s Notes

DAY 5 Departure
Check out by 11:00 and return home at your leisure. You may wish to explore further attractions of the Peak District before you go: Poole’s Cavern, Haddon Hall, Eyam (the plague village), Arkwright’s Cromford Mills, Castleton (blue John), Carsington reservoir, to name just a few. We wish you all a safe journey home!

The wind got up during the night, as evinced by the noisy rustling of the nearby trees. Janet got up ca.7am, and I shaved and showered after she vacated the bathroom.… It was cold in the “greenhouse” when we went for breakfast, so I went back to the room for my jacket. Janet followed suit after I came back, and swapped a denim jacket for a more substantial raincoat. I just had orange juice, coffee and Rice Krispies. Janet got them to make her some porridge with just water; and she added salt to it, as she was brought up to do. She had two bananas, one of which she made into a sandwich with granary bread. Back in the room, I checked my Gmail account (08:43).… Janet did the packing. My rôle in this was very minor. We were down in the lobby and checked out just before 10am. I kept going outside, where my phone could get a signal; and the last time I did so — ca.10.05am — I saw G— B—’s grey minibus turn in, above from Manchester Road, not below from Park Road. He had a face-mask on, so we kept ours on also for the duration of the trip. Our journey followed the route of the outward one, except that in Buxton there was a diversion from the A6 onto the A515. Diverted traffic was directed back to the A6 along the A5270, which we’d travelled on, on the TransPeak bus when we went to and from Haddon Hall. We got home ca.12.30pm.…

[2021]