Five Go On a Ramble at Pleasley – 9 October 2021
(with even more apologies to Enid Blyton fans)
Tilly the dog was so excited to see us all in the car park at Pleasley. She wagged her tail madly and gave us each a friendly sniff. Charles insisted that she was very friendly and wouldn’t harm us. That couldn’t be said for all the other dogs who had turned up for a “Dog Fair” that Saturday morning! One had scared the life out of poor Karol when he was putting his boots on – a big hairy thing (the dog, not Karol) had appeared from nowhere and was sniffing around the back of the car. Karol had to shoo it away.
We all gathered around Martin, our leader, who was keen to get moving as the sun was shining and Andrew had to be somewhere else later. Martin said it was an easy walk and we all took him at his word (see later, though, for the detail).
The merry band set off, with Tilly leading the way and rushing in and out of the undergrowth. The rest of us set a decent pace, led by Angela and Andrew, who were deep in conversation.
A little while later we entered a moody tunnel of trees, with sunlight peeping through the branches. What adventures we were having! Tilly was having a great time, too, jumping into puddles and small ponds and getting thoroughly soaked and drippy.
After an hour or so we reached a little cabin where all kinds of drinks and cakes were available. “Shall we stop and have a rest?”, said Martin. “Yes, please”, said everybody else and we found a little table under the shelter. Most people went into the cabin to buy a coffee which was wonderfully cheap. There were lashings of cakes, and we all enjoyed the short rest.
When we set off again, the path turned right and crossed over a railway bridge and cutting. We marvelled at the ingenuity of the engineers who had built the track so it was all on a level. What a sight it must have been when the steam trains still ran between the collieries, dragging their coal trucks away!
A little further on, Andrew bade us farewell and set off at some speed so he could make it to his next appointment. Charles and Karol were admiring the work of the many navvies who had clearly taken a long time to build up the embankments – you could see the old coaldust on the sides of the slopes – while waiting for Martin and Angela to catch up.
A mile or so on, we came to a gate advertising a model train exhibition. Charles was really keen to have a day out there but the rest of us could think of other, more fascinating ways to fill our time!
A short walk away from the gate was the car park, where we made our goodbyes and head off back home, Charles having the pleasure of bathing Tilly to look forward to, so she didn’t smell the house out after her visits to those dirty puddles and ponds.
What a lovely morning it had been, with all the ingredients for a delightful walk – sunshine, pleasant company, and excellent scenery all around. We’ll have to get another one sorted out some time soon so we can have some more adventures like this. Even though on this occasion we hadn’t met any robbers or solved any crimes, it was just nice to be together again.
Geeky old Karol had his phone mapping the walk and the return leg was 3.29 miles. It took us 1 hour and 6 minutes to cover this and only had to climb up 131 feet overall. Silly Karol also forgot to turn on the app as we set off at the start, but since that was about the same distance we probably covered around 6 miles in total.
