It’s been a funny old week, a four day beer disaster in North Wales rescued only by a healthy supply of fine bottles, followed by an increasingly improving IPA week at my local The Bulls Head, which has included two crackers from Summer Wine Brewery Nerotype Herkules & 7C’s.
Today we had two choices, a hastily arranged trip to the Hawkshead Brewery beer festival or the original plan of a good walk in the peak district followed by lunch in nearby Buxton where hopefully I could source some Axe Edge, named after the area near to where were heading.
After a bit of research it seemed that accommodation in Staveley for the fest was going to be unlikely so we made the decision to give it a miss this year and plan for another, so off a hiking we went.
All was going well, we arrived mid morning to the sleepy backwater village of Hollinsclough where we were to do a circular route taking us across Chrome Hill and back to the village. We set off in good spirits across the River Dove and climbing steadily on a mixture of muddy tracks and concrete paths.
It was here that things began to go wrong, the written instructions were a little ambiguous so we walked for about half a mile before making the decision that we were on the wrong route. Doubling back to another fork in the road we again ascended across fields filled with grazing sheep, crossing a stile leading to another rough track which ran across the top the steep ridge of a valley. But alas this was no better, the view we had was of Chrome Hill, WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN ON CHROME BLOODY HILL!!!
We could though see the village so decided that enough was enough and headed for Hollinsclough and the car.
Was lady luck finished with us though? Was she buggery, after around 50 metres Rach (the wife) stumbled, gave out a painful yelp (including a few expletives) before sinking to the floor crying with agony with a nasty ankle injury. She could not have picked a worse spot, the terrain was the worst we’d seen, leaving us a choice between a long walk back the way we’d came or a steep descent down rough and slippy paths.
Opting for the latter and to cut a rather long story short, after very long painful and scary hour, (the scary bit was the pretty hairy moment where we had to cross a field of rather angry looking bulls), we made it back to the car.
The rest of the afternoon was spent in a local hospital walk in (Hobble In) centre where after three hours it turned out thankfully to be only a nasty sprain.
The moral of this story though is this, if we’d have gone to Hawkshead none of this would have happened, we’d all be happy and healthy.
Proving without a shadow of doubt, BEER IS GOOD FOR YOU!
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Beersay 