What Category Do We Fit Into ?

For year’s, even well before we shirked our conventional lifestyles, we had always wanted to visit, what we believed to be, the picturesque market and ‘Spa’ town of Buxton in the Derbyshire Peak District. It was one of those places that always regularly featured on many of the popular television tourist programmes and also in numerous Countrylife and Camping magazine articles. However, we had never actually managed to get there, mainly due to our work commitments or because all the campsites in the area were always fully booked during the periods we wanted to visit. More recently, over the last seven years, we were working as Wardens on various Campsites around the UK so were otherwise engaged from March of each year right up to early Novenmber and outside of those periods, for anyone who knows what the UK weather is like during the Autumn and Winter, Derbyshire is not the place to be as the roads often get flooded or closed when the snow arrives. Although if you are hardy outdoor enthusiasts and hill walkers, a little bit of wind, rain, fog, frost, ice and snow would not necessarily be a major issue but, we had a choice to make, stick to the freezing cold of the UK during these wintery periods or jog off to our ‘Bolt Hole’ in Southern Spain and enjoy a much more temperate winter climate, where we could walk around in shorts, tee-shirts and flip-flops and paddle in the clear blue Mediterranean sea……… decisions, decisions 🤔

But now, thanks to a combination of both Brexit and Covid-19 (said with a tone of sarcasm in my voice), we now find ourselves back in the UK for a period of time. Fortunately though, as many of my regular readers are already aware, we are now retired and so can make much better use of all of the free time available to us. Nowadays, with not having to worry about work related time restrictions, or having a house here in the UK to maintain, no children’s schooling to worry about, bless them they have now all grown up and got lives of their own to manage and get on with, so we have no limitations to our travel periods due to school ‘terms’ and of course with Covid travel restrictions now lifting progressively, we find that we have the opportunity to get out and about and explore where we want to. And so it is, that we now find ourselves just 9 miles away from Buxton which has given us an opportunity at long last to visit the Town to see what all the fuss is about, being so close it would be rude not to.

So what do we know about Buxton, well it is, as already stated, a ‘Spa’ Town and is also, allegedly that is, the highest Market Town in England, being some 1,000 feet (307m) above sea level. Again, allegedly, it is purportedly the ‘Centre’ of England and, for English citizens of a certain age era, something that you may, or may not know, is that it is also the birth place of TV actor, Tim Brooke-Taylor (of ‘Goodies’ fame) and the Radio One Pop Music Broadcaster, Dave Lee Travis, amongst a handful of other notable people that personally I have never actually ever heard of 🤔 However, what a lot of people may also not know is that a Canadian Scientist, Frederick Banting, stayed for a period in a Buxton Hospital, recovering from injuries that he sustained during WWI, and he went on to invent ‘Insulin’ as a treatment for Diabetes and subsequently won a ‘Nobel Prize’, not that spending time in a Buxton hospital had anything to do with his Scientific achievement of course, but another nice link to have with our Canadian friends 👍 Lets face it, with more recent events and decisions that have been made we appear to be losing more and more continental freindships, especially with our much closer European neighbours 😢

Now Buxton was actually quite a ‘hip’ place to be, in the 60’s & 70’s, with the ‘Beatles’ playing at the ‘Pavilion Gardens’ and popular as a festival venue it also attracted acts such as ‘Rod Stewart’, ‘Mungo Jerry’ and the band ‘Fleetwood Mac’, so perhaps I should paint a few brightly coloured flowers all over the ‘Little Fokker’ and a few ‘Peace and Love’ symbols just to sort of blend in. Now seeing that I have mentioned the ‘Pavilion Gardens’, which is still one of the major attractions in the town today, I better just mention that it dates back to 1871 and is a Grade II listed building which is still very much used today for a whole host of things, from having indoor artisan retail outlets, Cafes, a large garden centre and a venue for Wedding Receptions, although currently, part of it is being used as the Town’s Covid Testing and Vaccination Centre, but although the buildings are an attraction in their own right they sit within 23 Acres of meticulously maintained landscaped gardens freely accessible to the public. Now didn’t I tell you in a previous ramble that Google was fast becoming my new best friend 😁 Of course there are a lot more ‘Touristy’ type things to do in and around the area depending on your individual interests, from Museums, Historical Landmarks, Caves and Caverns and of course dozens of walks in the Peaks themselves so you will be spoilt for choice.

Historical Buildings being utilised for more urgent Modern Requirements !

We had elected to visit Buxton on a Monday for two reasons, with Covid restrictions eased and the Tourist season underway, going on a weekend would probably have meant that it would have been very busy and the car parks pretty full, going on a weekday meant that people would be back at work, or working from home, and children were now back at school. I had used ‘Google Maps’ to identify potential parking spots that would accommodate the ‘Little Fokker’ and was pleased to discover that there was a car park at Pavilion Gardens, so we would have the park itself to roam around in with the town itself being only a five minute walk away, which was pretty good so that Shazza and her still poorly groin strain would not have to suffer too much, we would be close enough to come back to the van if we needed to. The parking spaces looked pretty tight so we needed to get there early to have a chance of finding a decent space.

Now the words ‘Alarm Clock’ have become swear words in our new lives of freedom, we try not to be constrained by time, times that we have to get up, or times to be anywhere in particular, but, on saying that, sometimes needs must. “What time should we set the Alarm Clock for ?” Shazza asked, well that was the first pound coin into the swear box, and then later as we went to bed I, without thinking, said, “Have you set the Alarm ?”, so that was another pound coin into the swear box, although I was a bit niffed as it should only have been half the cost of the fine, as I only used the one word and not the two 🙄 I presented, what I considered to be, a very strong defence to Judge Shazza, but she remained unmoved and was having none of it, “Pay the Fine’ she said sternly “Or suffer the consequences !!”, now that probably meant having to prepare and cook my own lunch and dinners for an unspecified period, of course I was more than capable of doing that, so I could have chosen to have rebelled, but come on, you already know the outcome, I paid the fine 😁

It was quite a cold morning and the sun was a mere haze, struggling to break through the cloud, it was the first time this trip where it was necessary to wear much warmer clothing, I simply chose a thicker hoodie top but Shazza needed her quilted coat as we went first to explore the town. The first impressions were good, as we walked passed the iconic Pavilion Gardens buildings and bandstand then out the other side of the gardens towards the towns High Street. We passed many of the historical buildings that housed the ‘Natural Mineral Bathhouse’, the ‘Visitor Centre’ and St Anne’s Well and then crossed a busy main road into the pedestrianised and more modern part of the town.

Wouldn’t fancy having to clean all those windows !!

Superb building housing the ‘Natural Mineral Baths’, although not open because of you know what !

Buxton Visitor Centre (Not the Tourist Information Office)

Love how they have kept the old gas lamp features, although fitted with more modern electric light bulbs these days.

Now, in respect of the town itself, I have to be fair with my criticism of this part of Buxton, first, we are not generally people who enjoy looking around shops anyway, unless we particularly need something so it is usually just a case of a quick scurry around to get the flavour of the place. But secondly, Covid restrictions have ravaged this town, much like very many others, and so the number of small artisan retailers that had been stricken financially by the Pandemic was obvious, the closed doors with their billboards that reflected properties ‘For Sale’ or ‘For Lease’ and the artisan cafe’s that although open, did not have outdoor seating areas although they were still trying to sell ‘takeaway’ coffee and snacks, it really was quite sad to see really but we imagined that this would be the same scene in many other places around the Country, let alone Europe and the wider Global communties. However, the long cold Winter which had extended through the majority of Spring had turned this, usually bright and colourful town, with its abundance of floral decorations, into a sombre looking wasteland of emptiness. It looked bleak, sombre and lacked any sort of visual tourist attraction.

We needed to purchase a couple of Birthday cards and get them into the Post Box, we wandered into a small undercover shopping mall, which at least provided some much welcomed warmth, and in here we discovered where the more modern high street retailers were tucked away, leaving the outside shopping areas for the much smaller independent stores to operate. We got our Cards and fortunately, although she was not particularly looking for it, Shazza also came across a ‘Plant Based’ products store, somewhere where she could buy her supply of assorted Nuts, Grains, Dried Fruits, Herbs and Spices and in large bulk packaging, which were very much cheaper than the much smaller packaged items that were available in the Supermarkets. We left the shopping mall by a different entrance and into a rather looking barren area of back streets, fortunately a couple of elderly, local looking women, followed us out, “What is the best way back to the High Street ?” I asked, they gave us directions and said, in a rather dower and disparaging manner, “You won’t find much there”. We made our way back into the pedestrianised part of the High Street, we discovered that we had already walked the majority of it anyway so we headed back and once again, although not pre-planned, we came across a General Hardware Store, one of those places that sold almost every household piece of equipment that you would ever need, from a Garden Shovel, Pots and Pans, Washing Lines and clothes pegs, to Toilet Rolls and, well everything else under the sun really, I loved these type of stores and could spend a fortune in them which is why Shazza made me stand outside with the shopping bags and wait for her to come back out, like a naughty schoolboy, well I guess if she hadn’t then that would have been this months budget blown to smithereens after what, so far, has been yet another good months saving. We needed to replace some of our oven trays, the non-stick variety, our existing ones had lost their non-stick coating aeons ago and we had kept saying that we needed new ones but never actually got around to it. Well actually, as the ‘Primary’ washer upper in the van, it was me that kept continually complaining about the effort it was taking to get the baked on foodstuffs off the offending articles, but now, with the purchase of these new oven trays, any attempts to get out of the washing up with my constant complaining has just gone out of the window, will I never learn 🤔

We decided to go back to the van to offload our shopping purchases but before doing so I thought that I would take Shazza to a ‘Plant Based’ Bistro for lunch as a treat, I had found it when I was researching things to do and see in Buxton although I had not mentioned it to her, it wasn’t far from the Main High Street and it did reflect, on-line, it’s opening hours. However, once we arrived it was clear to see that they had no outside seating area and as Covid restrictions do not, as yet, permit eating inside establisments, the place was still closed for business, oh well, its the thought that counts I suppose, although that was no consolation. We returned to the van, we were glad that we had made the decision to arrive early as the car park was now full, we sat and ate a quick snack lunch and enjoyed a warming mug of coffee, we had paid for an ‘All Day’ parking ticket, a little over £5, so we had no time constraints and so could spend the afternoon, or part of it, wandering around the large manicured park at our leisure. Fortunately the sun was starting to break its way through the cloud and it was certainly a lot brighter than it had been earlier, but that sunshine had not, as yet, transformed itself into any form of any real heat source but we were not complaining as at least it had remained dry.

Before we did a walk around the main Pavilions Gardens we found another park, come woodland and meadow walk, just across the road from where we were parked, so we decided to take a look at that first and were glad that we did, it was so peaceful and beautiful.

The Park outside the ‘Pavilion Gardens Park’. It was so very peaceful here even though it was only a stone’s throw away from the busy A53 main road

The pretty and ornate road bridge that carried traffic across this gentle flowing stream.

The Park outside the ‘Pavilion Gardens Park’. It was so very peaceful here even though it was only a stone’s throw away from the busy A53 main road

Well that really was a nice find and the actual formal Pavilion Gardens, which we were about to walk around, would certainly have a lot to live up to. We could feel the temperature beginning to rise, which is always appreciated, but that had the adverse effect of course of bringing more and more people out to enjoy the wide open green spaces and potentially mean that we would have to think about having to put our face masks back on. We did notice however, that it was more of the elderly generation that actually were wearing face masks, even though it was the majority of that age group that had been vaccinated with at least their first dose and many now having had both their anti-covid doses ? The younger element didn’t appear to be too bothered about wearing face coverings, not that their was any legal requirement to do so, and I guess they were outside in the fresh air, so provided they were maintaining the social distancing requirements then I guess they felt safe. We can certainly fully understand that ethos, and the Scientists themselves say that being outside is better than being inside, hence the non-opening of catering establisments that only have indoor facilities, but on saying that, with coughs and sneezing still very much in evidence from seasonal colds, chest infections, smoker’s coughs etc. and with fairly strong breezes to carry those liquid particles, I do still question the two-metre safe distance theory 🤔 But I guess the only thing that we can do is to take care of our own health and safety and do what we feel is the right thing for ourselves, but we now find ourselves asking the question, ‘What Category Do We Fit Into ?’, the middle-aged or the elderly generation 🤔 but honestly, please do not feel obliged to offer any thoughts on the matter in the comments section 😁

The Pavilion Gardens were divided, by a fence, into two separate areas, one that had a boating lake and large children’s play area which combined with a fitness equipment area, so whilst the kids were exercising on their play equipment the adults did not have to feel left out.

Just one of the many water features

We started on the Boating lake side, above us was a footpath that led into the other half of the gardens

The top part of the Boating lake overlooked by some lovely, expensive looking houses. A two-bedroom apartment was being advertised for £350k so I wouldn’t want to even think how much properties like these would cost ?

Our observations only scored 4 out of 12 🙄

Always good to see the little Ducklings

Either I am taking far too many photo’s or Shazza’s groin strain is getting better as she is across the other side of the boating lake

Back across to the other side of the Gardens

So, after a couple or three cheeky sit down breaks, not necessarily to rest Shazza’s leg, more just to enjoy the scenery around us and to do a spot of people watching, as you do, but that was it. Buxton had redeemed itself in our eyes, although the town itself had nothing much to pull us back again, the beautiful parks where town and country blended into each other, quite seamlessly, were certainly what would score this place highly overall, that is if we were doing an official tourist review of the place. I guess if a lot of the public tourist attractions were fully open, and the colourful blooms were out, along with the access to other nearby attractions, then we can truly see the tourist attraction to Buxton and the wider but more local Peak District area. We would certainly return to the area again, if only to complete some of the hill walks and climbs that we have missed out on this time around, as well as doing the underground tour of the Cavern and taking a look around the woodland trails at Buxton Country Park, just outside the town. But we still have a couple of days left here before we head across the border into Wales, so depending on the weather we may yet still get to explore a little more of this area. Unfortunately, the ‘Works of Fiction’ have forecast rain for the remainder of our time here, which may mean just having to spend some time catching up with some laundry, doing a re-stock on our provisions and perhaps topping up with some Diesel, although we do still have half a tank 🤔

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