A few more freckles on my nose

After a lovely afternoon and morning with my parents and sister, climbing Moel Famau and exploring the backstreets of Chester, we headed to the Peak District with the sun shining and the roof down. Even the journey is a holiday, when you're in a Saab 900 Turbo with the roof down - such a beautiful car!

Our first night we cooked - BBQ steak (which took around half an hour to cook rare because our BBQ turned out to be damp) with quick cook noodles, mange tout, green beans, broccoli and sweetcorn. Deeelicious. The greatest quantity of veggies that he's even eaten while camping apparently - I told him he'd obviously never been camping with my brother and his girlfriend, both veggies themselves, and should try that out sometime for veggie versus pot noodle.

Incidentally, did everyone know that 'vegetarian' doesn't come from 'vegetable', but from 'vegetus', Latin for lively or vigorous. According to the Vegetarian Society, though the Oxford English Dictionary apparently disputes this. As reported by Wikipedia. And they used to be called Pythagoreans. I guess Pythagoras was a veggie-eating camper too.

Anyway, minor digression, we were woken up by mooing early on the first morning. Gorgeous cows in the field next door, which delightfully licked snot out of their own noses with their mega long weird tongues, followed up by enormous poos.

We walked two hikes that day, both 'minimum three hours' though we took a long detour on the first one (misinterpretation of the word 'wide'), which required us to follow paths that only sheep should take. Indeed I did take the lead from a kind ram who peered into the mini canyon above me, assuming that if he could get up there, then so could I - and I did just about manage, though I later rejected this assumption when I saw a pair of lambs frollicking happily on a virtually vertical hillside. The scenery was breathtaking, the space and clarity heavenly and peaceful. While it was chilly at night, the day times were warm and spring-like.

The second night we ate out, too tired to cook, besides which it being 8pm on Easter Sunday, little was open. He chose chicken curry and I went for gammon and pineapple, with mash and veggies - tasting as good as my Mama's Easter fare of boiled ham! Very happy-making! :-) I got some odd looks when I asked for mint sauce, but it makes over-boiled pub veggies taste delicious, especially cauliflower.

That night was very chilly, so he built us a fire in our fire basket and we sat warming our cockles until it died down, massaging our tired aching feet and staring up at the stars from time to time. Why, as humans, we ever gravitate to cities, I struggle to understand when I am in a place of such natural beauty and peace, yet I inevitably, eventually, find myself drawn to the greater levels of unexpectedness and randomness that cities hold. Everything in moderation, I guess.

Back home, unpacked, clean house again, the only evidence of being away my state of mind and a few more freckles on my nose.