A Weekend in the Countryside

Last weekend, my partner and I decided to escape the city and spend two days in the Peak District, a national park in the north of England. We had been talking about going for months — one of those ideas that keeps getting postponed because something more urgent always comes up. This time, we actually booked it.

We left early on Saturday morning to avoid the worst of the traffic. Even so, the motorway was busy for the first hour. My partner drove while I looked out of the window and watched the city slowly give way to fields. The sky was a pale grey, but the weather forecast had promised that it would improve.

We arrived at our accommodation around eleven o'clock — a small bed and breakfast on the edge of a village called Castleton. The couple who ran it were friendly and clearly knew the area well. Over tea in the kitchen, they spread out a walking map and pointed out their favourite routes. They warned us that Mam Tor could be muddy after recent rain and suggested we bring something waterproof. We had not brought anything waterproof.

We decided to attempt Mam Tor anyway. The path started easily enough, following a dry stone wall up through fields of short grass. After about twenty minutes, it became steeper and rockier, and the mud the hosts had mentioned became a reality. By the time we reached the ridge, we were both breathing hard and our boots were considerably dirtier than when we had started.

But the view from the top made all of it worthwhile. The Peak District stretched out around us in every direction — dark green hills, patches of moorland, small villages in the valleys below. There was a strong wind up there that made conversation difficult, but neither of us wanted to say anything much anyway. We just stood and looked.

On the way back down, the clouds that had been gathering to the west finally arrived. The rain started lightly, then became heavier. We walked faster, which turned out to be a mistake on a muddy path, and by the time we reached the bottom we were both thoroughly wet. We found a pub in the village that was warm and full of other walkers who had made similar miscalculations about the weather. We ordered soup and bread and sat by the window watching the rain.

We talked for a long time over lunch — about the walk, about work, about things we had been meaning to discuss for weeks but had not found the time for. There is something about being away from ordinary surroundings that makes certain conversations easier.

Sunday was slower. We slept until eight, had a full breakfast at the B&B, and then drove to a nearby village that our hosts had recommended. It had a small museum about the history of farming in the region, which turned out to be more interesting than either of us had expected. There was an exhibition about the local lead mining industry that had once employed most of the valley. The photographs were striking — men and women in heavy working clothes, landscapes that had been transformed by industry and then, gradually, reclaimed by nature.

We walked around the village afterwards, stopped at a market, and bought two jars of homemade damson jam. We ate lunch at a small café. By two o'clock, neither of us wanted to leave.

The drive home took longer than the drive up. We sat in slow traffic on the motorway for forty minutes, but it did not feel like a problem. The weekend had given us something to return from, which is not always the case. Some trips leave you feeling as though you never quite arrived. This one did not.