Mam Tor

We had breakfast as a family at a pub, which is part of a locally successful grouping that has got the population of Stoke-on-Trent chomping at the bit for a table booking. They doled out a good fry up and nice cup of coffee. My sister’s fiancé is a builder and wears a face mask like the ones people use to clear asbestos and industrial waste. I liked seeing it at a gastropub.

After breakfast the sister and I headed to Castleton in the Peak District to walk up Mam Tor. The last time I came to Castleton was in about 1995 on a geography field trip in the first year of high school, when Mrs Butterfield was excited to show us glacial features. Although Mam Tor can be done via a panoramic ridge walk, we did the steeper walk up from below, which was surprisingly knackering, but provided great views.

We drove through Buxton, which is an interesting old spa and market town and known as a gateway to the Peak District. Buxton is somewhere we used to come with my nan to see her old mate Derek, who drove from Sheffield and met us halfway. Nowadays I imagine Buxton to be a town of two halves, both gritty and with some lingering airs and graces. I’m drawn to exploring gritty and bleak places, which seems odd for someone who prefers the heat and the tropics. The human mind works in mysterious ways.

A long drive back to Cambridge in the evening, but thankfully dry and I wasn’t flooded off the roads as I would have been the previous day.