At Bakewell

Having spent two or three days around home and not travelling very far we decided that if it was going to be dryer and brighter today that we would venture out a bit further.  The weather on the local breakfast news looked favourable so off we went to one of our favourite places the little town of Bakewell in Derbyshire.  I've taken you here in several posts before but it is somewhere I never tire of and I hope you don't either.

We were in search of a warm, winter shirt for Paul and new jar labels for the jars of  chutney we made over the weekend.  Dear friends from Nottingham visited us for lunch last Friday and brought more apples from their garden with them. You may remember I wrote about making plum and apple jam with the apples they gave us a few weeks ago, this time we made a spiced apple relish and some apple and prune chutney. 

We had a lovely wander around the town and I took a few photos along the way.

 The water in the River Wye was very high as we crossed over the bridge from the car park on the other side.

 

 It was frothing and cascading over the little water falls as it travelled at quite a rapid pace through the town, past Haddon Hall on its way to the village of Rowsley where it joins the River Derwent.

  It always seems that little bit colder down by the water, where the gulls dip and dive and look for food from passers by.

The metal bridge is festooned with love locks, I had read somewhere that these may have to be removed as they are undermining the structure of the bridge.  For the moment they are still there.

 In the centre of Bakewell are lots of little alleyways and courtyards full of interesting shops.

 We always enjoy mooching around them looking in the shop windows and sometimes venturing inside.

 We managed to get some labels from a kitchen shop

I bet this cafe looks lovely all lit up in the early evening.  I wouldn't want to sit outside  at this time of year though.

 Apparently Hulley's of Baslow have been offering bus services in the Peak District and South Yorkshire since 1921.

 The church of All Saints stands high above the main part of the town.  I wrote about it in a post on 26th August 2013 (link here)  It looks from the scaffolding around the tower as if restoration work is being done.

Many shop windows were decked out with Christmas displays and I was drawn to them like a child to the window of a toy shop.

 

These bears were my favourites standing in the door of a clothing shop.  We went in, we bought a winter shirt for Paul at an eye watering cost but as he's been looking for months for a warm, checked casual shirt that was two inches longer in the sleeve we felt it was worth every penny.  Most shops now stock only standard sizes and those that do offer a longer sleeve length only produce them in blue, grey or white cotton for business and working purposes rather than every day casual and leisure wear.

After that it was time to set out for home, we called at the bookshops at both Hassop and Brierlow Bar on the way home.  Hassop was heaving, mostly in the cafe section, but Brierlow Bar was quiet and peaceful much more conducive for looking at books.