A visit to Derbyshire and Devon

We went south for a few days last week. On the way we visited Derbyshire, a beautiful county. We had a busy time. We started out at a sculpture exhibition at Chatsworth (which Wendy suspects was Mr Darcy's home in the recent film of Pride and Prejudice). It was one of the most impressive outdoor sculpture gardens we have ever seen. Damien Hirst had his towering pregnant woman there, Manolo Valdes had his rotund metal female, Anish Kapoor with his round (i find boring) metal ball objects, and Lynn Cartwright with two beautiful metal sculptures, one a dog and one her typical square headed couples. The contrast of these modern sculptures against the soft English gardens was breathtaking! The following day went up into the Peak District for walks around the gritstone crag at Stanage Edge and at Mam Tor, an iron age fort overlooking Castleton and Hope Valley. Stanage Edge is where ROb used to rock climb, and is also where Robinhood reportedly hid out in one of it's caves many moons ago. We also descended 300 ft into the Blue John mine just outside Castleton. 244 steps down and 244 steps back up, and then Rob made Wendy climb to the top of another peak to check out the surrounding gorges... And then we drove south to Devon to surprise Robs brother, Angus, for his birthday. Fun and crazy night!