A Bath in Matlock?

I liked this window...enough said

17th July 2010

Bath Time is never a favourite time in the Shiltonpig household...and thats just Mr Shiltonpig. Josh on the other hand is still at that stage where he gets confused and thinks the bath is just one big toilet...but out of common decency I will not bore you with any more of those details. So when we found out we were going to Matlock Bath for a day visit you will forgive us for being a little scared. It was comforting to find out upon arrival that Matlock Bath is actually the name of the place and no bathing

At least Josh would have been safe in 1965

would actually be required. Having said that if you look at the photo to the right you will see where the river flooded in 1965 and is almost as tall as Josh on Mr Shiltonpigs head! Now its fair to say that Matlock has a lot of history being famous for its healing water...one cache took you to where the spa water comes out and trust me you would not want to drink from that particular spot. Queen Victoria in the early 1830s visited here and I wonder whether she tasted it..ho hum I wonder. Of course it was Saturday morning and while caching and the beauty of the area was calling we had to get our priorities right...breakfast at Wetherspoons....surely the

An ususual species of bush

greatest breakfast on these fine British shores? Although if the owner is reading this blog...please reduce the brekkie back down 20p please. These geocachers are skint! Anyway a cache by a bandstand provided us with an opportunity to watch some cub scouts attempt to play mini golf....attempt being the correct word in this instance. Now please don't be offended citizens of Matlock when we also did a few caches on the outskirts of the town...one of which was a Curiousities of Derbyshire cache which took us a long wall...granted the wall in China need not worry yet, but it was still a long wall. What

Josh was thrilled with the flowers

was special about this wall was it was made with the middle bit of mill stones. Yes you have guessed it the wall has huge holes in it...what next walls made out of the middle of polo mints? A traffic warden was looming around where we had parked so it was time to make a move before we ended up with a ticket. Next up took us to a village called Lea...now it appears that Florence Nightingale once lived here in the 19th century and you can see pictures of her everywhere...one cache took us to a church where she must have been to at some point. It was a lovely little church very atmospheric and a rare thing happened to Mr Shiltonpig while he was there...

Would have made a great prison for Josh!

some walkers were actually nice to him. This threw him off guard and was unsure what exactly to do lol. Josh by this time had gone to sleep and we could have done with Florence to look over him while we went caching, sadly she had passed away many years ago. Well at least I can thank her as she ended up being used in Mr Shiltonpigs favourite film...Back to the Future....the classic line where Doc Brown talks about "the Florence Nightingale effect" to Marty McFly. So we left Matlock still dry and several caches to our name. A thoroughly pleasant Derbyshire day out it was indeed.