4th of October, 2025 - Kirk Ireton to Ambleside (Lakes District)

 Long driving day today, which turned out to be a good thing because storm Amy was much worse on her second day than on her first! 90 mile an hour winds (with a wind chill factor of about minus4000) and slashing rain.

The good part was, it took a break just as I was heading out of Kirk Ireton, so I said goodbye to my creepy bench buddy and headed off up some narrow little B roads before the storm flooded them all and luckily, I managed to pull over and get a few shots of the Staffordshire countryside before Amy closed in again.

Mostly I had to stick to the larger roads, because the flooding was rife, but that was ok. I had 5 hours to drive anyway, so even without the storm wouldn't have had a lot of time for detouring.

I did, however, take myself into Haworth and to the Bronte Parsonage Museum and the church was Reverend Bronte was the Pastor. Loved it! Haworth is a beautiful town, with lots of hilly, windy, cobbled stone streets and I could just imagine them all walking around town in their old-fashioned dresses. The Bronte girls didn't like being governesses and tried opening their own school but there weren't enough kids around to make a living out of it, so they wrote books and gave themselves male pseudonyms instead. They were the 3 Bell brothers and apparently, in their day, there was quite a stir al the way to London trying to work out who these mysterious Bell fellas were (they kept their initials - Charlotte was Currer Bell, Emily was Ellis Bell and Anne was Acton Bell - clever!). It's a lovely, cozy little place. I liked it a lot.

The Parsonage

The church

Then I headed for the Lakes District, knowing full well that one night won't be enough, but it's all I have, so I'll just have to see as much of the Lakes as I can.

I was excited that my accommodation for tonight is my very own cottage all to myself! YaY! And with a washing machine to do a load and hopefully get it dry overnight. Good luck, but hey, life on the road, ya know?! Turns out, storm Amy put paid to all of that. Got to the cottage, it was lovely, but almost dark by the time I pulled in. The storm had knocked out the electricity, so no lights, no heating, no washing getting done and no internet. We're in the boonies and also, I don't know why, but no phone reception, so it took me about 14 tries of ringing the Letting Agent to get a handyman to come out. He was wearing a T shirt while I was quite literally shivering with chattering teeth. He got the power back on, got the hot water back on (thank you Legend!) and left, well after dark. I just had time to message the Letting Agent and say "yay, all fixed, thank you for sending Dave" before it all went off again, so I went to bed to get warm and prayed that the forecast of tomorrow being much improved is going to prove correct. Brrr.

Bloody Amy.