Martha's Marvellous Munchies

All the best walking blogs have maps on. I finally figured out how to add a route map to mine. If I get time, I'll add them to the previous posts as well, so you can see where I went. So, here are the two walks which made up the next stretch of the NFW. Walk 1  I started from the National Trust property and walked along by the lake, up the hill by the deer park, and down to Staunton Harold reservoir - all very familiar. Calke village postbox featured a highland cow on top. Lake at Calke Abbey Herd of deer   A short stretch on the road took me to Dimminsdale, which was new to me. There are records of mining at the site from the 13th century until the end of the 19th century. It's incredible to think that people worked there for so many hundreds of years. Now it is a secluded landscape of still pools and shaggy trees. Dimminsdale   I crossed a small section of the Staunton Harold estate, then went up a private lane with some rather nice houses. My turning point was where th...

Remember when it was lockdown and we were all stuck in our houses for months on end? Well, way back then I hatched a plan of walking the National Forest Way as a family project. I ordered the map, downloaded the route guides, and we did the first section in 2021: Yoxall to the National Memorial Arboretum (Stage 12). The photos tell me it was a beautiful April day - I was wearing shorts! The 5-mile route was pleasant, across fields and through scraps of woodland, then hopping over the Trent and Mersey Canal into the village of Alrewas. After that we had a hair-raising walk along a pavement right next to the A38 dual carriageway, with cars zipping past at 70mph, but fortunately that was a very short section before we turned off towards the National Memorial Arboretum. Of course we had to celebrate with an ice cream - why else would we finish at the Arboretum instead of starting there?  Smaller boys! Lockdown haircuts! At the finishing point A well-deserved treat There followed a ver...