A day out and about

Saturday morning saw us getting up early once more so we could drive up to Ripley for the Grand Opening at our friends' shop. The cats did not approve, especially Missy who knows a Saturday when she see's one and kept giving me reproachful looks as we woke ourselves up. We finally made it out the door at about 08:45 and after diverting briefly to Richard's arrived in the shop at a reasonable 10:30am.

The shop itself was bustling which was good, although it made finding somewhere to stand out of the way a bit difficult. In the end, I excused myself and explored Ripley for crafting opportunities. Right next door was a wool shop where I acquired more sock yarn, but around the corner was a craft shop. In both shops I found varigated cottons suitable for either braiding or crochet...


I'm not sure what I'm going to make from them yet, but they've been added to my perle cotton stash for later use.

In the afternoon, we visited Cromford Mill which while interesting was very much a work in progress as far as museum's go methinks. It was bitterly cold by then, so standing around admiring the remains of the mill wasn't much of an option while the main exhibition was housed in freezing cold room with no heating.

In the end we moved onto Scarthin Books where we were over whelmed by the number of tomes packed into every nook and cranny. Books were stacked everywhere, with shelves from floor to ceiling in every conceivable place. No landing, room or understairs space was neglected and sorting the books into any order appeared to be an optional concept here. Needless to say we spent a bemusing hour or so wandering around the many rooms which make up this bookshop with our senses just flooded with the bookiness of it all.

After a while, we did start to acclimatise and even spotted titles of interest, but in the end we decided not to buy anything and debunked to the little cafe for tea and cake. The cake was very nice, but they forgot to put the hot water in the teapot... We did wonder if this was a quaint custom local to Derbyshire. Suffice it to say we waited to see if a pot of hot water would arrive for a good ten minutes before asking and finally gaining the required additive.

The journey home was interesting as the salt and water spray from the road made keeping the windscreen clear near impossible. We were a happy pair when we finally got home.