Monday 9 March 2009

A Red Hot Ferrari of a Weekend...

This weekend saw my lovely man & I head up to Derbyshire for a long weekend....something we have not done for a while having been caught up in all the day to days of life. The key element of this foray was a Ferrari Drive at Donington Park for Jeremy (a birthday present from moi) at 8.30am on Saturday morning which involved an early-ish start (for a weekend away anyway) from our B&B...we arrived (with lots of other drivers and their 'fans') and off Jeremy went for his briefing before we all headed down to the garage - where there were 6 red Ferrari's parked outside! After a familiarisation lap in a Mini Cooper, Jeremy was first up in an amazing Ferrari 360 - we spectators couldn't really see the track but I could see him coming into the straight on each of the three laps and you should have heard that engine scream!! Phwoaaarr...I love a man in a Ferrari...grrrr

In the afternoon we drove into the Peak District National Park and went into Blue John Cavern, which is where 'Blue John' stone is mined from Nov-Feb each year (mainly used for jewellery). Our guide, one of the miners, took the group of six of us 300ft below the surface to see some absolutely spectacular formations - we were able to see coral and fossils from thousands and thousands of years ago when Britain was at the same 'sea' level as Africa too. The trek back up to the entrance was a bit of a challenge for me with the combination of 250 plus narrow steps and the fluctuating oxygen levels (that occur natuarally as a result of the water coming into the caves) but I made it - only to be almost blown away by ferocious (and freezing) winds at the top - windswept can be sexy but this was downright ridiculous! But great to blow away the cobwebs...and then thaw out in the warm car.

Waking up on Sunday morning, we were greeted by beautiful blue skies and decided to head to Crich to visit the Tramway village - if you are into trams this would be fascinating and if it was summer (and the ice cream parlour and the pub were open and serving food) this is probably a good value day out. But by the time we arrived it was rainy, cold and quite blustery (so umbrellas were completely useless) and by the time we'd wandered around for an hour and then had a tram ride up to the top of the hill too see the view, it was snowing! We spent a couple of 'good-natured' hours there but felt well-rewarded by a warming pub lunch in Ripley before heading home...

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