I needed to visit my brother at Thurnscoe today and so I caught the 203 Wombwell bus; it's a lovely route, passing through the pretty villages of Brodsworth, Hooton Pagnell, and Clayton. After staying for nearly an hour I set off heading towards the site of the old sewage farm which is looking quite a bit different since the last time I was there. I climbed up to Billingley and then went down the lane and the disused road to Darfield to catch the bus back to Doncaster.
When it's busy it can take the bus a long time to get into Matlock Bus Station and so today I got off at the bottom of the steep hill in Matlock Green and went exploring in the area near to the church.
The church was open and so I went inside, there's nothing particularly interesting to look at; I was joined by a fellow Doncastrian though, now living in the local area, and we chatted for a few minutes.
The food and drink festival was being held in Hall Leys Park and from this area I was able to easily access the park. I was disappointed with the festival, the last time I visited about ten years ago there were many more stalls, inside two large marquees.
I went into the town and looked in the charity shops and then caught a bus to Matlock Bath, it was surprisingly quiet for a Saturday with several shops closed. I bought a tub of ice cream and ate it sitting down by the river.
A quick visit to Doncaster Waterfront East Park just beyond the city centre, at the back of the college.. It's an area of formerly derelict and contaminated land that has been temporarily landscapeed prior to the contractors moving in to start construction work. In the meantime though it's open to the public.
There's not much to see, apart from a short walk alongside the riverbank it's just grassed over; there is, however, an old derelict pumphouse surrounded by railings. This is actually quite a nice building, looking like a miniature stately home - I wonder what the long term plans for it are?
I returned to the city centre to do my shopping, going via the Canal Basin.
My first Open Gardens event of the year, visiting Gringley-on-the-Hill, only seventeen miles away in Nottinghamshire. It's a pretty village which I've visited several times before but today I got to visit areas I've not previous seen; there were only six gardens scheduled to be open today, but two of them were actually closed.
The village is hilly and Siobhan, my support worker, struggled a bit; the carpark is at the bottom of a hill and by the time we'd climbed up to community centre to purchase our wristbabds and programmes we were both ready for a sit down and something to eat. Siobhan purchased a sandwich but I got a Gainsborough pasty.
The classic car display was rather disappointing, most of the vehicles were fairly recent...but there were a few nice ones.
