Annual Christmas walk

Last sunday saw the annual Christmas walk take place. This 'event' started as a non-walk every year, inasmuch as we (my brothe Colin and I, and maybe one or two extra), would do a really short walk (around 6 miles ot so), and have a languisingly long lunch (sorry for the aliteration). Anyway, I took to inviting one or two customers, who were also friends, and as word spread over the years, the popularity and numbers have grown. The latest 'band' were twenty-one strong, and here we all are, lined up at the start of the walk. I decided on Chatsworth park, as it's only about 2.5 miles to Baslow village (and a good Italian restaurant called 'Il Lupo'), and no hills for the poor souls to climb!

Striding through the park, they all look like PROPER walkers, don't they?

Here's the band (minue me - I took the picture) standing in front of the impressive Chatsworth house. The fountain was going too, but not just as I took this picture.

Here we are in Il Lupo, waiting to get going on the Christmas lunch. We didn't have the usual turkey dinner, but opted to 'go Italian'. I always find you get enough of the turkey, so this would be a nice change. Everyone seemed to enjoy the food, although the wine was a little on the expensive side for the quality. Thirty quid for a fairly ordinary bottle of Chianti is NOT my idea of how to get customers to return! Apart from the house red, which I tried and found awful, the cheapest bottle was about seventeen pounds, as I recall.

Mind you, the price didn't put SOME people off!!!!!

.....but it DID affect some others rather strangely.....

The day was deemed a success. We were lucky with the weather, as it had given a terrible forecast, but we managed to dodge the rain, being indoors at lunch when it fell quite heavily. The walk was JUST the right length, and we didn't manage to lose anyone.

Roll on 2007.