The first and coldest excursion

Right, this is as far back as I'm going.

There's something very special about being far enough away from [too much] civilisation that you can stand still and hear your own heart beating in your chest more loudly than anything but the [freezing cold] wind whistling past your ears. I never used to appreciate the dampened quiet of the countryside, but now I'm kind of addicted!

With this in mind and wanting to explore the Peak District more, we planned our first trip of the year (with all of the children). We chose the Manifold Valley as our destination which boasts a disappearing river and a cave (Thor's Cave to be precise and it's up a bloody cliff!) The date of this bold first walk? 20th February. Brr. 

Click image to zoom

We're pretty organised people as a rule, but we learned a lot from this trip. Much of it is *slap forehead for not thinking of it already* type stuff, but hey; it is sometimes stressful when the girls arrive for the weekend and we just want to LEAVE THE HOUSE. Here are a few items we can now tick off our mental list of stuff to bear in mind for future trips.

• Lesson one: check weather where you are going. Just because it's sunny and mild where you are DOES NOT MEAN IT IS WHERE YOU ARE GOING! 
• Lesson two: locate on O.S. map where you are going and remember how to read grid references BEFORE YOU GO! 
• Lesson three: take hats/scarves/gloves/thermals for the small people because they feel the cold more quickly and savagely than you. 
• Lesson four: check baby changing facilities at the pub where you plan to eat lunch at prior to arrival. 
• Lesson five: do not feed your son a ridiculous quantity of cherries the day before planned expedition unless you have learned lesson four.

All that aside, as well as: the greyness, the sheer drops on parts of the route, the squelchy muddiness for the duration, the temperature that had brass monkeys talking nervously amongst themselves and the seemingly never ending uphill climbs, it was enjoyed by the majority! Did we mention there was snow? THERE WAS SNOW!

We're pleased that we made sure everyone had proper walking footwear and coats (without these we wouldn't have made it out of the car!) We did also remember to pack a deck of cards which kept the girls entertained while we waited for our food. Coincidentally, this was Aoife's favourite of the walks we've done so far making it, by default, Roisin's least favourite.

Hindsight is a glorious thing and has served us well on trips made since then. AND NOW IT'S NOT WINTER ANYMORE WOOOOOH!