Derbyshire 35 - From Chesterfield to Melbourne in a day/a new bench/happiness has got lost up a side street

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D Day Minus 60 . Where in the world is Suzy the motorhome?. She is still sitting on the drive. She hasn't come out with us to day as we plan our trip from Chesterfield to Melbourne. Melbourne in Derbyshire that is. Not the one half way round the world. We needed to get out . Two months before our next holidays seem a long to wait. We don't want to travel far. We just want to find somewhere on the doorstep to break the monotony of early morning swims, of visits to the gym, of the grind of weekly shopping and to escape the summer weather. Sion of course wonders why we are not packing bags with clothes and I try to explain Melbourne in Derbyshire not Melbourne in Australia . I failed miserably and gave up. Packed him up and told him to be quiet or we would leave him in Suzy .

As July rumbles on and we are on the cusp of August the Gulf Stream has hunkered itself down far south of us. Normally it would be stuck between our small isle and Greenland holding decent summer weather down over us. Instead the hot weather is in mainland Spain and Portugal and the South of France causing the tinder dry grasses to set alight. It hovers over the Balaeric Islands and Southern Italy bringing with it unseasonal temperatures of over 43 degrees. We need to keep going up to Suzy. Another cupboard needs emptying and checking. This time the Crossword books and my reading materials . Still more to buy before we leave for Italy. It feels never ending - we empty a cupboard , we fill it before we empty it again.

We visit a garden centre and buy a bench for the garden. Whilst Glenn takes it out of the packaging and turns his hands to putting it together I check the sweet box . I make a list. We need sweets before we leave . Packets and packets of them. They need to last through France, Germany and Italy. Small mundane jobs but they take my mind off travel and fill my head with something different. Things happen. Things change and I need something to take my overflowing mind off them.

D Day minus 55 - My head still reels as we plant clematis in the garden. We check medicine boxes. There is much to do and I struggle to get my head around things. I dont sleep well these days. Waking in the middle of the night. Thoughts are going round like some of whirlpool in my head. I wake feeling angry and frustrated and thinking that life is not fair . I struggle to make sense of things - that is when going up to Suzy and opening another cupboard and checking the contents helps. I plan. We plan . How about making Hever our destination on the way down to the tunnel on the Friday? It sounds like a good idea . We need a local campsite and we might just get Bodiam in on the way to the tunnel . We need to order our toll box. Plenty of time for that . A cooker needs a touch of seeing to before that. Before we leave the road tax bill arrives for the car. A lot of money to pay for potholed roads. When was the last time you saw a road being resurfaced? The insurance bill then arrives . At least that pays for something I guess and we have to pay it. Mum used to say when things go wrong they go wrong in threes. So we wait for the next thing to make us despair . It's a major one but that's another story. As mum would say "It never rains but it pours" We need to get out to take our minds off Italy and life in general.

So we drive in the direction of Melbourne . I have never seen Melbourne. In fact, until a few years ago I had never heard of it. A trip to Moto GP years ago took us through Melbourne . The house Melbourne Hall opens early in the week but two of the days are my new working days and are guided tours so we decided to go on a non working day when we could wander round the house at our own pace and enjoy a summer garden.

However - did we get there? We stopped first for dinner near the Canal Wharf at Shardlow just outside of Derby. Shardlow was an important late 18th century river port for the transshipment of goods to and from the River Trent to the Trent and Mersey Canal during its heyday from the 1770s to the 1840s. It became known as the "Rural Rotterdam and the Little Liverpool. Today Shardlow is considered Britains most complete surviving example of a canal village. We sat in the pub the Malt Shovel and ate bacon and chicken salads with delicious home cooked chips with one of the best steak pies I have tasted for a long time.

After we ate we headed for Melbourne Hall driving over Swarkstone Bridge which is a medieval bridge crossing the River Trent. The bridge was built in the 13th century to cross the river and the surrounding marshes. The bridge and causeway was part of the King's highway between Derby and Coventry . The bridge is just under a mile long with 17 arches six of which are unaltered since Medieval times and is built in local sandstone. It is the longest inland bridge in England. In 1745, Swarkestone Bridge was the southernmost point of Bonny Prince Charlie's advance on London in his attempt to claim the British throne.

Arriving in Melbourne we found a pretty town with many independent shops lining its streets. What we found too were cars parked everywhere . The car park near to Melbourne Hall was full to heaving. We drove in at the side of a Norman church . No parking . Who would have thought so many people would want to visit the hall and its gardens today? In the end we gave up and decided to try it again on another day . Our plan to take our minds off travel abroad and life in general went up in smoke as we gave up and drove home.

I laughed at my thought for the day which said "Ever since happiness heard my name , it has been running through the streets trying to find me" I reckon after today it went up a side street and got lost .

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