Bakewell, Derbyshire

Another lovely place to visit if ever you are in Derbyshire is the small market town of Bakewell. This is the Derbyshire Dales area of the Peak District National Park and is famous for three types of cakes: the Bakewell Pudding, the Bakewell Tart and the Bakewell Cake (AKA Cherry Bakewell). The tart is the most famous by name, and consists of shortcrust pastry with a layer of jam and frangipane on top, but what most people think of as Bakewell Tart is actually a Bakewell Cake, which is much the same as the tart, but with a layer of icing and a glace cherry on top. The Bakewell Pudding is supposed to be the most traditional of the three, and is certainly the ugliest. It is made of puff pastry spread with a layer of jam and then a mixture of eggs, almonds, butter and sugar. It looks like a big, blobby brown jam tart, or a very badly made pizza. Don't let the appearance put you off - it is lovely with a cup of tea.

If you walk around the town, you will see various different shops all claiming to be the originators of one or other of these types of cake.

The town itself is very pleasant to walk around, as it has many old fashioned stone houses and shops. There is also a nice walk along the river Wye, where you can feed the ducks, geese, moorhens and trout and see the five-arched 13th Century stone bridge.

Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire

I'm posting from the UK. I arrived on the 8th of August and have had a very busy time over the last ten days. Mostly, I've been doing things for mum and dad - things that they find hard to do in their advanced years, like hack down the undergrowth in the back garden and programme digital TVs. However, I have managed to get out and about a few times, though this year it has all been inside Derbyshire, as I haven't had the time (or to be honest, the energy) to venture further afield.

One of the lovely places I have been to this time is Hardwick Hall, which was built by the legendary Bess of Hardwick. I'm not going to give her complete bio here (you can check it on Wikipedia), suffice to say that she is one of Derbyshire's most famous figures - a 4-times married contemporary of Elizabeth I, who was famed for building houses and being fabulously rich at a time when women were generally not powerful. Visiting the old and new halls at Hardwick is a fine day out for anyone. The new hall is beautifully decorated with the largest collection of tapestries held by a private family in the UK. The old hall (which is actually only three years older than the new hall) is now just a shell of masonary, but you can climb up to the top for spectacular views of the Peak District countryside. I suffer from vertigo, but I managed it! Anyway, once again, the pictures will tell the story.