Northern Rambler

I had a decent sleep the previous night. I was starving when I got back from the pub and knocked myself up a couple of burgers. I made short work of my beers and watched some nostalgia films on my i Phone as the snooker finished early. I watched the 1976 remake of King Kong starring Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange. It's by no means a classic but I used to love it when I was younger. Back in 1998, when I was five, my Mam taped BBC's Monster Night special. It was a strange old affair. The show was presented by the comedian Bill Bailey, who was joined by Chris Moyles, Phil Jupitus and Paul Ross. In between their bits they showed films including the aforementioned King Kong and the 1991 Japanese film Godzilla vs King Ghidora. There were some strange segments like 90s comedy duo Lee and Herring's Reasonably Scary Monsters, a Goggle-box-esk programme within a programme. Lee and Herring watch Carol Vorderman present a programme in which she counts down the world's 9 scariest m...

I've been looking forward to May for ages. This was the first of my two camping expeditions of the month. The second will be my cycle trip to the Lakes and the Yorkshire Dales. I haven't mentioned this much on this blog but I am a huge snooker fan. The pinnacle of the sport is the World Championships played over the course of two weeks from late April into early May, always finishing on the bank holiday Monday. The world's best players descend onto the city of Sheffield for a tournament held in the sport's spiritual home, the Crucible Theatre. With Sheffield being situated close to the Peak District, I thought this would be a great opportunity to combine my two passions and tick off some fells prior to going to the snooker.  I booked onto North Lees camp site, just over a mile from Hathersage. Prior to this trip, I'd only visited the Peak District the once. This was in 2020, the summer of Covid. I stayed in the quant old town of Bakewell. I didn't get much walki...