Nottinghamshire

This was always going to be the easiest county, as Simon and Fiona live there and so could plan everything for me. And so it turned out but much better than anyone could have hoped. Given it was a bank holiday weekend in England, it would have been a fair assumption that the weather would be rubbish. As it was it couldn’t have been nicer.

On Saturday we headed into Nottingham itself. More to go and see the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, but as we had an hour to kill we wandered down to the Trip to Jerusalem, a very old pub which is actually built into some limestone caves.

On Sunday we managed to get out relatively early (well by 11ish anyway) and drove the few miles to the Major Oak in Sherwood Forest. It’s a really well done, understated set of walks through the ancient Sherwood Forest that is well worth a visit. The tree itself is now so old and big that it only survives with props and cables holding it up. Things were beginning to get very busy as lunchtime approached so we left the forest behind and headed to… another forest. This time it was Sherwood Pines, which is set up as a rather more active area with monkey ropes, zip wires and bike rentals being the order of the day. Obviously not for us, we just had our picnic lunch and got sunburnt. In May, sunburnt, things were just great!

Because we were doing so well, already three local sights done, we headed on for a fourth to the Papplewick Pumping Station which is a Victorian steam pump which used to send water into Nottingham from underground sources. It doesn’t often fire up these days but on Bank Holidays it does and quite a sight it makes, the pumps themselves are hugely impressive feats of engineering.

The day was rounded off with a barbeque in the back garden. Honestly, you don’t get much better long weekends than this.

Update…Photos uploaded.