This was our second visit to catch up with Heather's brother, his wife and two kids since they moved from Derbyshire to Cornwall in 2017. Our journey started from Derby catching the 1628 CrossCountry service to Exeter St David's a journey of just under three and a quarter hours. Our hotel for the night, the Premier Inn, was opposite St David's station so there was no need for a long walk into the city centre. We were soon unpacked and ready for dinner and maybe ...

Having visited North Norfolk many times the one thing that never seems to get better is the drive across from the East Midlands via the A52 and A17 to reach Kings Lynn which provides a gateway to this rather nice part of England. We had booked accommodation at The Black Lion pub in Walsingham for two nights before Christmas primarily to see the Thursford Christmas Spectacular, but this break also gave us a chance to catch up with our good friends Tim & Geo...

It has become a bit of a tradition that rather than buying gifts for each other at birthdays we would buy a weekend away and for Heather's **th birthday (I dare not mention which one, but it is closer to 50 than 40) we were off to Filey! The trains were a little bit awry when we arrived at Derby station and instead of catching the 1625 service to Sheffield we caught the late running 1613 service through to York. This made what would have been a zero minute con...

The trip across to Wainfleet, our Lincolnshire base for two nights, seemed to take ages by train as having left Derby at just after 16.00 we were not in in our pub/hotel accommodation until 19.00. Three hours to travel around 80 miles! The Woolpack Inn in Wainfleet gave us a fairly compact but adequate room that had views over the market place and was five minutes walk from the station. After our evening meal at the pub we were entertained (?) by the Friday nig...

Having been told by Heather to be at Derby railway station for 16.30 on the Friday afternoon for my 'surprise' birthday weekend away I had already narrowed possible destinations down to a few options based on the departure board - we were soon on board the 16.36 train to Cardiff Central. We were also staying on the train for the whole journey so would be arriving into the Welsh capital at a little after 19.30 and just in time for dinner . . . . having thought abo...