This is a bit of a catch-all post. Never mind.

First, a round-up of places that we've briefly visited over the past couple of weeks -- the ones, that is, that don't get a whole post to themselves this time round, but deserve a mention in the pictorial dispatches.

We'll start with Crich. We were first here in April 2022, and it's as pretty as ever:




There's also a lovely cafe/bakery called The Loaf, which does a roaring trade in bread and pastries, and sells coffee roasted in Buxton.


I don't have much from Jacksdale, because we were mostly in the garden centre (good cheese scones). But the light was great that day:


I'm also including IKEA here, which is kind of cheating, as our nearest is in Nottinghamshire rather than Derbyshire... But it's only a stone's throw from Ilkeston, which we also saw quite a bit of on that April 2022 trip:


Ripley is always nice, and an obligatory port of call for fish and chips. I always end up photographing the red brick:






***

Secondly, a bit more from Winster, temporarily our home village. True, there is the eternal problem of excess cars, but otherwise I really like this little place, which is picturesque to the nth degree:









A special shout-out here for a couple of local stalwarts. First, The Miners Standard, the pub at the top of the hill:




We had a great lunch here the other day. (We were all happy with our choices, but Nigel's "poacher's pot", a casserole featuring venison, rabbit, duck, and pheasant, probably took the prize for most original dish.)

The building is reckoned to date back to 1653, and was originally a farmhouse. The booming lead mining industry, however, led to a booming thirst, and these premises were probably one of the first establishments to cater to it. In the heyday of mining, the pub website tells us, there were 37 places in the village where you could buy beer... What?? (There is actually still a second pub in Winster, down in the village itself, but it's only open at certain hours, and up to now we've not corresponded with them.)

The other local hero is the Winster Village Shop. Community-owned since 2005, it's mostly staffed by volunteers, and won the King's Award for Voluntary Service in November 2023. Over half of the lines they carry "are produced or sourced from independent suppliers in and around Derbyshire". We've drawn on them for basic stalwarts, but also for locally made cheese, sourdough bread, pasties, and beer.

Here's to their onward success: