Christmas Day arrived bright and breezy at our peak district cottages.  We have a routine for Christmas Day when our friends are here.  After breakfast we prepare lunch and put the goose in the oven and usually allow enough time to walk down to the Lathkil Hotel in Over Haddon for a pint and a walk back but we soon realised we hadn’t left ourselves enough time for the walk so we cheated.  We drove down to Over Haddon then did our little’picnic’ walk, dropping down into the Dale then along to Conksbury Bridge and up to the Hotel.  Two other things were different, one, we didn’t take the dogs although it was a lovely day, mainly because Blue seemed to be limping so wasn’t sure if he had overdone it on Saturday and the other thing was the Lathkill was in full flow.  Bearing in mind a month go it was empty it was a remarkable turn around and in fact we haven’t seen it so full for years!  Was so astounded by the amount of water at the clapper bridge forgot to take a photo.  Anyway we enjoyed our walk and drink and lunch was cooked just right!

 Smudge hoping some bits might go his way.  Needless to say he was disappointed!