Saturday started with a few showers and a partial thaw in the fields at our peak district cottages but luckily the dogs managed to get away without a hosing.  After that the sun came back out and the temperature dropped.  An email from friend in Yorkshire advised me they had woken up to a bit of the white stuff which was the last thing they needed as it was a big day in their village with the Christmas lights being switched on.  One cottage due to arrive later in the day, luckily they had advised us of their expected time so we could plan our day. Later in the morning I had some potential guests call in to look at the cottages and after coffee we decided to go to Ashbourne for the afternoon.  We took the dogs with us in case we had time for a short walk and found somewhere to park in Ashbourne.  With it being a Saturday in December we weren’t sure if it would be too busy but as Ashbourne doesn’t have any of the large chains I thought it would be OK.  It was busy but not as busy as Chris thought but one thing that is noticeable is that there are very few empty shops, in fact I can’t remember any.  It reminds me of a town near where we used to live that survived on the fact that it had a lot of individual shops rather than the usual chains.  We enjoyed our wander around the town, especially all the deli’s and food shops for which Ashbourne is developing a reputation and we made a number of purchases for Christmas.  After a late lunch we headed back to the car which was parked where the Tissington Trail finished in town so we took the dogs for a short walk along the trail, most of which was through a series of tunnels.  We then had a quick visit to the small out of town shopping complex where we had a look around the shops that included Majestic Wine (no tastings today), M and S Food hall and a small Homebase before heading home.  Guests arrived about 8pm.