In the end I decided to just drive into Ashbourne and leave the bike firmly on the rack. It wasn’t a very pleasant morning weather wise, dull, warm and close which confirmed the decision. First job on the agenda was breakfast, which was duly procured at one of the many cafes, in fact if you don’t want a coffee or a haircut in Ashbourne there’s a very limited choice! A full English and Americano with milk went down very well before I had a wander round the town.
Ashbourne seems to have a bit of an identity crisis, tourist oriented in some ways but trying to be local in others. The architecture is also very mixed (see the photos below). It didn’t take that long to walk round before I decided another coffee was needed* and that had to be accompanied by some coffee cake! Visits to the green grocers, deli and butchers provided the food restock I needed to last out the week.
Back on site, while I was sitting outside eating lunch, a smallish motorhome pulled into the vacant pitch opposite. Having sorted themselves out and put their two dogs outside they disappeared inside leaving the smaller pooch constantly whining away. It only stopped when they came out and eventually I gave up and went inside (the weather was starting to look a bit iffy anyway with a likelihood of rain). A while later they decided, for some reason, to up sticks and move to another pitch, much to my relief. Unfortunately they didn’t move all that far and the dogs were barking on and off most of the afternoon. It’s not really their fault as such but if your dogs are going to cause a constant disturbance on site you should be considering whether you’re doing the right thing taking them away.
*I’d reached the point of needing to take pain killers as my back was sore.
For a few minutes it looked like there wouldn’t be any pictures today as the camera and app wouldn’t let me access all of them (the phone and camera connect over WiFi). It’s been a bit iffy all week so I might look at alternatives. We got there after a dozen or so attempts.
That architecture is definitely mixed, sometimes in one building:
This caught my eye, not so much for its artistic qualities but it would be interesting to reproduce on a model railway!
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