Corinne CrawfordOn the day of our departure from Lincoln, UK, we headed out and planned to take our sweet time meandering our way back to Holyhead in Wales and the ferry terminal to get back to Dublin. We planned on stopping at some site-seeing locations along the way. I had done a little research with the maps and landmarks the night before and had some options for us. The first landmark was Nottingham Castle in Nottingham so we headed that way. Well, between road construction, dodgy directions from the car’s navigation system and indecipherable one-way streets, I ditched the idea before we even got the castle in sight imagining finding a place to park would be a nightmare. First stop- fail. I plugged in next location in the car navigation and got out of the city. The next location, Elvaston Castle Park, was in a smaller town so it seemed like a good bet, but the directions from the car’s navigation took us to the wrong area so I had to program it into my phone and try again. I was driving so I gave my phone to my aunt to navigate but my aunt is challenged in navigation, and she kept missing the times to tell me to make turns and couldn’t figure out if I should be turning left or right so we switched drivers and I navigated while she drove. We found the parking area and discovered that the area was a huge public park on the grounds of an old estate of the Earl of Harrington. It included a manor house, which was not in use and not open to the public, huge gardens and lawns, a pond, chapel and cemetery and various outbuildings. It was the nicest day we had experienced all week so a walk around the grounds with Maverick was a lovely way to spend an hour or so and there were quite a few people doing the same, with picnics on the lawns and lots of dog walkers. We even saw an artist painting the view near the pond.
I love that this beautiful open space was free to use by the public with just a payment for parking. We paid £2.50 for 2 hours of parking.
When we got back in the car, Sally discovered that we had forgotten to return the parking permit that the Airbnb host in Lincoln had given us so that we could park near the house. I immediately messaged the host and told her that we forgot to leave the permit and asked her if we should drive back the hour and forty-five minutes back to Lincoln to return it as I suspected she would have to pay for a new one, which meant that we would have to pay for a new one. She asked if we could put it in the mail right away and I replied of course. So our next stop was a small post office/store in a small town where I was able to buy an envelope and stamp and put the permit in the mail. We then looked for a place to get some lunch and found The Cooper’s Arms and had a lovely lunch that kept us full all day.
