Gosh, it's the 5th of March!

So much to catch up on! I have let this go a bit from a combination of lack of access to a computer (more later) and either very busy or just lazing around going to the pictures and looking at a new place. I'm with Sylvia, the friend who took me in as a boarder so long ago, when I came to study at Nottingham Trent University. She lives in the village of Sutton, not far from the rather enchanting city of Ely and a still longer bus ride from Cambridge. This is the south eastern quarter of UK and was once covered by wet marshlands that have been drained by us ingenious humans. Some of my favourite reading as a child was Swallows and Amazons about a group of children who had their own boats and would sail away from their parents in the holidays and have adventures. This is nearby their haunts. 



A Rookery

 As we travel around there are the most wonderful vistas of flat green fields with the lacy skeleton of trees reaching up like candelabras, often studded with the nests of rooks. The other evening we passed some rookeries like these and in each nest a black rook silhouette poked up its head. I'll lapse into descriptive prose to cover the lack of photographs.  (Ed. done and dusted!)

My clumsy ignorance of technology remains the same as I cause havoc and destruction amongst those so kind as to let me loose on their lifelines. Sorry to Anne and Jackie; they know who they are and what i did.

 Enough of that and back, back to Belper where I left you having made my pilgrimage to Fritchley with the kindness of Chris. Do you remember how she recommended a trip on the Transpeak Bus? trentbarton.co.uk Well I took that trip and it was a treasure of an experience. The bus is an ordinary bus not a coach and it runs several times a day between Nottingham and Manchester. It is an epic trip and if you are alone there is often a single seat at the front with the whole windscreen view..WOW!



From the bus, somewhere near Bakewell

 The trip takes about 3 hours if you did it without getting off but if you do as my friend Chris recommended and buy an all day ticket that cost me £10 you can just get on and off from 6.30 am in Nottingham until 21.35.

The Roman Baths at Buxton

Chris suggested that I go as far as Buxton where the dedicated readers will remember there was St. Anne's Well, then stay an hour and get on for Bakewell of the tart fame and then an hour later do the same to try out Matlock. These were my personal desirables and it would have worked well except that by the time I was back on the bus at Bakewell I just wanted to get back to The Lion and run a hot bath so I did. The bus travels across the beautiful Derbyshire countryside and if you are lucky you will spend time with the nicest bus driver in the world. He greeted everyone as they got on, often by name, and you felt asthough you were visiting his home. He didn't drive off until the passenger was seated and when they got off he farewelled them with genuine sounding words.

More About Belper

Strutts Mill  above the railway bridge

One of the first cotton mills was built in Belper. The owners were far seeing and provided rows of houses for the workers aswell as gardens and allotments to provide fresh fruit and vegetables. When the railways came to this area the track was put under the streets in an open cutting. As a young child, too small to see over the wall I would hear the whoosh as a train went through and now when I hear it I love it.
Here is my second school which stands at the bottom of the cobbled road of Long Row. There is also a Short Row; no mucking around with ridiculous names here!

Long Row Girls School (as was)

And last but not least the teeny tiny hardware shop that sits across the main street from Georges Fish and Chip Shop. They are so proud of their fish and chips at Georges and with good reason. The chips are freshly cooked, the fish crisply battered and all served in a bright, clean restaurant with photographs of famous 'Georges' on the wall. The wonderful G.Harrison joins the like of G.Burns. No picture here because you just have to eat happily.

Life racketed on and was enhanced by a trip to Newark where you can find the best bacon shop in the world. Porters has been on the corner of the sweetest market square I know for much longer than I have been alive. They stock all sorts of local cheeses, and we're talking Stilton, and condiments that supermarkets often choose not to sell. But the bacon! oh scrummy! So smokey. and they sell 'ends' which i always buy because they are a fraction of the price of the neatly sliced product and often have the smokiest end pieces which transform any dish they jump into. Guess what? This time they had FREE samples of crunchy crackling because they sell their own freshly roasted ham and the skin is not required.


The Best Bacon Shop in the World!



Newark Market



Newark Market Square

The last day of my visit was mooching around packing and spending precious time with Anne and her loved ones. Then I left on Monday to meet up with Sylvia at her daughter's place from where we moved here to Sutton and this post is back at it's beginning!