Viewing Houses

Today we have been to view three properties; a new build house, a well kept bungalow we could move straight into and a dormer bungalow that needs lots of work to make it habitable.

We viewed the new build house after we had wandered around the show home - which was lovely but out of our price range. The downstairs rooms of the new house were fine - a large kitchen/diner, a lounge with french windows onto the garden and a downstairs cloakroom. Upstairs the bedrooms were quite small, the master bedroom had an en-suite shower room, the other two rooms were even smaller but the bathroom was a good size. The smaller bungalow was really nice and clean, with good size rooms and low maintenance garden in fact, it had everything we needed. But - you knew there would be a but - we really liked the scruffy, dirty, unkempt and unlived in for ages dormer with its ugly wood panels and overgrown garden. It has so much potential for improvement. It has to be thought about.

In between viewings we had time to visit one of Paul's childhood haunts - the pretty area of The Carrs at Church Warsop. We parked up and walked around the church and the mill.



Above is the church of St Peter & St Paul and below is Warsop Mill with the church in the distance.



Below is the mill pond, with the mill and the mill house over the bridge, the Carrs - an open area of grass land stretches out behind the pond.



The day was warm, the sun was shining - it was lovely. Of course, we must look at more properties over the next few weeks, we may get an offer on our house soon or we may not but at least we have dipped our toes in the water and started to feel that now we can begin to look.

Window Cats and Happiness

Max and Tom in the back bedroom window this morning.
(sorry not a great photo because of the glare)

Psychology researchers at Nottingham University have completed a study commissioned by the National Lottery amongst lottery winners and others and found that money can't buy happiness. The study found that after the initial excitement of buying things it was the small things in life that brought real happiness. Things like a soak in a warm bath, an afternoon snooze or a gentle stroll in the park. I think we already knew this but it is nice to have it confirmed. I would also like to add to those items a good book to read and a cat on my lap. Who could ask for more?

Selling Houses

Ever since we reduced the asking price on the house we have had several viewings and lots of encouraging feed back from the estate agents. The last two couples to view have both expressed an interest. Couple one have to sell their house first, they really want this house because it is on the same street as the girl's sister and they have their son's name down at the local school. Couple two have sold and are in rented accommodation. Couple one walked by on Sunday just to have a look - I was on next door's drive chatting to my neighbour when I saw them - and have phoned the estate agents a couple of times to see if we have had any interest or offers yet. In the meantime couple two are sorting out their finances and coming back for a second view. My heart says that I would like couple one to buy the house but my head says that if couple two make an offer then we have to accept it as we need to lose our mortgage as soon as possible. We are venturing out to look at some houses at the weekend because if couple two do make an offer I'm guessing they will want to move pretty quickly. I don't really enjoy all this.

Grrr....

I'm absolutely speechless with anger. I wrote a couple of posts ago about the dental surgery giving me the wrong time for an appointment over the telephone and when I turned up an hour late they treated me as if I was in the wrong and I had to make another appointment for the Friday of the same week. Yesterday I received a letter from them telling me that they had considered my case!!!! and that this time I wouldn't be struck off their list but that if I failed to turn up for an appointment again I most certainly would be, and that I was to make an appointment immediately for a check up.

WHAT???

a) I didn't not turn up, I turned up at the time they told me - not my fault if they had made an error and I turned up an hour late.

b) I made another appointment on the day, went to that appointment, and paid in full.

c) I've been with them for 10 years and never not turned up for an appointment.

d) I've just realised that they must have thought I was telling lies about why I was late. (I think this hurts the most)

I just had to get this off my chest. Writing it down here has stopped me sending them a really strong letter - which would, I suppose, give them even more grounds for taking me off their list.

Where has trust, politeness, consideration and customer care gone? I can see that loyalty and a good attendance record in the past don't stand for anything nowadays. You are only as good as your last breath; what went before means nothing to them.

Now my anger has subsided I find their attitude rather sad and a sign of the intolerance in the society we live in today. It's actually quite worrying isn't it?

Magpie Mine

As you know from previous posts one of my favourite contemporary writers is the crime writer Stephen Booth, mainly because he writes so well and I like his two detectives Cooper and Fry but also because he sets his stories in the Peak District. I've been reading his latest novel 'Dying to Sin' a great story which interweaves ancient customs and superstitions with the present day social conditions of post foot and mouth outbreak farming, migrant land workers and the breakdown of village communities. One of the settings in the book is the Magpie Mine near the village of Sheldon.



Lead mining was one of the main industries in the peak district and Magpie mine is one of the earliest mines. Its records start in the 1730s but the mine was there long before then. It is now scheduled as an ancient monument and is one of the most complete lead mine works still standing.



The mine can be seen from miles around across the fields. We managed to park on the roadside just near the designated footpath over the fields to the mine. Halfway across we realised that the cattle in the field were not all cows, as we had thought but that one of the animals was most definitely a bull. We remained calm as we passed by; the cattle never even looked at us but carried on chewing grass, thank goodness, whilst we crossed the cattle grid and went through the gate near the agent's house.



The mine has had a very colourful history including being cursed. The story goes that early in the 19th century troubles and rivalries broke out between the Magpie miners and those from neighbouring mines in particular the Red Soil mine. Apparently there was a claim to a particular seam of lead and when miners broke through from other mines to claim the lead action would be taken.



There was a long, drawn out court case involving the miners from Magpie mine who were accused of setting a fire to smoke out men from the Red Soil mine. Three of the Red Soil miners were killed and when the Magpie miners were acquitted through lack of evidence and intent their widows supposedly put a curse on the mine. The mine was dogged by troubles throughout the rest of the 19th century.



The cottage is now a field studies centre open at weekends and heritage days and manned by members of the Peak District Mines Historical Association.

After a good look around we wandered back to the car by the cattle, now even closer to the path but still extremely uninterested in our passing by, and drove on through the villages of Flagg and Chelmorton to the wonderful bookshop at Brierlow Bar.

Ashford in the Water

Ashford is a very pretty village just off the main Bakewell to Buxton road. We had visited once before a few years ago when we were doing some family history research but we decided to drop in again today to have a walk round.



We passed Holy Trinity church where, on our last visit, we had found some of Paul's ancestors in the churchyard. Then we popped into the village shop for a newspaper and a bottle of water. Outside the shop were racks and boxes full of fruit and vegetables.



The shop is fascinating inside, selling all sorts of things like newspapers, greetings cards, ice cream, gifts and there is also a deli counter with meats, cheese etc. There was hardly any room to move around as every available space was full of goodies.



The back of the shop was covered with this lovely russet coloured vine, growing all over the walls and up to the roof.



We crossed the sheep wash bridge over the River Wye. The people on the bridge were feeding the swans and ducks on the water below.



By now the mist had cleared and the sun light was glinting on the water.



The cottage behind the old market stand is next to the bridge and has a wonderful garden spreading down to the river.

When we left Ashford we drove up to the village of Sheldon and then walked across the field to the Magpie Mine, an old lead mine whose workings and disused buildings are still in situ. From there we drove back towards Brierlow Bar and spent some time browsing in my favourite bookshop - I will write more on the mine and bookshop next time, as there is a connection between a book I've been reading and the mine.

Walking Again

This morning we returned to Greenway Bank Country Park this time parking our little car at the lower car park and walking the stretch of the path way which goes right around Kynpersley Reservoir. This reservoir holds water, not destined for our homes but as top up for the Cauldon and Trent and Mersey Canals. It was designed by Thomas Telford and opened in 1827. Like the canals it feeds it has become an area of leisure pursuits rather than industrial ones.



Unlike the first walk we did where we only saw a couple of dog walkers the lower part of the walk was a hive of activity. There were joggers, weight lifters, bird watchers, anglers and families out for short walks with their children.



The views across the reservoir or pool as it is called were stunning, we walked round to the bridge in the picture above and back round to where we had started. A complete circle.



Under the trees someone had left crumbs and grain for the birds.



We diverted to look at the now abandoned Warder's Tower which looked beautiful in the dappled sunshine.



As squirrels scrambled up and down trunks and branches, ducks entertained with their almost 'guffaw' like call and a stately grebe was diving and disappearing we sat near the pool and drank coffee from our flask and ate my homemade date slices whilst watching the trees reflected in the bright, still water.

Oh, well....

I was hanging out the washing in the unusually warm sunshine earlier today when I came across these little fellows. They seem to have appeared on the side lawn over night, because I could swear that they weren't there yesterday. There are several little clumps of them just like the one below. A good sign that autumn is really with us.



On Wednesday I had to go to the dentist for my check up. I'd made the appointment over the phone, written it on their reminder letter and put it on the calendar. When I got there for 11.55a.m. it turns out I should have been there at 10.55a.m. Now I know the person on the other end of the phone said 11.55a.m. because I wrote it down and read it back to her but I was made to feel really guilty for not turning up at the right time. I'm guessing she was thinking 10.55 and 5 to 11 and conflated the two, who knows? They made me a new appointment for 10.10a.m. today so I was up early with plenty of time but just as I'd washed my hair the electricity went off. I had visions of going into the dental surgery with dripping hair as I knew it would take a long time to dry, it being shoulder length and quite thick, but about 10 minutes before I had to leave the house the electricity came back on and I was able to dry my hair very quickly and dash off - scared I was going to be late again and get treated like a naughty schoolgirl once more. Oh well....



Above are the Rudbeckia or cone flowers in the very bright afternoon sun.

Poems and Animals

As today is National Poetry Day and also World Animal Day I thought that perhaps I would combine the two in a poem I remember from my school days:-

The Tyger

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tiger! Tiger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

William Blake (1757 - 1827)

Red Squirrel Week

This week is Red Squirrel week. The photo below was taken at the National Trust's Formby site on the Lancashire coast last June, so the squirrel has his summer coat with wispy tail. The squirrels on the Lancashire coast are a nutty brown colour rather than the brighter red colour of the ones further north in Scotland. These little creatures were quite friendly and inquisitive and very used to human visitors but in general the red squirrel is shy and secretive. I think they are wonderful.



Pinch, punch it's the first of the month, although I forgot to say white rabbits this morning. Hope everyone has a great October. Things are looking up slightly here we've had two house viewings over the weekend and another booked for this evening so I'm keeping my fingers and toes crossed that someone will want to live here.

Song Lyrics Again

Way Up High......



or down low.......



I'll go wherever you will go....

Yes, word's from 'Wherever you will go' by The Calling were in my mind as I gasped and wheezed my way to the top of the ridge opposite Thor's cave. We'd parked the car near Wetton Mill in the Manifold Valley and set off on the route towards Thor's cave but were diverted by new stiles and notices to say we could now follow the path to the top of the hills overlooking the cave. Well, we can't turn a new adventure down, can we?

It was a bit hazardous underfoot but we finally made it and the views were magnificent, by now though the sun was out making photos difficult. We saw a hare and a buzzard and plenty of sheep and crows. The grass, however, was very wet, and as we descended the hill on the other side back towards the mill, the damp was beginning to seep up my jeans from ankle to calf.

Back at the mill we sat outside with mugs of hot coffee and made friends with the mill cats ....

The Fluffy Grey



and the friendly brown and white



The third mill cat, the tortie, was in her usual place inside the cafe so we didn't disturb her.

A Walk in Sunshine

Today we walked around one of the lakes at Greenway Bank Country Park. The park is just a short drive away, up through the north of the city and then out towards Biddulph Moor where the first trickle of water, which as it flows further south and then east, grows and widens into the River Trent.

When we arrived in the car park there were just two others before us; a man walking his dogs and an old gentleman sporting cap and ear defenders, pushing an ancient cycle which had an old oil drum attached to it. He was foraging in the hedgerows for food and had apples from the still espaliered trees growing against the red brick walls which once bordered the kitchen garden of the old estate of Greenways Bank House, but were now enclosing the tarmac car park. We walked for about an hour and a half and then drove towards Bagnall passing the wonderful church at Brown Edge on the way.

It was really difficult to take photos as the sun was so bright, although it was really chilly and breezy as well.

Brown Edge is a lovely village that stretches for miles with wonderful views of both the countryside and the old workings of the Chatterley Whitfield pit, once a mining museum and now undergoing refurbishment.

We arrived at Jackson's Nursery at Bagnall just in time for lunch, which was cheese and tomato oatcakes with salad and a mug of coffee. All for three pounds each. Not a bad price really.



As it was blowing a gale on the outside decking we sat inside, and at noon we were the only customers there so we somehow missed out on the 'midday madness' required by the photo competition - perhaps we will manage tomorrow's theme of 'dinner time'.

Day Two

Today's theme for the UK at Home photos is called 'Morning Rush' and these refuse collectors were certainly rushing around this morning intent on getting the job done. We hardly had time to get the cameras switched on before they were halfway down the street, and my attempts were a bit dire so this one is Paul's photo.

You could tell that they were quick because they arrived over half an hour earlier than usual and several people were caught out and rushing to put out their wheelie bins in their dressing gowns and slippers.

On the Book Club Forum one of the topics was 'your ten favourite characters from English Literature.' I had to think really hard about this and I have left several out of my final list but this is what I finally came up with:-

Sydney Carton – Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre – Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
Kathy Ellerbeck – A Month in the Country – J L Carr
Obadiah Slope – The Barchester Chronicles – Anthony Trollope
Captain William Dobbin – Vanity Fair – W. M. Thackeray
Kester Woodseaves – Precious Bane – Mary Webb
Elinor Dashwood – Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
Gabriel Oak – Far from the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
Margaret Hale - North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell
Dickon - The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett

There are, of course others including:-

Lotty Wilkins - Enchanted April - Elizabeth von Arnim
Margaret Wilcox - Howards End - E M Forster
John Ridd - Lorna Doone - R D Blackmore
Jacob Armitage - The Children of the New Forest - Captain Marryat

Some of my favourite reading as a child there too.

Tomorrow's theme for a photo is 'Midday Madness' - so watch this space!

UK at Home

This week is UK at Home week in which people are asked to take photos at particular times each day this week to give a snapshot of life across the UK. Fifty professional photographers are out and about across the country taking photos of the things that make up ordinary, everyday life - to quote from their website:-

'For one entire week, from 24 - 30 September, the UK at Home project will enable millions to capture "the emotions of home." We're looking for the distinctive rituals, ceremonies, traditions, intimate moments and all the myriad ways in which we work, play, learn, conduct our lives and interact with friends, family members (and pets!) as we transform our houses (and flats, caravans, etc) into our homes.'

The photos will end up in a book but also there is a facility on the web site in which anyone can submit a photo and each day there is a project and list of ideas that you can use when taking your photograph and a site for uploading them so other people can see them too.

I think this is a great idea, similar to the mass blog of last year, and we have decided to participate. Below is our photo, taken at 9a.m. this morning, not the greatest photo, but the usual everyday happening in our household. Cats wake us at 6a.m. asking to go out, by the time we've got up, had breakfast and tidied round they are back in again and fast asleep. Hmm....

Up, Up and Away

We were sitting having breakfast about 8.30a.m. this morning when these two balloons drifted over our garden. We are used to seeing the green and gold Trentham Gardens balloon and the one behind was in the same colour scheme but was advertising Zanussi.

They look almost unreal in the early morning mist but as I looked at them I thought how wonderful it would be to have the freedom to just take off for the day and leave all worries and cares behind.

Eh?

I've just read a report in the local paper about a catapult attack on a school in Stafford. A teacher was hit on the side of her head by a ball bearing as she was escorting her class to the main school gates. A police spokesman said something along the lines of

'there were 100 children leaving the school with their parents. Had one of them been hit, it would have resulted in a more serious incident.'

What? Surely it has the same level of seriousness whoever is hit? But, as I have observed over the last few years, according to government and others, teachers don't count anymore. I've experienced, almost from the horses mouth, the way in which teachers, especially the older more experienced ones are being ground down and worn out by more and more paper work, training, course changes, constant monitoring and assessment, extra duties and extended timetables doled out by management so that they can tick the boxes required by government targets. There seems to be an unspoken agenda for schools to rid themselves of the older, experienced teachers in favour of young newly qualified teachers or class room assistants all of whom cost less money and don't remember how things used to be.

There are a whole load of other issues, but I won't say more or I shall get really angry. I've seen the way things have changed particularly over the last couple of years as Paul saw the job he loved and could do well, change so much that he was run ragged and stressed out. He has now walked away from the job, as have many of his colleagues this last term; he is healthier and happier now he doesn't have to spend hours each day accounting in triplicate for his every movement, now he doesn't have to miss lunch breaks in order to catch up on paper work, now he doesn't have to rush from class to class without even being able to have a comfort break and now he doesn't have to work three hours every evening and a couple of afternoons each weekend on top of his full week at work.

I'm glad he's out of it because things can only get worse.

Around the Garden

The weather today has brought to mind the first two lines from a poem called 'Remembrances' by John Clare.

'Summer pleasures they are gone like to visions every one and the cloudy days of autumn and of winter cometh on'

Yesterday was so warm that it was almost as if summer had returned for one last outing; today is very different. The sun is out but its warmth has gone, tempered by the fresh, crisp breeze that has my sheets flapping on the line and the new growth on the tamarisk tree whipping and tangling against the greying sky. The little sparrows, daily visitors to our bird table, cling on to the jiggling, dancing feeders their feathers so ruffled by the wind that they look twice their size. I have been walking around the garden taking a look here and there and still finding things to enjoy. The Sedum flowers always attract many butterflies and today one lone tortoiseshell was enjoying itself in the milky sun.



In the greenhouse the gourds Paul planted as an experiment are growing huge and heavy, but what a wonderful colour they are.



In the conservatory the fuschia flowers are still in abundance, we have both pink and purple ones, here are the pinks:-



We are still getting food from the garden; the courgettes have done so well this year and for once we have managed to salvage some hazel nuts......



from the crafty squirrel.

One of My Poems

I wrote this poem a few years ago after we paid a visit to Sutton Scarsdale Hall.

How many people's voices
have echoed through your halls?
How many children's fingers
have run along your walls?

How many people's footsteps
have crossed your old stone floors?
How many children's hopes and dreams
have left by your huge oak doors?

How many people have lived their life
in the warmth of your mellow stone?
How many children have passed away?
How many to adulthood grown?

How many years have you stood here
full of secrets and mystery?
Now you stand as a crumbled ruin
proudly open for all to see.

© RosiePursglove July 2002

The Leopard

Yesterday we visited the first of the two buildings we had chosen from the twenty one different venues opened up across the Potteries for the Heritage Open Days weekend. This was the place that had recently been in the news locally because the new owners had discovered something rather wonderful at the back of a cupboard. Their find, behind a false wall, was a door leading them to two corridors of over 50 bedrooms built in the 1870s and left untouched since they had been closed off in the 1950s.

The Leopard stands on the market place in Burslem opposite the old town hall building which now houses the Ceramica project. It has stood on this site in one form or other for around 400 years. According to our guide for the afternoon, who was suitably or perhaps unsuitably (given the state of the building) dressed for the occasion in a flowery, lacy late 18^th century style costume, records for the year 1640 show the building was three cottages. It had certainly become one building and an inn by 1765 because it was here, according to Josiah Wedgwood in one of his letters, that in March of that year, he dined with canal engineer James Brindley . The inn, at this time, was owned by Ellen Wedgwood, a relative of Josiah whose Ivy House Pottery works stood opposite, where the modern Ceramica building is now. It was in 1857 after years of neglect that Mary Lees took over as owner and gradually turned The Leopard from a small inn to one of the most prestigious hotels of the area and known locally as ‘the Savoy of the Midlands’.

We were taken into the dining room where Wedgwood and Brindley would have discussed plans for the Trent and Mersey Canal and where centuries later ceramic designer Clarice Cliff met with her married lover at an intimate corner table. Then it was up to the bedrooms, firstly the 18^th century front rooms with bowed windows out onto the market place and into the room where, according to our guide, Charles Darwin and his wife Emma Wedgwood had stayed. Then we went through the door and into the old, neglected part of the building.



Two corridors of bedrooms in great disrepair, two bathrooms and two toilets on each floor. The top floor corridor along which we were allowed to walk was home to nesting pigeons and other birds. The owners hope to bring at least one floor back to it’s former glory as a hotel but being listed it is difficult to get around planning permission and the modern day need for en-suite facilities. Photography was difficult and after taking one photo of the outside, I kept my camera firmly in my bag but Paul managed to get a few photos, particularly of the different wall coverings still intact in some of the rooms.

In his some of his novels local author Arnold Bennett called The Leopard, The Tiger and the town of Burslem, Bursley. No doubt he would have used the place himself on his visits back to his home town. There was, of course, talk of ghosts two upstairs and that of a murdered servant in the cellar and apparently a television series called 'Most Haunted' is to record a programme from here later in the year. I didn't feel any ghosts but then what sensible ghost would come out when around 40 people of all ages and sizes were tramping around their patch?

Books I really must keep - part 1

In my last post I mentioned that I would write about some of the items that I felt I could not part with and that I would start with some of my books. The first book is this one:-



I was trying to remember when this was given to me and I'm guessing it was probably in 1965 because this was the year I became hooked on Shakespeare. I'd been staying up late to watch the BBC's adaptation of the Royal Shakespeare Company's Wars of the Roses cycle of plays and my passion for Shakespeare developed from there. The book itself was given to me by my Uncle Harold and I guess it had been in his family or perhaps that of my Aunt's for some time. Unfortunately some of the front pages have been taken out so there is no date of publication just the following:-

Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, Tragedies & Sonnets. His Majesty's Printers, Eyre and Spottiswoode (Bible Warehouse) Ltd. London.

The pages are slightly yellowed with age and the paper is very flimsy and delicate - and I did wonder if it was a war time utility publication. 'His Majesty's Printers' must mean it was published in the reign of George V or more probably George VI. Maybe one day I will try to find out.

Book two is one of my very favourite books. A novella rather than a novel it just seems to touch every fibre of my imagination and somehow captures that bittersweet essence of life, love and mortality. That something that most of us feel but very few can express in words.



A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr tells the story of a young artist, suffering with 'shell shock' from his time in the trenches during the first world war and whose marriage is in difficulties. He travels into Yorkshire to restore a mediaeval wall painting in the church at a place called Oxgodby. Told in the first person the characters of the village that he comes across whilst he is working there, including the Reverend Keach, the archaeologist Charles Moon and the wonderful Katie Ellerbeck, are vividly portrayed. I won't say any more; just urge you to read it - it is only just over 100 pages, easily read in an afternoon - go on, treat yourself - you know you want to.