Where, What and Why?

During this week, in the potteries town* which is the nearest to where I live there have been two major incidents, a murder and a fire on one of the main shopping streets. This fire gutted an already empty and semi-derelict building and made it unsafe so major parts of the town had to be sealed off whilst building experts secured it. The murder we know little about yet but a young mother of two was found in an alleyway almost opposite the Gladstone Museum at two in the afternoon, in the local paper there was a picture of her on CCTV just over an hour before she was found dead. A man was arrested almost immediately and charged a day or so after, and thank goodness for that but it does make you feel very uneasy. All you can say is why?

Yesterday, to escape the confines of the city we ventured out to our favourite garden.** It is set in beautiful countryside on the Staffordshire/Cheshire/Shropshire border. Constructed in an old quarry, now full of the most beautiful rhododendrons and azaleas in every colour imaginable, it is so pleasing on the eye. Each year when we visit we find something new has been added, another corner has reached maturity and more and more people have been delighted by their visit, including us.

Well, our tadpoles have developed legs. About a month ago we took some tadpoles from the garden pond and put then in a bowl in doors to save them from becoming newt food. They have prospered so well and are now fat and healthy and ready to be returned to the garden. Not to the main pond but to a small sunken container that has been set up a little away from it. Last night the container was filled with pond water and weed ready to receive them. Today they will go to their new home and hopefully soon we will have some little frogs.

* The city of Stoke on Trent is made up of six towns, not five*** being from north to south Tunstall, Burslem, Hanley, Stoke, Fenton and Longton.
** It is The Dorothy Clive Garden
*** Local author Arnold Bennett, left out Fenton when he wrote Anna of the Five Towns.