Friday, November 11, 2022

A Friday Five

 Five things for Friday

1. Artisan Bakers.  

Above and below The Dough Mother

Last week we visited friends in Beeston and we wandered down to meet Robert who once a week visits The Dough Mother which is just a ten minute walk from home.  Once there he sits in a corner facing the door and writes and people watches.  He produces what he calls his 'paperbag' stories as on one visit he forgot his notebook and the lovely owner of the bakery gave him white paper bags to write on.  Some of his stories have been made available in the shop.

We spotted another bakery in Ashbourne.   

This one specialises in sour dough bread.

I know our friend Robert who, like Paul, makes his own bread will like the sound of the rye and carraway loaf above.

2.  Water - or lack of it.

Not far from Ashbourne is Carsington Water.  It's a Severn Trent Water reservoir with lots of walks, a visitor centre and a few shops.

We were headed for the RSPB shop to buy suet sprinkles for our garden birds. These purchased we popped them back to the car and went for a walk.
As you can see from the photos the water level was low, worryingly low.  We've seen the reserves low before but never as bad as this.  Sheep have taken over the mound where we normally see Lapwings. 
 
 3.  In the conservatory

The Paperwhites are well and truly in flower now.  Their scent fills the air.

4.  Telephones 

I'm probably showing my age by calling them telephones and not 'land line' or 'mobile'.  I still call a radio a wireless but of course like lots of words it means something totally different now.  Anyway our land line cut out late on Sunday night after our service provider had updated the speed of our internet connection.  We didn't realise until I dialled 1471 on Monday to see if we had received any calls whilst we were out.    The next day it still wasn't working and it was difficult to find a way of contacting the provider as the mobile phone is a different service to the land line and internet.  In the early hours of Wednesday morning the land line phone started ringing at 4.a.m and continued to beep over the next two or three hours so we switched it off for a while.  An engineer was finally booked for today.  This morning the internet was down too.  By the time the engineer came both land line and internet services were back. A fault had been found in the system at the box round the corner.

5.  Armistice Day Today

I haven't taken any new photos but here are a couple from the travelling exhibition of  'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red.'   This is 'Weeping Window' at Middleport Pottery in August 2018.

 


and below 'Wave' at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in September 2015



Such wonderful exhibitions to see and so poignant too. 
 
 
When we visited Ashbourne I purchased a copy of the Derbyshire Life Magazine and inside there is an article about Paul Cummins who had the vision to create the poppies and the first exhibition at the Tower of London.

 

18 comments:

  1. A lovely five post & both bakeries look so nice. Your dams are low and ours are overflowing, which is so strange as it is usually the other way around & we have a shortage of water, but not this Spring. Talk about the world turned on its head! You've paperwhites out now? Shouldn't they flower late winter/early spring as that is when mine do. And yes, they are telephones and wireless & we've still get one with a dial stashed away somewhere. Remember the old cord switchboards? A very different world. The poppy photos are great. Thanks for sharing, take care & hugs.

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    1. Thank you Susan, the water is very low, quite worrying,it is usually the other way around isn't it? Yes, the paperwhites we bought said they would flower in November and December, I expect if we had put them in the dak for a while they would have flowered in December. Yes, my first job I manned a small switchboard, as well as a huge Borroughs adding machine, with numbers that came down to fill a hole when the call was taken - we used to call them eyeballs:)

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  2. Sour dough bread is something I liked from the first time I tried it.

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  3. That's a packed post from you today Rosie. Those poppies were such a great idea and considering their awkward size, don't they make such wonderful displays. The bread shop author put me in mind of one of Alexander McCall Smith's characters, what a great place to spend the day. Thank goodness your phone is finally fixed, life seemed so much simpler in the old days! 😊

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    1. Thank you, yes the poppies do look difficult to display but so beautiful all together. I wonder which character in Alexander McCall Smith's books? I've read all the Isobel Dalhousie books and a few Scotland Street books plus some stand alone novels. Not read any for a while though. Phone is off again but internet still okay:)

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  4. That was a lovely Friday five Rosie! I would love to sit in a corner in a bakery and makes notes and people watch whilst eating a nice cake and having a cup of coffee. The paperwhites are stunning and must really bring cheer on a dull day. With regards to your phone - we had lots of experiences similar to yours over the last few months and suddenly the phone went dead. It was finally resolved yesterday when were were forced to go digital. The drop lines? were corroded and the engineers (Virgin) are no longer replacing them. Virgin intend to go completely digital by this coming January. At least we have a phone but it is worrying that if the wifi goes down we have no phone! Hope you have a lovely weekend. x

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    1. Glad you enjoyed it Simone. He manages to write a story that fills both sides of the paper bag spurred on by coffee and a bun of some kind and the joy of being there. It is lovely to see the paperwhites especially this morning as it is cool, grey and misty -still can't see all the way down the crescent on our side. We are Virgin too so it does sound like the same problem - landline is down again both yesteday and today. We have mobile phones (not smart phones) but on a different service so hard to let Virgin know there is a problem. Oh well!:)

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  5. A super Friday Five Rosie. Love the bakers - my son always makes a beeline for one when we are out and about in towns. Glad you got your phone and internet fixed.- everything is so complicated these days. As someone who only has a mobile for an emergency the reliance on apps for so much stuff these days drives me nuts! The poppies are beautiful and so moving.

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    1. Thank you RR. I'm sure your son would love both shops especially the Dough Mother. Everything seems centred around smart phones now so it is hard when basic things that we've taken for granted for so long stop working. I'd forgotten we'd seen the poppies at the YSP until I found the photos whilst looking for the one of the old phone, they are wonderful:)

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  6. Lovely to see your old photo of the poppies. Glad you’re phone is back. We had something similar and we couldn’t use land or mobile. We wondered what would have happened in an emergency. I was informed later that even if the mobile wasn’t working 999 would still work which is good to know.
    Sadly we don’t have lovely bakeries like those. Ours are rather commercial. Good news on the water font here. We’ve had so much rain that we can once again use hose pipes if we wish. Better half was out washing cars yesterday lol. Have a great weekend. B x

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    1. Thank you B yes I was pleased to find the old photos. Landline is down again today, we rely so much on technology now. Still, I remember as a young teenager having to walk with my mum down the village street in the middle of the night to the phone box to call a doctor as my dad ws ill, that was in the days when doctors still came to the house, so in some ways things are far better now. Glad you have water, we left the car out in the rain the other day to wash the dust off:)

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  7. Such an interesting post. Those paper bag stories sound intriguing. And the poppy photos are just stunning.

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    1. Thank you Granny Sue, I think some of the stories are published on something called Substack. The poppies are lovely aren't they?:)

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  8. Rosie. How could I have missed this post until now! A mention of me and The DoughMother. A pity no photo of the torpedoes you went home with. I hope they were still crunchy. How I love a chocolate eclair with bite, probably only bettered by the rye and caraway loaf in the Ashbourne bakery you included in your photo gallery. Having recently been introduced to dipping such bread into olive oil and balsamic vinegar, with some pitted Greek olives on the side, I would now choose the latter in the absence of a cake made by you - Robert 🐰

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    1. The torpedoes were lovely with just the right ooziness - is that a word? We had half with morning coffee and half after tea as a pudding. I wish we'd bought a loaf there now as that sounds good. We intended to go back to support them (members of True Loaf) but wandered in the wrong direction and didn't go back that way:)

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  9. Can I be cheeky and provide a link to my paperbag stories at: https://paperbagstories.substack.com/. I hope you enjoy one or two. Regards Robert 🐰

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    1. Glad you've put the link here as once again I couldn't find the e-mail you put it on)

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