November

This month kicked off with its usual bonfire. And, as always, we allotmenteers were restricted to lighting on the nearest Saturday to bonfire night. Believe in wet. By going early in the morning we were able to light ours, wait to receive more burnable stuff from Joni and Fiona and return before the rain returned.

On the following Wednesday a little sun shone and tempted us out. We had promised to visit Bircham Edge. This is just to the east of Baslow and accessed around the back of the Robin Hood inn. We walked until the end of our set time; not quite reaching the 'Three Ships' rocks, but seeing the Nelson Monument and climbers doing their climby thing. The way down was back along the path that resembled a river. And so we returned to one of our favourite haunts which is Cauldwell Mill cafe in Rowsley for refreshments and home.

At the weekend we made our usual visit to Nan in Milton Keynes. Then we went to Tim's. While mum did some music theory with Izzy, Tim and Isla took Iona and me to the Open University. They were holding a piece of out sound sculpture to celebrate 50 years from the start of the university. It was quite fascinating walking through the Central Walkway and hearing sound at different places.

Wednesday came once more and after mum had her manicure session we drove out to Dale Abbey. We parked in the village to avoid the most muddy part and set off passed the church to the woods. The owners of the farm had created a detour of the path to avoid people walking through their property. This meant mud, but we persevered and went on until the mud was too thick. There was enough autumn colour.

 

Our winter sessions on the railway is beginning to start in earnest and mum is creating some lovely gardens. I am pleased with station development to properly place the new bridge.

On the 30th we went to the allotment for an official 'last time of the season'. The shed was tidied, the greenhouse shut and a ceremonial 'good bye' said.

Last Blog 2nd August

Last blog 2/8/11

I have certainly missed out on blogging for a long time. It is an activity that I quite enjoy and it might be a useful way to remember some of the lessons learned in previous years. Learning is, for me a very important activity and, these days, more important than teaching. After all, who wants to take any notice of a grumpy old man, who is entrenched in the philosophy of the good old days.

My poor blogging record lies in the slowness by which I prepare the images from the raw camera data.

However, here goes. Well nearly. I am reflecting on a comment that my photography aims for technical perfection, but is a ‘were I’ve been’ genre. I am considering a portfolio called ‘The Best of ‘Where I’ve Been’’. Hoping I have the correct collection of apostrophe/quotation marks. Perhaps I would better to format it to “The Best of ‘Where I’ve Been’”. Still looks ugly.

23^rd July - Cossall and the Nottingham Canal

This was the day that we discovered a magical world on our doorstep. Just 10 minutes drive from here is a car park near the village of Cossall. From the car park; alongside the disused Nottingham Canal is an easy walk. At each boundary along the walk the canal changes its character in a very clear way. There was a great deal of colour along the walk, wild life, industrial archaeology; although the town of Ilkeston was only a few fields away. The down side was that there were no cafes or toilets. The latter made for an interesting challenge of finding a secluded spot.

Disused railway viaduct

Heron taking flight

Bull rushes

28^th July - Dale Abbey and Stanton Hall

This was my first visit to Margaret Cornish in her new care home. We decided to combine the visit with a quick walk in Dale Abbey. We have never seen the ground so dry. Most any other time we have been there has been some mud somewhere. Today the driest areas had turned to sand. However even the dry ground did not deter an odd frog from crossing our path.

Frog

Path

Margaret is now resident in Stanton Hall, which is a large house standing in its own grounds.

Stanton Hall

  3^rd August - Millers Dale

This must have been one of the best days of the summer. We headed to Millers Dale with a view to walking along the River Wye to Litton Mill. It was one of the few times this year that we have paid to park. At least there was toilet stop at the start, but no nearby tea room. The walk goes over one of two massive viaducts over the Wye, along the old track bed before dropping down the bank, across the Wye (http://www.derbyshireuk.net/river_wye.html) to Litton Mill. I had visited this area some years before with a school party. At that time we were walking in the much seasonal Peak District rain and we sheltered in a dilapidated building at this spot. Now the buildings have been converted into luxury apartments and holiday homes.

Litton Mill Apartments

Cressbrook Mill and Mill Pond

Sluice Control

Mill Pond Outflow

We arrived at the Mill to find that here the developers had taken over and the refreshment rooms had been closed and looked very dilapidated even though it was not so long ago since our first visit to Monsall Dale. So, we scrambled up to look over Monsall Dale to have the picnic that we are now in the habit of carrying.

Our final stop before the car was ‘The Anglers Rest’ which is charming and close by the river. Here Irene encountered Crabbies alcoholic ginger beer for the first time and enjoyed it. From here it was quite a struggle to climb back up to the main track back to the station.

We did conclude that the map and walk directions for this walk were pretty good.

17^th August – Illam 

This walk day was almost as bright a day as the last one and the walk was superb. The writer of the walk was once more accurate in the write up and the map. Unsure of the area and having parked for free on the road side we wondered off towards Ilam Hall (http://peakdistrict.nationaltrust.org.uk/ilam-hall).This turned out to be a good decision. The hall is now a youth hostel in a stately house building in a wonderful park. Refreshment were good and a good value which we took on the terrace overlooking the hill around the River Dove.

Tea on the Terrace

A View From the Terrace

We walked past the cottages modelled after Swiss cottages. Apparently, a former owner of the hall was so impressed by his visit to Switzerland that he had the buildings visible from the hall demolished and replaced by Swiss style buildings.

Swiss Style Cottages

 The walk took us over fields towards the Dove Dale car park. There was a slight difference between the instructions and the walk. But, this was not serious.

When we arrived at the river we realised that this was truly the Summer holidays. Cars were queuing to get in and we were in crowds headed towards the stepping stones were we had to queue to cross.

Stepping Stones Over the Dove

On our two previous visits, out of school holidays we practically had the place to ourselves. We had thought to have our picnic and return from there, but we had made good time and decided to complete the walk. Fortunately, after crossing the Dove our route took us away from the crowds, around the back of Thorpe Cloud. This meant walking from the confluence of the River Lynn and the River Dove up to the source of the smaller river. Here we found a small cave. Below the cave the ground was deeper green with water plants. Above the cave the ground was the usual moor land. This must be one of the smallest rivers as we could see the end from the beginning. (A bit God-like.)

We were not very clear about the path at the top and kept more to the right of the field than we should have done. We found a nice spot to sit and picnic before going on to the village of Thorpe and a convenient toilet stop.

Picturesque Cottages in Thorpe

 The route took us through the village and down a farm track with a surprise at the bottom of a major road bridge. We found out that a road had been built to go through to Leek, but then it was discovered that the cars of the time would not have the power to climb the incline to Thorpe.

Abandoned Road Bridge

Having crossed the River Manifold the path, sadly, took us away from the river and at one point the path would have disappeared if it had not have been for a brightly coloured, tall way marker. From here it was an easy walk down and along the river back to the car.

Wedding Weekend - Decorations, Dung, Dale and Digital

I expect that I am not the only one to have had a brilliant wedding weekend.

Joni arrived in the area sometime in the early hours. We were to see him later. See blog http://fiona-becomingagrownup.blogspot.com/. The first task of my day was to start on decorating the New Stapleford Community Centre (newscomcen.co.uk) ready for the evening 'Red, White and Blue' dance. Just before the magic hour of 11:00 (when most of the world would be glued to their TVs) I set off to pick up my new pair of glasses. It was a case of 'park where you want'. By 11:04 I was back to see the main event. It was certainly a spectacle. (Pun intended).

The afternoon was taken up by completing the hall decorations. We already had strings of union flags, to which I added streamers of the usual colours. I purchased the crepe paper in Rymans earlier. I let the helpful assistant guess which colours I needed.

The evening was very well attended with the majority of dancers suitable attired. Some of us had the privilege of receiving an appropriate bowler. I even sported a white carnation supplies by nan and Irene had a blue sash from the same source.

The Dutch buffet was enjoyed by all.

I thought that evening went well. I hope that everyone else enjoyed themselves.

Saturday - Moorgreen Reservoir

By Saturday morning Joni was home. While he slept mum and I popped off to Ilkeston. Her hope was to buy some wedding souvenirs. Mine was to trade two analogue train controllers for some more digital decoder chips. I got £30 for the controllers and purchased two more chips and a turnout. (See note on DCC below.) Before lunch I was able install a chip in one more engine. Joni was quite impressed by how easy the controller was to use. He enjoyed adding two engines together as a consist in order to haul a large train up the incline.

In the afternoon the three of us set off to explore pastures new and not too far away at a place called Moorgreen reservoir. Our neighbour, Jenny, told us about the bluebells that were growing there. This was not one of our best arranged walks. We found the reservoir and something of a place to park, but it was not clear as to where the footpath started so we drove off in an attempt to get closer to the woods. We found a parking spot and a marked footpath, but decided to stray from it into the woods itself. Firstly we came across a profusion of wild garlic. We noted that this plant seems to be taking over from the bluebells. We were to note this on our visit to Dale Abbey on the following day.

Joni and Mum enter the woods via the wild garlic

The light in the woods was certainly of the 'green wood' variety.

The dark woods opened up to larger road ways were logging was taking place. However we were not finding the promised bluebells so back to the car, back to our first parking spot and at last we found the path alongside the reservoir. The reservoir is private property (a fishery) and so we had limited views of the water, but we did find bluebells.

At one point Joni thought that it would fun to get in the way of my shot.

The mixture of blue and white was special.

We finished off Saturday evening with a game of Rumicubs. This a game that Joni excels at, usually, but mum won twice to my once and Joni's ....... We all sat and enjoyed our beer and chocolate while we watched 'Dagenham'. It was a film worth watching.

Sunday Dale, Dung and Digital

As usual the young can't hack it and need more time in bed and so mum and I set out for the dung heap. In a very un-church-like way we set off for the Bessell Lane allotment site where there is free manure available between 10:00 and 11:00. We collected our four bags and delivered them to our own plot and returned home for 11:00. Our next adventure was to be Dale Abbey. This a favourite spot of ours and another great bluebell viewing area.

I decided to take the minimum of camera equipment. I used the telephoto for all shots without the use of a tripod. The trick is to take only those photographs that the equipment is capable of.

This is the remaining wall of the abbey viewed at a distance.

On our way through Hermits Wood Mum and Joni spied a rabbit. For some reason it was a long time before I could see it. Mum grabbed the camera and this is her shot of the rabbit moving.

Here is my effort. It really is camouflaged.

The bluebell wood

We decided to walk down to the abbey wall itself. This took us past the church. All Saints Church must be the smallest church in the country. The attached house is far larger.

On the way through the village I spied these magnificent lilac blossoms

And finally to the Abbey. In the picture Joni is looking over the wall into the garden of the private house in which the abbey stood.

After a final go with the DCC railway we had tea and Joni set off ready to leave for Scotland the following morning.

A Note on Digital Command Control

A new era (for me) in railway modelling has just begun. Today I successfully installed a decoder chip into one of my locomotives and it runs under full control together with an un-chipped loco running under analogue.

The adventure began last week when I was able get hold of a very reasonably priced digital command control. A few weeks earlier I saw the price of a different manufacturer's unit and threw in the towel.

I did have one failure with the first decoder that installed, but today I replaced it and the new one is now up and running.

To do the conversion every other control unit has to be removed and under board wiring carried out so that every centimetre of track carries 12 volts. This is supplied by the unit and the rewiring is almost complete.

The principle is very much like remote control except that the rails that carry the current also carry the messages that tell each engine what to do. This means that more than one engine can run on the same section of track possibly going at different speeds and even in different directions. It is possible to couple two engines and run them as a single until in cases of pulling heavy loads or climbing inclines.

All the functions are carried out from one box and the sole power source is the transformer to the controller. All that is needed is to set the points to run the engine on whatever route is chosen.

It is so brilliantly simple.