A Derbyshire Mystery

Last weekend I visited my Cheshire family and went with Mother and Dad for a beautiful walk in their beloved Derbyshire Peak District. We parked the car at Middleton (which features in the magnificent book The Hike by Don Shaw) and walked through beautiful Bradford Dale.

Mother & Dad on a clapper bridge over the River Bradford

In the hollow leading down to the River Bradford we came across this intriguing piece of sculpture. Can any blogger tell us anything about it? We'd love to know how something so unexpected came to be there!
Click to enlarge and read the words

Old House in Youlgrave

Along with Auntie Kath, we also visited Tatton Park near Knutsford

where the Japanese Garden is a particularly beautiful feature

And Finally...

Some memories from the St George's Day fun at Tatton Park in Cheshire during the family gathering that rounded off our little holiday

Piglets at the Home Farm: there's always an awkward one!

Morris Men (and Morris Women - whatever next?)

Carousel

Dancing round the Maypole (there's a token boy in there somewhere)

and a proper Punch & Judy show, complete with wife-and child-battering

And here we all are, round the table at the de Trafford Arms, Alderley Edge, Cheshire

Sunday Stuff

Recently I found some nifty little gadgets on draft blogger that you can add to your layout if you use Blogger (apparently you can tell you're on draft blogger if the little red B logo on your dashboard is blue). Actually there seem to be thousands of gadgets but I've chosen one or two to add to my sidebar just for fun. One of them is the daily Shakespeare quote, which of course makes me look frightfully clever (an illusion). Another is the Video Bar, which I've just put up. It plays your favourite You Tube snippets so you can share them with blog-chums. It seems to work OK but let me know if it doesn't.

Victoria Wood winning Baftas

I've chosen some snippets from Victoria Wood TV shows, including the fab Freda and Barry song which never fails to double me up in stitches (in a good way). Also a spoof of a scene from an early episode of that venerable TV soap opera Coronation Street with Ena Sharples, Martha Longhurst and Minnie Caldwell sitting in the snug of the Rover's Return enjoying their milk stouts and gossip. You'd probably need to be as ancient as me to appreciate this (Corrie began in the 1960s), and hail from Northern England, preferably Manchester or Salford: "By 'eck, Ena Sharples, you weren't behind t'mangle when they 'anded out t'stair rods."

The Weird Sisters of Weatherfield

I bought a sonic screwdriver* to celebrate the new series of Doctor Who which started last night and wasn't it fabulous? I'm not a big fan of Catherine Tate but she's shaping up to be a sparky partner (name of Donna) for the Doctor and promises to add a new dimension and depth to the relationship. And what about those cuddly (if repulsive when you knew what they were "made" of) monster-ettes? Genius. And next week the Doctor and Donna are in Pompeii! My cup runneth over.

*Only kidding: I bought it to dismantle my oven door.

On the other hand, as far as spring in England goes, our weather cup currently runneth over with rain, wind and snow. Here's a photo of our back garden this very morning. Six inches of snow and we call it April.

And here's a small tree elf we found on a recent and very wet walk in the woods:

And - well, I'll go t' foot of our stairs, as they say in The Street - here's a whole family of them, and the dog!

Daddy Elf, Mummy Elf, Little Girl Elf, Grandpa Elf and Labradoodle Elf

Lower Peover

Whilst staying with my parents recently, they took me for a walk in the Cheshire countryside which brought us to the tiny, almost hidden village of Lower Peover (no giggling in the back row there: it's pronounced Peever, not Pee-Over).

Here's the unusual parish church of St Oswald in Lower Peover:


It was originally built in about 1269, possibly, according to the church guidebook written by Rev Canon Sladden, who was its vicar from 1959-1986, in thanksgiving for peace after the rebellion of Simon de Montfort and to commemorate the release of men who had sided with him. St Oswald was the evangelising king of Northumbria who died at the hands of the heathen king Penda of Mercia at the Battle of Maserfield (probably Oswestry in Shropshire) in 642. His remains, the Canon tells us, were recovered later by his brother Oswy, who took them to be enshrined at Lindisfarne and Bamburgh, possibly passing through Peover on the way. The body of the church is one of the oldest timber-framed buildings of its type in Europe, whilst the tower is of red Cheshire sandstone. Here are some photos of its interior from the inestimable Cheshire Antiquities website.

There are other Peovers hereabouts: Peover Superior (or Over Peover), Nether Peover and Peover Heath. Near Over Peover is Peover Hall, an Elizabethan mansion with an Arts and Crafts garden. It was for a time during the Second World War the HQ of the American Third Army under General Patton.

According to the knowledgeable Canon Sladden, the name Peover comes from early British pevr meaning 'darting', 'sparkling' or 'bright', an apt description of the stream known as the Peover Eye which runs through the area. The Anglo-Saxons took over the name and added their own word for stream: thus it became 'Pevr Ee'.

Before we leave charming Lower Peover, here are some more photos:

The village street

The old school house

The village pump

Here are Mother and Dad outside St Oswald's

And here they are with my Auntie Kath at the birthday lunch we had on 2 February

I don't think they would mind me saying that they are in their eighties, lively, active and interested in everything - an inspiration to us all.