Back from the Grindstone

Today was the first day I have had to myself this week. Having started a new job, I have been out from 9.30am to after 9pm. The days last week were very long. Rosie and I ventured out to Bakewell for a leisurely shop and a coffee.
On the return, we called in at Rowsley Mill where I tend to buy most of my bread making flour. The mill shop was being re-organised when I arrived. I always park my car in the loading bay when I buy the flour, then move it to the car park on the other side of the Mill when we nip to the coffee shop or the gift shop.

This is still a working Mill on the River Derwent, though it does do a good tourist trade with guided tours, a very good but rickety coffee shop and a wonderful gift shop on the site. Whilst I was loading the flour I photographed the old mill stones at the side of the loading bay. They were not there last time I visited and I assume that they were removed during a refit.

Back home, via a couple of book shops and then to tea..... No prizes for guessing that I spent this evening making bread.

Reflecting upon the calm

Whilst venturing a walk around Trentham Lakes I was inspired to take a photograph of the dingies moored out on the water. The calm and serene nature of the lake allowed a clear reflection across its whole surface.

Seagulls were flying low over the water and their reflection was only a metre or so below their position. I was fascinated by the way they controlled the height of their flight above the water to keep the reflection at a constant distance below, from my standpoint. The black headed gulls are very precise fliers. They seemed to be delighting in the pleasure of flying in formations of three or four birds, occasionally settling on the surface or perching in a branch out on the islands.


The gulls had the water today, there were very few ducks and the herons were not to be seen. One formation that did catch my eye was a duck flying in formation with a pair of gulls. The birds were flying close and it seemed that the gulls were pacing the duck, matching its speed and height very accurately. This made the poor duck look a very clumsy bird.

As we progressed, a plumb of smoke was seen to rise above the opposite side of the lake. The King's Wood was closed for clearing operations and it seemed that there was a wood fire in one of the large clearings. The lighting and the position of the sun being low in the sky gave the column of smoke a very strange glow as we looked across at it.

Exploring Nature

Wandering around Trentham Woods, we often pass by an old tree with an enormous bracket Fungus on it. It was about time I had a picture of this monster, so I had Rosie take one for me. It is a whopper! This is an extremely large specimen of a type of bracket fungus called Ganoderma. I have not seen one this size anywhere else.

Some bracket Fungi can grow and stand for years on the trunks of trees. They are the reproductive organs of organisms that decompose the trunk from the inside. This tree must be virtually hollow and spongy inside with all of these brackets on the outside. This big one has been there for at least 6 years to my knowledge. Some of the larger branches of this tree have broken and are lying on the forest floor.

The squirrels have been very active this week. This one was seen at Greenway Bank Park. These and the Trentham squirrels are feeding and storing nuts to see them through the winter. The little blighters in my garden are also very active - so I have collected the hazel nuts - the squirrels are not having them this year.

Living on the edge

Whilst hanging around waiting for a meeting I overheard a couple of young men in deep conversation:

A - "I'm p..... off!"
B - "what's up?"
A - "Can't get a job"
B - "You want a job like mine"
A - "you've never had a job"
B - "I have"
A - "Where?"
B - "down Brewers"
A - "never!"
B - "I got the sack"
A - "What for?"
B - "I collapsed - its not fair sacking you for collapsing"
A - "What did you collapse for?"
B - "I was drunk"
A - "Yeah!"

Of course I have edited out the expletives so that the conversation makes some sense. I cannot remember me being like that at their age. I wonder what their nostalgic recollections will be if they live to be my age?

Cutting a slice

Rosie and I had a conversation recently about slicing bread! This is real nostalgia - I remembered how my aunts would butter the end of a loaf and then cut a slice. I was always fascinated by this technique as a child, but thought nothing more of it as an adult. As sliced bread became readily available in the 1960's, the old ways disappeared. Rosie and other people I know have the same recallection, so its got to be worth an experiment.

Yesterday I baked a good old fashioned loaf, the type you would get from the baker in the 1950's. Today I cut off the end - buttered the top - then cut a slice. It was surprisingly easy to do.

Of couse, cutting bread is an art in itself. Early civilizations did not bother. The Romans baked bread that was pre-segmented and could be broken into pieces. Each piece being a portion for a single meal.

To improve the size and shape of a slice of bread, you could cut a loaf in half and make the cuts across the loaf to give a very square slice, or with round loaves, the cut could be made at 40 degrees to give a much bigger slice.

I am now on a mission to improve the way I cut bread.

Car Boot

Today we "did a car boot" (traded at a car boot sale) to clear out some of our excess property. Every week on Saturday, there is a car boot sale at Cellarhead, Staffordshire, which is well attended. We took mostly books, an old television set and a gramaphone player, a few ornaments, old curtains and table cloths, plus the ubiquitous box of old cameras.

It was our third attempt to lighten our possessions this year. To our surprise, the usual trade gannets who immediately pester you for cheap purchases and then double the price and sell the items themselves were not there today. It was a cool, but sunny day and the traders were a very pleasant bunch. Trade was slow, but we shifted the gramaphone and the TV, a coffee table, lots of books and a magnet. Just enough cash to do a bit of food shopping. Easier to pack the car for the return journey.

In the field at the top of the sale area we saw some Balwen Welsh Mountain sheep. They are unusual and are regarded as "at risk" by the rare breeds society. There were four healthy and mature individuals, with a very friendly disposition.

Last time we were here, we saw Alpacas on the other side of the road. They were not there today.

Good Gourd

This year I have been growing amphora gourds in my greenhouse. It is the third time I have grown these amazingly large gourds and this years crop are fine specimens.

The larger gourds weighed in at about six pounds each, and they were harvested last week. They are now weighing around four and a half pounds as they are drying out. It will take another three months to dry them fully. I use the gourds for reproduction stone age objects. In this case, I am going to make water flasks, dart holders and bowls. The gourds are cut using flint blades and finished with fibre strings and wittled wooden parts. below are a couple of flasks that I made earlier.

Buzz off

I am getting to be a grumpy old man.

The phone rang.... I answered......Hello! clatter clatter clatter.....! it was the police helecopter, roaring over the house - no - hovering over the house (albeit at 1000 feet) but it stayed and stayed and stayed. The police do a grand job, and I would not normally complain about their work, but 20 minutes of hovering around throughout the phone call was a bit irritating.
Call over, I was able to nip out and snap the devils.

The rest of our day was quite peaceful. Hope the police got what they wanted out of that long hover.

Me me me .....

Last week was UK at home week, here you could upload a picture a day to a home based theme site and have your work considered for publication. The pictures were available to view on http://www.ukathome.co.uk/ and may still be there.

I was proud of my sanctury image of me at my computer watching me at my computer watching me at my computer...etc.... Great idea, but fixing the digital camera to the tripod mount and removing it to download the image five times was a bit of a bind. Who says average photography is easy?

I also put an image onto my sister-in-law's family site. One of the neighbour's cats (we call him silver stripe) was sitting on the bird table. The caption was "Its not fair - birds always come to this place, why are they not coming here now?"

Good Morning

The sky this morning was amazing. With the sun low in the sky and a herringbone cloud formation, the light reflection served to highlight the clouds against the blue sky. They twinkled!

What a good day to start my very first weblog.