Stardate: 10 May 2019 - The Wheel at the Mill goes round and round....

Many would appreciate that Geoff and I are intuitively mechanical - never happier than working with gears and axles and sprockets and turbines - and so today we visited Cromford, Derbyshire - birthplace of the original water mill that powered and revolutionised England's textile industry for a century from the late 1700s.

Big Ted

As is our custom we arrived much too early for a mill inspection but this gave us time to wander around the nearby canal wharf and meet dear old Ted, the Shire horse who was going to be towing a canal boat loaded with joy-riding elderly people along the now disused canal.

Ted's mum (pictured) said he only does this chore about once a month and doesn't mind it and is otherwise happy to just trot around in his paddock and loll about in his stable at home.

The original Cromford cotton mill (that we visited today) and many others were founded by a largely uneducated but entrepreneurial chap called Richard Arkwright, originally from Preston in Lancashire.  Before setting up the mill he had already made a motza through owning thousands of foot-driven framework knitting machines in Nottingham that the impoverished of that city slaved over in their homes day-in-day-out making gents' and women's hosiery for a pittance in wages.  I know this last bit as I have researched it - I have quite a few Nottingham ancestors who are described as "framework knitters" in the 1851 and 1861 UK censes.  Emigrating to Australia was probably the best thing my great-great grandparents ever did for themselves.

The original Cromford textile factory.  And when I say 'original', I actually mean the first factory ever.  Sir Richard 'Portly' Arkwright (he was a big chap, and knighted by George the Third) was quite famous for his invention of the water mill to power cotton textile production but actually more famous because his idea of employing large numbers of people in one building as a production line had never been done before, ever.  So he effectively 'invented' the factory.  And of course, he was quite the bastard about it - mostly employing women and children because he could pay them cheaper wages than men and also because they all worked 12 hours a day, six days a week.  Terrible accidents, often fatal, happened as a matter of course. Needless to say he became the richest man in England and bragged about it at every opportunity.  In fact he seemed very Clive Palmerish in more ways than one.  I know he was a man of his time but I still can't quite fathom greed.  The old toad even built himself a castle. A talented but very flawed individual is my jaundiced view.

Before handing over to Sprocket Man, will just say that the 'comments' function of the blog is now fully open for blog-related business, as it was originally.  I hope.

***

Comparing Arkwright to Clive Palmer is most unfair to Arkwright.  They might be of similar girth, but at least Arkwright always paid his workers.  Just not very much.  But we were told that, as little as they earned, they were still better off than their counterparts who worked on the land.  Life were 'ard in those days, by goom.

This is actually a photo of a photo, the subject being the entire Cromford Mill complex as it looks today.  It seemed like it was the best way to demonstrate its size.  

It started operation in 1771 and finished as a mill in 1840.  There were other mills in the vicinity at this time, many of which were demolished, some as late as the 1950s and 60s, but common sense prevailed at Cromford, and it's now been preserved as a historical record of what it was.  We chose to view it that way anyway, rather than as a monument to Arkright.

This bit emphasises how water was the basis for everything that happened at Cromford.  Earlier attempts at providing power included the use of horses, but water proved far more successful.  It was reliably available in this part of England, showing why it's regarded as the forerunner of the Industrial Revolution.

As Anne says, the real significance of the site is not so much that it was a textile mill, but it was effectively the world's first factory.  The workers arrived for their shift, clocked on, slaved away for 12 hours, and then clocked off and went home [possibly minus a hand or arm - Ed].  This was revolutionary, and when you consider that this remains the model in many workplaces today, this is quite a significant bit of history.  Here endeth the lesson.

Following our informative mill tour, and suitably fed and watered ourselves, we returned to the canal, and were delighted to find ...

... that Ted had not only finished his chores for the day, but was being rewarded for his exertions.  What's more, his shift was far shorter than the Cromford workers back in the day.  Good for you Ted; you deserve it!

Our Cromford visit concluded with a pleasant stroll along the canal path, where we found ample evidence (not pictured) that Ted had been there before us.

All in all, an excellent day.  Informative and educational, modest exercise in bucolic surrounds, and best of all we got to meet Ted!

Stardate: 9 May 2019 - To Bakewell, and not just for the puddings....

... or tarts!   Which some may never have heard of but they are famous, especially in these here parts.  Purists scoff at the tarts (pastry with a jam and almond filling, pink icing and a glace cherry on top).  But the puddings are considered the original and best and are the pride of the old township of Bakewell, just a spit up the road from Buxton.

Here's a Bakewell pudding we ate earlier.  It doesn't look particularly appetising but was fine with a cup of tea.  The Bakewell pudding was apparently first created in the mid-1800s with the Bakewell tart following later.

But there is so much more to Bakewell than overly-sweet cakes.  It is the most beautiful town and every building in its CBD is original and mostly 17th and 18th century, with some even earlier - there is no intrusive and unsympathetic 20th century monstrosity buggering up the place. There's a big Aldi supermarket but it's about 2 kms down the road from the town so does not impinge on the landscape.  Excellent.

The helpful woman in the Tourist Office suggested we start our exploring at All Saints Church, high on the hill.  This place was stupendously good.

There was an Anglo-Saxon Church on the site in the early 900s.  That was demolished by the Normans and a new church built in 1135. There were further renos in 1230 and then nothing much after that until the Victorians got their hands on it in the 1840s and rebuilt most, but not of all of it. In doing so they discovered heaps of Anglo-Saxon stonework and sarcophagi that had been buried or hidden for centuries.

Pics of that in a minute.  The yard around the church has thousands of graves, many of which seemed to be 17th and 18th century, often with sad inscriptions relating to three or four children in one family all dying within a short period.




But it also had these, still in situ 1100 years later: an Anglo Saxon and an Anglo-Scandinavian cross.  The tops of the crosses have broken off  and they would have stood very tall in the day.  Still extraordinary after all this time.

Anglo-Scandinavian cross

                                   

Anglo-Saxon Cross

Here is Mr Pants standing at the remaining

Norman part of the church.  

Just inside the archway behind him was the most incredible collection of Anglo-Saxon sarcophagi and worked stone that had been unearthed by the Victorians.  

We don't seem to have a pic of the sarcophagi but here is some of the etched stonework that apparently gives details, through symbols, of people's names and occupations when they died.

It's rare to see anything Anglo-Saxon (other than occasional jewellery and the like in museums) so it was a privilege to see so much of this. 

Inside the church was simply fabulous too.

This is an alabaster memorial to Sir Godfrey Foljambe and his unnamed (of course!) wife - created in 1385.  

Sir Godfrey was Constable of High Peak and I imagine wielded a lot of power in his day.  

The church also contained the graves of various members of the Vernon and Manners families who held the the earldom (later dukedom) of Rutland and their descendants still own it today.

And here they are in all their splendour.  These graves date from from the late 1400s to the mid 1500s.   There's quite a story attached to them and I expect old Mr Pants will do it justice imminently, when he shares details of our later visit to Haddon Hall - the ancestral seat of this family.

Before signing off, just want to apologise to those who have told me by other means that they want to comment on the blog but can't.  I have fiddled with the settings and have hopefully removed that stupid "I am not a robot" embuggerance.  I hope that will do the trick.  If not I will remove the vetting function so keep it clean and keep it blog-focused.  😊  Over to Geoffy who is just back from a skinful at the local Slug and Lettuce.  

***

I can but agree about the township of Bakewell.  It seems almost totally unspoilt - quite a feat, considering the commercial imperatives of the 20th century.  Well done Bakewell!

Here's a long lens view that we hope demonstrates our point.

After the All Saints church we went on not very far to the Old House Museum.  Originally a Tudor house, it was modified into a house for mill workers by Sir Richard Arkwright, generally thought of as one of the fathers of the Industrial Revolution.

Here is a Tudor dunny that we were quite taken with.  There were of course some thousands of exhibits, but a good dunny is always hard to beat.

We would have spent longer here, but time was against us, so we needed to press on.



Following lunch (the highlight of which was of course the fabled Bakewell pudding, not to be confused with the tart), it was on to Haddon Hall.

Only a couple of miles south of town, it has been used for numerous films, including The Other Boleyn Girl, The Princess Bride and one of the numerous Pride and Prejudices.  Apparently also Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall, starring Mary Pickford, for those who can remember back that far.

I confessed that I was a bit surprised that Hortense was so keen to visit a stately home, given that I thought we had sworn off them after our last visit.  But of course she was right.  This one is quite different; for a start it's hugely older than most others.

Its construction dates from the 11th to the late 16th century.  You can't rush these things; something as impressive of this was bound to take at least 500 years.

Its owners have been Avenells, Vernons and Manners, the last two of whom have been Earls and Dukes of Rutland for many centuries.

It's still occupied by the present owners, the male of whom may be the 11th Duke of Rutland, but who's counting?  We didn't see their modern day digs.  We think they were closeted away watching steeplechase racing and drinking Pimms.

The other interesting thing about its history is that it was unoccupied for about 200 years between the early 18th and 20th centuries. (again, what's 200 years in the grand sweep of history?).  In 1703, the 9th Earl of Rutland was made the 1st Duke, and decided to move somewhere more grand, namely Belvoir Castle (as you do; I certainly would have).







In the early 20th century the Manners clan decided to move back in, and their descendants have been there ever since.  Very nice of them to allow us to share it with them, albeit for a moderate entrance fee.  It wasn't actually that moderate, but still worthwhile.

We took about 100 photos, and it was difficult to cull them, but we've done our best.













One of the things about visiting Britain is that there are attractions like this seemingly everywhere.  We don't say this is the best, but it's so close to home for us.  I'm constantly reminded of Bill Bryson's explanation as to why he loves Britain (actually one of the many), and that is that there's history every step you take, whether you choose to look for it or not.  Our day today proved the truth of his observation.

Stardate: 8 May 2019 - Not quite grinning like a Cheshire cat...

Today we drove to the city of Chester in Cheshire, mostly to see their Roman ruins.  It's a tad under 60 miles away (a bit over 100 kms?) but oh my dog, the getting there!!  It may have been a mistake to leave Buxton at 8am, just in time for peak hour in the largish towns of Macclesfield and Knutsford, which took over an hour to negotiate.  The first 10 miles through the Peak District were lovely though, despite the heavy rain.  Anyway, over two hours after leaving Buxton, we eventually we got to Chester Park'n'Ride, parked the Vovo and got on the bus. 

Our first port of call (having wandered aimlessly in the wrong direction due to the lack of signage) was the ruins of the original 12th century church of St John the Baptist.  We can thank Henry the Eighth for its state of disarray but even so, it was rather lovely and perhaps the most impressive of the ruins we saw today. 

Just up the road from the church is the Roman amphitheatre (which again we just stumbled on due to poor signposting)  It's actually only half an amphitheatre these days but we got the gist.  It's obviously very popular with school groups and the kids were having a whale of a time with helmets and shields acting out supervised gladiatorial contests.  We thought we wouldn't mind having a go ourselves, and then saw a group of middle-aged women come marching in (on the left) with their own shields and helmets! 

Next up, again very hard to find, was the Roman Gardens which was mostly assorted Roman stone bits and pieces - bases of columns, pavers and the like - that have been moved into a park.

An avenue of Roman column bases at the 'gardens' -  again these were transported from elsewhere - the actual site was a quarry during Roman times and then had various uses - in the 17th and 18th centuries it was a tobacco pipe factory.

Our next stop I have to say, was a complete and utter dud, at least for grown-ups.  It was called "the History of Chester Museum" or something like that, and we were hit with a 7 pound entry fee each, plus another 2 pounds for a piddly Chester map that is A4-sized but would at least give us an idea of where we were.

I would have thought it was incumbent on the reception people to tell a pair of geriatrics that the museum was children-focused and might not be of much interest to us.  But of course not!  Neither of us wanted to play dress-ups, or guess what was under the serving dome, or grind wheat on the wheat-grinding thingy.  In fact, the level of comfort Geoff is displaying in this kiddie-sized set of stocks just about sums up how we felt about this alleged museum.  Geoff reckoned he got about 50 pence worth of value for his 7 pound outlay.  I would probably say the same as at least I got to use their lav. 

Chester's CBD is quite attractive with narrow streets and, thankfully, a number of walking plazas.  Many of the Tudor-looking buildings were actually Victorian but we did see a couple of originals. 

It seemed quite a prosperous city mostly, but like everywhere we have been, there was a worrying number of homeless people looking thin, cold and ill.

All up, Chester was not quite what I expected but aside from the really shitty, pretend museum that robbed us of 14 pounds, quite enjoyable.  Over to Geoff now, who I'm sure will be much kinder than me about today.

***

Well I guess you live and learn.  Who would have thought that a drive that looked quite doable on google maps would turn out to be a challenge of endurance and resilience.  Given that extra degree of difficulty by the rain.  (It was our first wet day of the whole trip though.)  I've now seen much more of Macclesfield than is good for me, and we didn't even go through the centre of town.  That would have added another half an hour.  You should never forget that this is a very small country of over 60 million, as distinct from a huge continent with less than a third of that population.

Anyway ... if you were staying less than 10 minutes drive from Chester, it would be an excellent day out.

Another amphitheatre view.  It IS impressive, although we thought the one we saw in Caerleon, Wales, some years ago was nicer.  That one is a complete circle, and you can use your imagination to think what it would have been like back in the day.  This one allegedly would have seated 7000, but it's hard to imagine it now.

I thought the medieval part of the city was more impressive than the Roman.  Not what we expected, but there you go.  There are several streets like this one, where no cars are allowed, in which pedestrians can roam freely and enjoy the ambience.  If you look closely you can see that there's a kind of mezzanine level of shops slightly above ground level.  Quite charming.  We're not entirely sure that all of this frontage is original ...

... but we thought this one probably is.  If it looks like I've deliberately cut off the street level portion, that's because I thought the Betfred shop would kind of ruin the authenticity of the centuries old streetscape.

Last photo.  You can see the claim that is made as to the antiquity of the arches.  And who are we to argue - who knows what a 1274 arch is supposed to look like?











Lesson learned, we think our remaining outings in the densely populated midlands will be more modestly removed from Buxton.  Won't be a problem - there's plenty!

Stardate: 7 May 2019 - "Ooh yer daft 'apeth," as they say in Manchester...

...where we were earlier today.  And an excellent outing it was too.  A bit over an hour in a 2-carriage train to Manchester Piccadilly station (excellent lavs at this facility!) and then a free hop-on-hop-off bus that circumnavigates the CBD. 

We chose to hop off at the Manchester Town Hall,  an incredibly ornate, high-Victorian edifice that is regarded as one of the finest interpretations of Gothic revival architecture in the world.  With such an extraordinary exterior, we were keen to see the interior.  But alas, no.  It's currently undergoing a major renovation costing 330 million pounds and will not re-open to the public till 2024.

Manchester CBD has some exquisite Victorian buildings - lots of less attractive, more recent ones as well but it's mostly pleasing to the eye.

After Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert Saxe Coburg Gotha died aged 42 in 1861, this enormous monument to him was erected outside the town hall and the area was renamed Albert Square.

The mercantile classes of Manchester had money to burn and lived very high on the hog so this sort of extravagant tribute to a deceased royal consort was considered money well spent.

Manchester was a small market town until the Industrial Revolution made it a major hub for the textile industry in the early 19th century.  Cotton, the major textile, was imported from American slave plantations and we learned today that the city's early wealth was directly attributable to both the labours of enslaved Africans and also the labours of the Mancunian working class.

Peterloo massacre survivors in 1884, 65 years later.

We then walked to the People's History Museum and it was fabulous.  2019 is the 200th anniversary of the Peterloo massacre in Manchester's St Peter's Field.  I vaguely recalled hearing of it in about 3rd form history, but suspect I missed most of its significance due to nipping out for a Stuyvo or two.  I certainly caught up today.

In August 1819, over 60,000 people, including women and children, marched to St Peters Field to protest their lack of parliamentary representation.  They had endured famine, high unemployment and poor working conditions.

Part of St Peters Field is now Manchester Central train station.

Although a peaceful protest, various arms of the military were called in and without provocation, began attacking the protestors with sabres.  18 died on the spot and 700 were injured.  Many of those 700 later died of their injuries. 

While it did not achieve anything immediately, the Peterloo massacre did sow the seeds for subsequent protest resulting later in improved working conditions and a better standard of living for the working classes.

A final note on the Peterloo massacre (and I do apologise for the 3rd form history lesson) a Manchester journalist of the time was so appalled by it that he started his own newspaper - the Manchester Guardian - the fore-runner of the global news outlet some of us know and love today.

And finally on a completely different note - Mr Tartan Pants is watching Pointless while I labour away here.  Question:  Name a country that competed in the 2018 Commonwealth Games.  1st answer:  Kazakhstan.  2nd answer:  France.  3rd answer:  Greece.  Honestly, I thought Mr Pants would have a heart attack.  What daft 'apeths!

***

Manchester is thought of as the world's first industrialised city.  It was obviously once quite beautiful architecturally, and still is in places, although it's clear that much of it has been demolished and replaced by typically ugly 20th century edifices.  In this regard, I think Edinburgh and Glasgow are superior.  Worse still, some of the earlier buildings that have survived have been converted into fast food restaurants, lowbrow shops and, worst of all ...

... betting shops.  The photo doesn't show it clearly, but the corner is now a Betfred.  I kid you not.  And if this isn't bad enough, it's diagonally across the road from the magnificent Town Hall.

But I don't want to be thought of as dissin' Manchester.  Quite the contrary.  It's great, and we loved the People's History Museum, as Anne says.

In addition to the Peterloo exhibition, which would have been worth the price of admission alone (especially considering it's free), there are permanent exhibitions on activist movements throughout British history.  There are numerous posters and banners on this theme.  Here's one that we particularly liked.

And here's another.  We heartily agreed.

Returning to the the bus to take us back to the train station, we saw a number of gems that we'd missed on arrival.  This is the Manchester Library.  Yes, with the Town Hall in the background. 

Even allowing for our disappointment that the Town Hall is closed (only for another 5 years, mind), we have to say it's heartening to see that they're prepared to put the effort (not to mention the 330 mill) into restoring it, rather than just letting it rot.  Or maybe turning it over to McDonalds, Starbucks or Sportsbet.

All in all, an excellent day.  There's heaps more to see and do in Manchester.  The biggest museum is an Industrial Revolution commemoration, devoted to Science and Technology, which we didn't have time to do justice.  And that's before you even get to the numerous monuments to Manchester sport (Manchester United, Old Trafford museums, etc. etc.)  

The train to and from Buxton was efficient, if not looxurious, and the free bus to and from Manchester Piccadilly station was great.  Tomorrow we're off to Chester, a much smaller but nonetheless interesting town, rich in history from Roman and medieval times.

Stardate: 6 May 2019 - And in news from your Buxton corrrespondent...

Congratulations to Meghan and Harry on the birth of little Coyote Rocket.   I did laugh when I saw  the UK's The Telegraph reporting that Prince William was by Meghan's side as she was in labour.  What, Harry not up to the job?  Anyway, top work all round and best wishes to them.

As mentioned yesterday, there is a protuberance hanging over the lower set of stairs in our house - it's the bottom of the top set of stairs.  We have managed to avoid clunking our heads on it thus far.

Having said that, this is by far the best accommodation we've had since beginning our trip.  Fresh bread (proper stuff!), free-range eggs, milk, home-made biscuits and fresh flowers greeted us on arrival.  The beds are comfortable and we have an easily-operated, spacious shower that does not have a succession of levers, knobs, buttons and strings to be negotiated before the hot water kicks in.  It's excellent!  All the other fittings in the house seem to be of good quality too. While we liked our place in Killin, we're pretty sure the miniscule shower recess was designed for a caravan or campervan. God, it was horrible.

The ironic thing is that rent-wise, this place is by far the cheapest we're staying in. I can only assume that's because the English Midlands is still shaking off its less desirable, Industrial Revolution past. It's certainly worth a visit.  And such pastoral beauty!

We were delighted to see that we have a Mr Ed-type back door.  I'm sure everyone over 50 will remember Mr Ed hanging over the bottom half of his stable door talking to Wilbur.

Mind you, this door has four locks on it that take about 10 minutes to open so I'm not sure Geoff will continue to do Mr Ed impersonations during our week here.

We had a lovely wander around Buxton CBD today taking in the sights.  Here's some random old trout standing beside St Ann's Well - a spring that has been providing water for several thousand years.  Buxton is a spa town.  The original well was located elsewhere (but nearby) until one of the many dukes of Devonshire decided it had to go so he could build a fancy Georgian 'Crescent' like the one in Bath. 

I fear a succession of dukes of Devonshire spent much of their time vandalising 'old' Buxton and building new monuments to themselves.  Because of its thermal springs, the area has been settled since Neolithic times.  The Romans established a city here and sadly, bugger-all remains of it.  There is the odd bit of masonry in the basements of some private homes but nothing is publicly accessible.  The town still conforms to the street layout of the Roman city and the Methodist church just around the corner from us is believed to have been built on the site of what was a Roman temple, even using the same dimensions as the temple.  There are some locally-found Roman artifacts in the Buxton Museum but that is all.  Thank Dog the Dukes did not get their hands on Colchester!

Had a bit of a wander round the Buxton Spring Fair today - much like any other street fair really but without the extensive range of street food you get in Australian ones.  The food stalls were mainly for variations on the common sausage - sausage sambos, sausage kebabs, curried sausages and the odd baked potato with a baked bean topping.  But it was lovely to see everyone out and about with their dogs.  Dogs are welcome everywhere and this is excellent.  When I am prime minister, this will also be the case in Australia.

And now over to everyone's favourite talking horse...

***

Our favourite aspect of the Buxton Spring Fair was the abundance of dogs out and about with their persons.  We saw well over 100 today, and no exaggeration.

This is the Buxton Opera House.  You might wonder why such a relatively small town has an opera house.  So did we, but it seems it's all to do with those dukes of Devonshire that Anne refers to.  Apparently they were so motivated by building monuments to themselves that they managed to knock up an entire town of disproportionate ostentation over several centuries.  Anyway, we're the beneficiaries.

Another example: the 16th century Old Hall Hotel.  Reputedly the oldest hotel in Britain.  I did say in yesterday's report that Buxton boasted the oldest pub in Britain.  I'm afraid I misspoke - it's not exactly a pub, but more a hotel where you stay.  But you can have a drink in there, so I'm only giving myself a light slap on the wrist instead of a full blown uppercut.

We weren't there at a respectable drinking time, but it WAS morno tea time, so an enjoyable tea and elevenses was had.  It was alright, but the real attraction was the surrounds.  It's said that this was the favourite English hostelry of Mary Queen of Scots when she visited.  Yeah, her again.  Can't get away from her.

Look, I could go on and on about the magnificent architecture, so unexpected in such a modest town, but I'll give it away now.  This is the Palace Hotel.  Not the oldest in town but probably the grandest.  

OK, I lied; one more.  The Buxton Bath House is a bath house no more, but a shopping centre instead.  Mercifully they've tried their best to preserve the original features despite the lowbrow change in function.  This was taken from the inside and shows the interior of the ornate roof.

Hard as it may be to believe, there are numerous more local attractions, but we'll leave it there for now.  Time permitting, we'll have another meander around town later in the week.  But tomorrow we're thinking of a train trip (about an hour) to mighty Manchester for a day out around town.   More to follow!

Stardate: 5 May 2019 Bustin' to get to Buxton

We're in Derbyshire!  We left the fabulous Scottish highlands around 7am today and headed south, arriving in Buxton around 1pm.  We felt a bit sad as we crossed the border (marked by the flag of St George on the motorway) but in tribute, Geoff has vowed to wear tartan pantaloons henceforth, even if he looks like one of the Bay City Rollers.

Much as we loved both places, one thing we will not miss is the wifi connections we had in both our Edinburgh and Killin digs. The provider was British Telecom. It's a reasonable assumption that once you key in the password, you will have all-you-can-eat wifi.  But not with BT.  It takes you to a screen saying "You have chosen parental lock. Click here if you wish to remove parental lock".  But then when you try to "click here", nothing happens.  BT then demands that you provide your name, address, phone number, age etc etc.  Long story short you couldn't access Twitter (a must for political junkies!) and numerous other sites using wifi. You had to switch to 4G which, presumably, any half-way smart 10-year-old would know. It was a pain in the proverbial.  But wifi sanity has returned now we are in Derbyshire!

This is our digs - the Servants Quarters, 14 St James Terrace, Buxton.  It was originally part of the estate of the fabulously (or obscenely) rich Dukes of Devonshire.

It's very comfortably appointed with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. 

It also has a lot of stairs!  You come in on the second level which has a bedroom and bathroom.  Up 14 stairs there is another bedroom and bathroom.  And down 14 stairs from the entry level is the kitchen/dining/living room.

There's a special spot to hit your head on a plaster protuberance about one-third of the way down. 

Yep, just a dandelion but good grief they're big - even this one growing out of a crack in the pavement. 

Haven't my pictures today been fascinating?  A bit hard up for photos as our drive took six hours, and Mr Snorks did a top job. 

Handing over to him shortly but I must briefly, yet again, refer to Newspoll - 51/49.  What utter bullshirt.  I'm certain they've again manipulated the algorithm like they did a year ago when polls were too heavily in Labor's favour.  (It's a Murdoch poll after all.) It is impossible for it to be that close when the Lib primary vote is miserably low. 

Over to Mr Tartan Pants.

***

The drive was actually quite tolerable in the main, but a bit hair-raising when skirting around Manchester.  I reckon there would have been a less congested route, but the SatNav chose the shortest one as the crow flies.  Yes, yes I know you can tell it to choose an alternative, but I've only got a Bachelors in Car Navigation so far. I start my Masters next term.

We've already done a bit of a recce around our immediate surrounds.  This seems to be the main shopping district.  No cars allowed.  The prominence of the Golden Retriever in the photo is of course purely coincidental.

Near here we passed the Buxton Bath House.  Got a photo but I'm sure we'll get better ones tomorrow.

At one point I stood in the middle of a square and could easily see three pubs within about 50 yards.  My kind of town.

Our digs also has its own private outdoor area, which we will happily use when the temperature rises by about 15 degrees.  You access it by an unusual door from the kitchen, which Hortense promises will feature in tomorrow's edition. 

Speaking of tomorrow ... it's Bank Holiday Monday.  The poms do seem to get unaccountably excited about their Bank Holidays.  I say unaccountably because they seem to have them every third weekend.  Buxton's celebration of this one is called the Buxton Spring Fair, and we're told that it'll all be happening, so we're planning a day where we just stroll about town, orient ourselves with the main attractions, enjoy some pork pies and jellied eel at the Spring Fair and visit half a dozen pubs.  We've already found one that advertises itself as England's oldest.  We think that's the 57th we've seen so far that makes the claim.

Till tomorrow then!