R is for rhythm

Rhythm Helps Your Tired Hips Move

Last Friday, my Y5 children (age 9-10) spent a chunk of the day making musical instruments out of junk. We are in the middle of an African themed topic and so we spent some time designing, making and evaluating our own drums (djembes, doumbeks, kpanlogos and bongos); stringed instruments (koras and mangbetu); shakers and rainsticks.

This was the half way point. I love it when the classroom looks like this...

and this...

The children were brilliant at the making, but a bit less enthusiastic about the clearing up. (We got there in the end though - with a little persuasion).

The end results look brilliant.

Bring on those African rhythms!

Click here to see more really rather ripping Alphabe-Thursday posts.

Blue

Blue seems to be a bit of a theme in my garden at the moment.

There are several rugs of forget-me-nots (none quite big enough to qualify as a carpet).

I love the delicate shade of blue, centred by the bold yellow and white star. 

I also have quite a few clusters of bluebells...

...hiding under the bushes in the dappled sunlight.

On the edge of the lawn, a tiny purple violet is peeping out from between the too-long blades of grass.

But, if you don't mind, I need help identifying these...

They are numerous, but tiny in the grass. Close up, they look like this:

Anyone know?

Pottering

I've been pottering around potting.

Near the top of my garden I have a plot which serves two purposes; in the autumn and winter it is my bonfire area, while in the spring and summer it turns into my veggie patch. I'm not terribly adventurous. In the past I have grown potatoes, lettuce (the slugs relished those) and leeks, but my stock favourites are carrots, peas and runner beans.

I'm hoping that in a week or so, these...

will start to sprout little green shoots.

If they behave themselves, I'll keep you in touch with their progress.

At the same time, I potted out a couple of lovely Cape Daisies (Sunny Fiona), which were given to me as a birthday present. I've been quite busy sprucing up the front garden and it is looking very tidy, but was lacking a bit of colour. Not any more!

Much better! Thank you Mary :)

Quackers

Not every village is lucky enough to be graced with its very own flock of wooden ducks!

Maybe I should elaborate...

At the end of Cromford village pond is a hardware-cum-furniture-cum-household-cum...

Maybe I should whisper...

Let's be honest, it's a good old fashioned junk shop!!!

...which overspills onto the wide pavement and happens to contain some very good stuff - if you can find it!

(Just as confusing viewed large :p )

 

I couldn't resist buying a couple of ducks!

What a pity they can't eat pond weed!

Scarthin Books

In the village of Cromford, overlooking the village pond, is Scarthin Books - a building which is as full of character as it is of books. According to the shop leaflet, there are about thirteen rooms, spread over three floors, containing 100,000 books! There are books new, second-hand, antiquarian, specialist; on topics ranging from science to sociology, herbal remedies to holy places, biographies to bee keeping.

There are seats on every level.

The about thirteen rooms include a music room, an art room and a children's room. Other rooms have multiple labelled sections. On site, they aim to have good books on every subject, plus an online service for books they cannot store.  

The building has definitely reached capacity.

And finally, in the original household kitchen, there is a tiny cafe, tucked away behind a curved, swinging bookshelf and very easy to miss completely unless you follow your nose.

Here they serve...

fragrant coffees, teas and cakes, substantial soups with home baked rolls and savoury vegetarian dishes. 

I think I'll be going back for a sample!

One last point of interest:

Scarthin Books is an environmentally friendly set up, which includes composting kitchen waste. They tried composting books but, on having the compost analysed, found several hundred parts per million of lead and zinc in the output.

Top tip: Devour books; eat chocolate!

Catch

This is a catch pit!

What do you mean..."What's a catch pit?"  It's a pit to catch stuff! More accurately, it's a pit to catch runaway wagons which have broken loose from the winch which was hauling them up the 1320 yard, 1:8 Cromford and Sheep Pasture Incline which was the very beginning of the Cromford and High Peak Railway. 

When the railway first opened, this catch pit did not exist, but, on this double incline, runaway wagons could reach speeds of up to 120 miles per hour (193kph) and, in 1888, there was a rather spectacular accident here, involving a brake van loaded with gunpowder..! OOPS!!

Two years later, the catch pit was built and a railway employee given the stimulating job of working the points to divert each safely winched wagon around it.

If you click to view the picture large, you can just make out evidence that the pit did work!

This building...

...is the Sheep Pasture Engine House (1828), which controlled the winching from the top of the incline (gasp, deep breaths - should have walked up there more slowly!)

And these...

...are the mechanisms way down below the catch pit, which controlled that end of the winching process.

We didn't actually need to walk to the very top of the incline; our footpath back to Cromford branched off half way up. The view from the top was worth it though. Unfortunately, being a very dull day (will it, won't it, will it, won't it, will it, won't it ...rain?) the view on camera was just so many shades of blurry, greenish-grey! You'll have to use your imagination :p

Moving swiftly on...

Back to my Cromford walk with Nicki and moving on apace...

At the end of the Wigwell Aqueduct we crossed the canal by means of the restored swing bridge.

To the left of the photo, you can just see a sluice gate and beyond this, the canal becomes rather more gunky with an even lower water level.

So low, that it didn't even register on the scale!

Backtracking along the other side of the canal, we passed the Wharf shed (which is now an offshoot of Lea Green outdoor centre).

From this point, we were walking along the trackbed of the old railway line. This is where goods were exchanged between boats and wagons; as the artwork depicts.

At first, this line just served the canals but, in 1853, an extension was added to connect it to the main rail network.

From the Wharf shed, it was only a short stroll to here...

...the point at which the Cromford Canal met with the High Peak Railway, and the point at which we must turn our steps away from the water and begin to climb.

A while ago, I posted about the Tissington Trail. At the end of its 17 mile route, the Cromford and High Peak Railway meets with the Tissington Line near Parsley Hay. Both lines were axed under Beeching and have since been opened as trails for walkers, cyclists and horses. The next part of our walk would take us along the first short section of the High Peak trail.

Onward and upward :)