Chesterfield, Derbyshire

Posted on 6 September 2011 by Katrina

We’ve been busy arranging our next British road trip because we thought we’d better actually book places to stay this time although it’ll be the October school holidays by then and I don’t think we would have had a great deal of difficulty finding places to sleep. How I wish we had a Dormobile type of thing though a la John Steinbeck.

Anyway, I realised that I hadn’t done a post on Chesterfield which we visited during the summer when we were in Derbyshire. The only thing I knew about Chesterfield was that it had a famous crooked spire – so here it is. Very crooked! It actually looks much more twisted in real life.

It’s a market town and then some, as the only day which they don’t hold a market is Sunday. We were there on a Thursday which is the general market day and there were all sorts of things for sale. I bought some lovely cactus plants, 3 for a tenner! I think that you have to be careful what you buy mind you as markets have quite a reputation for being full of tat, but the plants are great. I would have loved to have been there the day before as apparently Wednesday is flea market day. I’ve never been to a flea market but I’d love to see what one is like. Markets like that just don’t happen in Scotland and it’s one thing which would improve the place, I think.

I was quite impressed with Chesterfield as it still has a feeling of a town which is thriving and you can’t say that for many places at the moment. I didn’t see any empty shops although I’m sure there must be some around the place but it isn’t like the towns around my area which are looking so down-at-heel at the moment with shops closing down all the time.

I’m not sure how old these buildings are because they were still building Tudor style places in the 1930s but to me they’re just so English and quaint looking. The Street is named Knifesmith Lane.

I would visit Chesterfield again sometime, if only to experience a flea market!

Bakewell, Derbyshire and Bakewell Pudding

Posted on 15 August 2011 by Katrina

Bakewell is another place which we visited on our recent trip to Derbyshire. The river Wye runs through the middle of it and as you can see from the above photo it’s full of geese, ducks and swans. I love towns with rivers, in fact I think it’s the thing that I find most important about a place, I suppose I like them because all old towns were built on rivers and I prefer old places.

Bakewell is very close to Chatsworth, we’d seen it recently on TV and as we’re partial to Bakewell Tart – the Mr Kipling kind, we thought we’d like to try out the original Bakewell Pudding. The problem is there are three shops in Bakewell proclaiming themselves to be the only one selling the original Bakewell pudding, which one should we choose?

We plumped (and that is a significant word) for the ones which looked nicest because it seems that about half of the shops in Bakewell are selling the puddings but most of them look very amateurish and frankly not very appetising. So we bought two slices which were enormous but being greedy we decided to buy a Bakewell tart too. This was the only shop selling tarts, the difference being that the tarts have icing on top. Most Scots have a very sweet tooth (it’s something to do with our cold northern climate I think) and I could quite happily eat a bowl of icing on its own so the tart was just too tempting.

We ate the slices first. I have to say that I wasn’t all that struck on the flavour of it. It certainly didn’t taste of almonds which is the most obvious flavour of the Mr Kipling Bakewells. Another bite was required though to try to work out what the flavour was – then another and another and before I knew what was happening I had scoffed the whole thing, still none the wiser as to what it really tasted of. It was very slightly fudge-ish or maybe butterscotch-ish. What was worse was that I thought to myself that it was so heavy it felt like it must have been about 1,000 calories of glook.

All that I can definitely say about the taste is that it was over-egged and I really hate puddings and cakes which taste eggy. So why did I eat it? Who knows? – not me anyway, but if I ever find myself in Bakewell again I’ll be giving the puddings a wide swerve. As we bought a tart too we ended up eating it over the next few days and I must say that it tasted a bit better, due mainly to the icing on top I’m sure. It would have been better with custard!

We’ve had so many meals out over the holidays what with celebrating family birthdays and being away, also it was our 35th wedding anniversary earlier in the month and we just had to have a meal out then too and as a friend said to me – the main reason for eating out is to have the lovely puddings. The result is that I’ve put on an amazing three inches around my waist which I only discovered when I tried to put on my favourite skirt. It’s down to two inches now but I bet it takes ages to shift those two extra inches. Such is life!

Haworth Church, Yorkshire

Posted on 8 August 2011 by Katrina

I couldn’t go to Haworth and not take some photos of the church which is more or less right next to the parsonage. The Brontes were actually buried inside the church, I suppose that’s one of the ‘perks’ of having the minister as your father! As the church isn’t usually open it means that most visitors to Haworth don’t actually get to see the Bronte stones, presumably there are inscriptions.

Ever since I read years ago that Patrick Bronte didn’t take his meals with his family I’ve had a real dislike for the man and when I went on the tour of the house a couple of years ago the guide’s talk made me dislike Pa Bronte even more.

I suppose we can expect Victorian men to be selfish as a matter of course but I think he must have been worse than most and I think when his poor wife died, probably of cervical cancer and after being worn out by him and constant pregnancies, it must have been quite a relief for the poor woman in the end. It wasn’t long before Patrick Bronte started proposing marriage to other women, luckily none of them were daft enough to accept him.

According to the guide he also had a habit of leaning out of the parsonage windows and taking pot shots at the church tower with a gun! It’s certainly pock-marked with what looks like bullet damage, I think he must have had more than a few screws loose.

Haworth, Yorkshire and Bronte Parsonage

Posted on 5 August 2011 by Katrina

I was thinking that it was just last year that we first visited Haworth (Bronte country) but it turns out that it was actually two years ago. How time flies! We didn’t do the tour of the house this time. Maddeningly I can’t find the photos which I took last time so I don’t have any of Haworth Parsonage interiors. Well that’s a good excuse to go back again and take some more, plus my husband fancies having a pint standing at the bar in The Black Bull where Branwell Bronte drank.

Anyway, here is a photo of the outside of Haworth Parsonage, which never changes much. It has been added on to over the years but this is the original part which is as it was when the Brontes lived there. It looks much bigger than it really is. Internally it’s exactly the same as my own house with four rooms downstairs, two either side of the front door. My house doesn’t look so grand, I think Georgian houses always look nicer than Victorian ones. There must also have been a wash-house too as all old houses had one, mine has been turned into a kitchen. They didn’t have a bathroom so had to make a trip to an outside toilet which can’t have been much fun but I suppose it was the same for everyone then.

The last time we were in Haworth we were in a hurry for some reason and we weren’t able to walk up to the moor, so we did that this time. This is the pathway up to the moor which is the one which the Brontes would have used. The path goes from the edge of the graveyard and it’s quite a steep hill. I took this photo on the way back down because on the way up I was so hot and puffed out that I didn’t notice what a lovely tree lined lane it is. They have drystane dykes in Yorkshire just like Scotland.

And these are some photos of the moorland. This just looks exactly like a Scottish moor, the purple heather was just beginning to flower and next week it’ll look lovely but most of the year moors look bleak although there are usually loads of ground nesting birds like skylarks in the undergrowth.

The front windows of the parsonage look onto the graveyard which is very close to it. I have to admit that I enjoy looking around old graveyards but when I first saw this one it struck me immediately that it’s incredibly tightly packed with graves and when we did the tour of the house we learned that there were so many bodies packed into the ground around the parsonage that they didn’t deteriorate naturally as there wasn’t enough air in the earth. It meant that poisonous liquid from the bodies was leaking out and when it rained the very steep street was running with rainwater contaminated with dead bodies. The houses in Haworth also have cellars which poor people had to live in and the water flooded into them. It’s no wonder that Haworth had the highest rate of deaths in the whole of Britain at the time the Brontes lived there. Even although the parsonage is on higher ground than the graveyard, it didn’t stop the dining-room from being flooded when it rained heavily. The smell must have been appalling and it’s a miracle that any of the Brontes managed to reach adulthood given the circumstances.

This is a photo of the main street in Haworth which is just a short walk from the parsonage, not even one minute. The last time we were there there were quite a few empty shops but this time the whole place looked better and there are a couple of decent second-hand bookshops, an old-fashioned sweetie shop, vintage clothes shops as well as gift shops.

I love it when I can stand in a street and see the hills nearby, just like the town which I grew up in. I hope I’ve managed to give a bit of a sense of Haworth to anyone who hasn’t been able to visit it. If you’re a Bronte fan, like myself it’s well worth a visit or two, or even three!

Edinburgh Botanics to Leith

Posted on 4 July 2011 by Katrina

Yesterday was probably about the best day of summer so far and we decided to drive to the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens and walk from there to Leith, Edinburgh’s port. Neither of us had ever been to Leith before, like most port areas it had a pretty sleazy reputation but in recent years it has been gentrified and I suppose ‘untarted’ would be the best description, rather than tarted up. We walked along the part of the Water of Leith which leads there and it was quite a bit longer than I thought it was going to be. It was a sweltering 21 C which is about 70 F and I was sans sun-hat, luckily there was a nice breeze now and again. This is an inscription on the path to Leith. I thought it was quite pithy.

On reaching Leith we decided to walk on to the shopping centre Ocean Terminal because that is where the Royal Yacht Britannia is permanently berthed and as it’s now a museum the idea was to have a look around it but by the time we got there we were too tired to take the tour, bearing in mind that we had a long walk back to the car ahead of us, so next time we’ll drive there. This is a photograph of the stern of the yacht with a hideous modern cruise ship in the background. I thought it was a block of flats at first, these modern ships are ugly big lumps compared with the beautiful elegant lines of the old ships.

Ocean Terminal is supposed to be a wonderful shopping experience. It isn’t. It’s the usual shops in a soulless atmosphere. So we wasted no time there and started on the long trudge back to the car. Thirst got the better of us and we stopped off at a pub in Leith, we really needed a rest too. I think the pub we were in is just beyond the building with the tower. I was quite surprised how continental the buildings on Leith waterfront look. It must have been the Dutch influence I think, they used Dutch pan-tiles as ballast for ships in the past which is why the old cottages on the east coast of Scotland tend to have pan-tiled roofs.

So a good day out was finished off with ice-cream from the stall across from the botanics, very tasty. I had maple and walnut and sticky toffee fudge. What with that and the cider I don’t think I’ll have lost any weight despite the very long walk!

A High Street Near You

Posted on 1 July 2011 by Katrina

Well, certainly a High Street near me looks set to lose at least three more shops in the very near future, and there are already so many shops lying empty. The local council has tried to tart up the vacant windows with displays of art and in some cases they’ve papered the whole window with posters of the area from the past so that you can see what the shop frontages looked like in Victorian times. It’s better than nothing I suppose but the fact remains that towns all over the country are dying on their feet.

The news that Habitat is closing down brought back memories for me of the days before we got married as I used to shop at the Glasgow branch of the shop in the 1970s. Then it was all new and snazzy and the only place to get something really different and modern. I hadn’t been to a Habitat for years so when I found myself in the Edinburgh shop a couple of years ago I got a real shock.

I had been able to afford to buy things for my ‘bottom drawer’ at Habitat when I wasn’t earning very much and I was supporting a student fiance, in fact I still have some of the things which I bought then. Baskets and enamel ware and even a dhurrie rug are some of the things still being used 30 odd years on. So I was quite amazed at the prices which Habitat were asking for things which I could have got much cheaper elsewhere – gone were the days when their designs were different from anything else available, but whoever was running Habitat at the time obviously hadn’t realised that the goods on offer were run-of-the-mill things with eye watering price tags. Needless to say I haven’t been back to the shop since then.

If everybody else had the same experience that I had it isn’t a surprise that they’ve stopped trading. It’s sad though, I suppose they needed another Terence Conran to shake it all up.

Speaking of ‘bottom drawers’! I mentioned the phrase to my prospective daughter-in-law recently and she didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. In fact I think she thought I was being a bit rude – I suppose the word ‘drawers’ does have sort of lewd comedy connotations!

Anyway, the upshot of the conversation was that young women nowadays do not have ‘bottom drawers’. My mother started my bottom drawer when I was only 5 years old. She bought guest towels for me! I was the third daughter (and she didn’t like girls) and not so much an afterthought as an aftershock! So I suppose it’s reasonable to say that she was very much looking forward to the day when she would get me off her hands and safely married off to – anyone. Sadly, she didn’t make me any patchwork quilts, I think traditionally you were supposed to have about ten of them before you could safely say that you were well kitted out for your new life of drudgery. It’s probably my upbringing but I think there’s something quite comforting about a bottom drawer – just as well I didn’t have a daughter!

Callander

Posted on 30 May 2011 by Katrina

Recently, we’ve got into the habit of going for a drive at the weekend to have a bit of a snoop around towns which we think might have possibilities as a good place to move to. My husband is hoping to take early retirement in a year or so. So as we didn’t have anything else planned we found ourselves setting out for the Callander area in Stirlingshire on Saturday.

On the plus side Callander is situated in a lovely scenic area, all hills and lochs instead of the usually grey North Sea which we live close to here. It’s a nice wee town, more scenic than the photos make it look and it’s closer to the west of Scotland and our home town of Dumbarton, so my husband might be able to see more home football matches during the season. Every part of Scotland seems to be stuffed full of history but this bit is probably even more so than others. It’s close to Stirling with all its ancient Royal and William Wallace connections and it’s Rob Roy MacGregor country too. There is a second-hand bookshop in the town!! But there are quite a lot of things which aren’t so good.

We don’t really know the area well and we don’t know anybody there – that could be a plus I suppose! The town is in a tourist area and most of the shops cater for tourists. There are lots of whisky shops, woollen mill shops and outdoor clothing/camping/hiking shops – but there isn’t a big supermarket. It’s much more rural than we’ve been used to, at the moment we live a short walk away from Marks and Spencer and the usual shops in a medium sized town. We’re near a railway station and Edinburgh is a hop and a skip away.

On the other hand I hardly ever go to the shops because I’ve reached that stage in life when I don’t really need anything, in fact I’m trying to de-clutter! So Callander isn’t being written off – it’s a maybe. I wonder what it’s like during the winter?

We do enjoy hill-walking but most of the hills around that area are really steep. Unfortunately we couldn’t stop the car at any of the really lovely hills. These ones are rather tame looking but you can just see a wind farm in the distance. I don’t mind them actually but I don’t suppose I would like to have one on my doorstep. So, the search goes on!

Newburgh, Fife, Scotland

Posted on 5 May 2011 by Katrina

Last Saturday was a lovely day and as we tend to think that every good day should be treasured and not taken for granted, we decided to visit Newburgh and have a walk around. We had been there before but had really not been further than the main street.

We were kind of thinking that it might be a possibility as a place to retire to but on second thoughts it’s just too remote and far from what I regard as civilization (Glasgow) even further north and no nearer the west. If you take a look here you’ll see that it’s right at the opposite end of the county from Kirkcaldy and is on the River Tay. The riverside is well maintained with a nice picnic area and some lovely trees.

I was quite impressed with the place, they had obviously had a bit of a shindig in the community centre for the Royal Wedding the day before. So I think there must be a good community spirit there. The locals seemed to be friendly which is very unusual in Fife and Fifers are quite happy to admit that themselves. The saying in Scotland is that ‘It takes a lang spoon tae sup with a Fifer’. In other places the word Fifer is replaced by Devil!

The town is surrounded by quite nice hills and the River Tay is well used by local yachtsmen, which looked good fun. The Tay is looking manky at the moment or maybe it’s always like that there, in which case the city of Perth must be responsible for the muck because at Dunkeld which is north of Perth the Tay is lovely and clear.

So, the hunt continues!

Tillicoultry Cherry Blossom

Posted on 25 April 2011 by Katrina

We paid a visit to the wee town of Tillicoultry in Clackmannanshire the other day, we were really having a snoop around to see if we might like to move there when my husband takes early retirement next year. Sadly, although there are really lovely hills there which are just begging to be hiked up the town itself is fairly dire. Mind you I suppose it’s no different from lots of small towns nowadays. Various recessions, the internet and out of town retail parks have taken their toll and there’s virtually nothing left of the High Street. But as you can see, there is some lovely cherry blossom out at the moment, and a great wee burn which used to power five mills. I used to spend a lot of time playing in a burn like this when I was wee, it was a favourite summer pastime for kids in my day, damming them up and making stepping stones, but you never see anyone playing in burns nowadays.

This cherry tree is right outside Gordon’s living-room window in Alloa, it’s gorgeous, it’s just a pity that the blossom doesn’t last very long.

This is one of the many sculptures which decorate the roundabouts in Clackmannanshire. They seem to have given one local sculptor loads of commissions – lucky him! I do like his work but they have given others a chance to shine too. Apparently this one is called Journey’s End. You can see more of Andy Scott’s work (and various other artists’) by following the links here.

William and Catherine at St Andrews

Posted on 25 February 2011 by Katrina

Well the town was taken over by the media and security people and I was told by a certain son of mine who works at the uni that they wouldn’t be doing a walk-about, so I didn’t bother going. To be honest though I would have had to get on a bus and I’ve already been on one this week. Believe it or not at 8.30 this morning it was chucking it down with rain and that was the clincher in my decision not to go to St Andrews.

Anyway, if you’re interested in William and Catherine’s visit and launch of the 600 year anniversary celebrations and appeal there are 50 photographs of it which you can view here.

Pining for the West

Meanderings about recipes, books, craft and more

Category Archives: Towns