Clarissa et al.

Today was our annual excursion to the seaside and Issy's chalet. It was a bit of a blustery day, but the children still managed to have fun body-boarding and wave-jumping, and (as usual) it was the girls who were in first and out last, while the boys were back in the chalet complaining of being cold and getting changed.

Here is Jess doing a quick warm up between water sports. Look at the picture behind her showing Mark pretending he has just caught the washed up whale with his tiddy rod and line!

Although they are now all in their teens - 14 and 15 - except Callum who reaches his on November 5th, Helen and Inge went with them to the tide's edge to do beach patrol and shout at anyone doing anything silly. A precaution proved more than justified as we watched the speed with which the giant beach-ball crested wave after wave and drifted off towards Holland! Nobody was fool enough to try and follow: it only cost 99p but even if that had been £99 or even £999 far better let it float away than for any one of those children to take a foolish risk.
Here are the mothers warming up after their beach patrol duties

The only baby of the group, Tilly, was taken down for a paddle, but found it much too rough and cold, though she liked the beach.

Jenny, Issy's daughter and Inge's and my god-daughter, wasn't with us this year, but was away at the Leeds Festival celebrating her GCSEs with a group of friends, but Esther, her younger sister was of the party until she spotted a group of her own friends. It is probably unfair of me, but when they were together they reminded me of that group of girls in 'Doc Martin' who wander around that seaside town fully made-up, dressed to the nines and giggling at nothing in particular.

Issy, as ususal, provided a lovely lunch, and we did an early birthday celebration for Inge with my unblowable out candles nearly destroying Issy's beautifully made cake.

A good time was had by all.

I have been told that something I have written on my blog pertaining to my work has caused offence. Those who told me were unable to tell me what it was or, indeed, who complained, so I have scanned through every public blog for the last year and found only one which was even mildly critical. http://swallowedwhole.blog.co.uk/2009/07/15/museum-education-6521349/
This criticism is very generalised with no person held up to ridicule and reasons are suggested for the occasional failures; in fact what criticism there is is couched in such terms that it is like this cartoon

- if you take offence it says more about your own perception of yourself than it does about the perceptions of the cartoonist; in other words, you are inferring that it is you who are 'scum' rather than 'cream' while the cartoonist makes no such assumption.

Last time someone told me the same thing, I wrote the following:

My blog is first and foremost for me: it is simply what it says a web log (an online diary) in which I record my thoughts on the day's events - the events in my day, not the news day - which I share with my friends and a small number of other people who flick onto my blog and stay long enough to read. Occasionally I may write in the heat of the moment when something has particularly irritated me, and there is the chance that - despite my careful avoidance of full names - someone may occasionally read something they do not like (possibly even something about themselves).

And herein to me is the beauty of the blog: it is wholly democratic and anyone can post a response or, if they prefer, they can send a private message to the writer. No one need ever harbour a simmering resentment about a lightly written remark or hastily made judgement.

More than two months ago I expressed an honestly held opinion. Today I learn that somebody found that expressed opinion offensive. I do not wish to offend and have now made that particular entry private, but why wait so long? Why not just comment "Lissa, you've gone too far this time - tone it down"? Why allow a lightly made comment to fester until it seems so much greater than it ever was and turn the whole thing into an issue?

I still hold by this: I don’t hide my identity. I write openly “I think . . .” If someone is offended then let them tell me so (I read every comment and respond to most), and not go sneaking anonymously behind my back.

I have just realised that in all the busyness of last week I never wrote about my day in York on Thursday.

Joe had aranged that we meet my cousin Susan at the west door of the Minster at noon. I always think of York as being a very long way, and, of course, it used to be when you had to go miles round the end of the Humber and we lived eleven miles further away in Cleethorpes. Nowadays via the Humber Bridge it is just 57 miles: that is just over an hour to get there and another hour to find a parking space plus £12 for petrol, £5.40 for the bridge and £10 for the car park! There is a park and ride, but what time does it end for the day, and how long does the bus take? I could probably find this out, but not as a last minute decision on noticing the signs. I know that last time I looked it was only operational at the weekend or something equally daft.

Anyway, we met Sue at 12.05, which wasn't at all bad, and went for coffee. She then had to rush off for half-an-hour, so Joe and I strolled to Fairfax House and spent a very long time looking at the first room (the library) while she caught us up. Once again I was with my classic guide book (from the year it opened to the public) and one again nothing worth mentioning had changed. It is still a town house with a fascinating history, and the Terry furniture collection is still superb.

We then made our way to an art gallery almost next door where ther was a free exhibition. I recall that last time I went there I had rather liked most of what was on display. this time my reaction was very different. The main exhibit was a huge design on the floor made up of broken pots: not to my taste, but what really got to me was that the pots were archaeological finds. The high points (literally in that they stuck out from the rest) of this ‘quilt’ were flowers made up of the very recognisable handles of mediaeval greenware, which were surrounded by mosaics of broken grey and terracotta pots which – even to my untutored eye – clearly came from a wide range of periods.

Accompanying this display was a video in which the ‘artist’ smugly explained how much more meaning these pots had arranged into a thing of beauty (debateable point) than stored away in trays where nobody can see them. She was also cutting and breaking the shards to fit them into her pattern and (presumably) throwing away the offcuts.

It may be that once the pot remains have helped date the context in which they are found they are so commonplace that they no longer have much value, but surely as long as they are stored in trays properly categorised, they are a resource both for teaching and for later scholars to revisit the work of their predecessors and re-evaluate their conclusions in the light of improved knowledge and technology, and that once the context is lost the meaning and value are gone? Anyway, that’s what I think, but my knowledge of archaeology is predominantly the result of years of television viewing from Sir Mortimor Wheeler onwards.

After that high tea at a vegetarian restaurant - Sue and I shared a very nice cheese platter - and exchanged family news. her two oldest boys have graduated from Cambridge and Newcastle respectively with 2:1s and the next two have passed their A and AS levels with a respectable range of A to C grades and not too much effort. Maddie, the baby, is just about to embark on the first year of her GCSE course.

back to the Minster where we were just in time for evensong. As well as being something very worthwhile in its own right, it also saves making a fuss about being expected to pay to enter God's house, and having to go into all the quotations about money changers in the temple. But it something I feel strongly about, and I am quite pleased to learn that York Minster has made a loss since the charges were put on. Susan didn't join us as her parking time was abot to run out.

I am never quite certain what I feel about cathedral evensong - or, indeed, any other choral service. I don't like the exclusiveness of responses from the choir only. I am participating as part of the congregation, not merely listening as a member of an audience. (In the point of congregation participation I am deeply and modernly protestant to the extent that I am one of the people who always joins in with the Lord's Prayer at the beginning of BCP communion and keeps on joining in with all the prayers in which the congregation joins in the modern service whatever the BCP tradition: I am generally not alone in this.) Having said that, the adult mixed choir was very good, and the setting was unfamiliar to me.

On Sunday it was Morning Prayer at Nettleton which was completely different - wholly spoken apart from the hymns, and in modern language. (By the way, why the Nicene Creed rather than the Apostles' Creed nowadays?)

On Friday I had half-a-dozen of my colleagues and ex-colleagues round for tea. The original plan was to have a day out for the whole of museum education, but too many ppeople were otherwise engaged (mainly on holiday) so that is postponed until we are all back/less busy. That too was a very pleasant sociable afternoon.

When I visited Haddon Hall I had forgotten my camera battery. I have now borrowed Liz's photos, so here they are . . .

Yes, the back view in the long gallery is me - my hair falling down White Queen-like as usual.

Albert, the resident cat.

Sid, the house guest.

The stray cat

He is wearing a black collar, but is not microchipped, and he's a castrated male. While we wait for someone to identify him, he is eating big time! Good job we have a huge quantity of cat food in at the moment.

Not long ago I did a massive tidy up in my 'study'. One of the things that came to light was my first computer - a Dragon 64 bought in 1983 or 1984. It was a present so I can't remember how much it cost, but I know that it was less than a tenth of the price of my next (and present) computer in 1997 which cost me £720.

Anyway, here it is complete with my former postcode (we moved in 1986) written in ultraviolet pen, but nonetheless clearly visible. To work it I had to plug in a cassette tape recorder and my screen was a £100 ex-rental television bought from Radio Rentals. I went to classes and learned to write my own programmes in Basic. (My version of Countdown was really rather good, although the graphics with that 'massive' 64K memory were pretty basic.) 64K - in modern terms about enough for a single 10,000 word document with no illustrations or charts!

I had a bit of a google around and found this:

The Dragon 64, launched in 83, was exactly the same computer as the Dragon 32, except that it had 64k RAM instead of 32k, an OS9 operating system and a RS232C connector.

The Extended Basic has been modified to provide RS232 I/O calls, to remove the USR bug present in the Dragon 32 ROM and to add calls allowing the additional interpreter to be invoked.
This second interpreter was the same Extended Basic re-compiled to run from a higher memory address and stored in a EPROM. When invoked, the machine was switched into 64k RAM mode and the interpreter copied from EPROM to RAM giving an extra 16K BASIC workspace. (Source : Jon's Dragon Home Page)

The Dragon 64 was sold in various European countries. A slightly modified version was also manufactured and sold in the US by TANO (Technical Associates of New Orleans) from August 1983. They sold the machine under the TANO name for a few months but couldn't compete with the agressive price policy from Commodore, Atari and T.I. All the unsold machine were eventually sold off to a discount store called California Digital.

In 85 Eurohard, a spanish manufacturer, acquired Dragons Data. Then the Dragon 200 replaced the 64 with some minor changes: power-on lights, auto-repeat keyboard... They also also had plans for a 128k Dragon and a MSX Dragon.

NAME Dragon 64
MANUFACTURER Dragon Data Ltd
TYPE Home Computer
ORIGIN United Kingdom
YEAR Summer 1983
BUILT IN LANGUAGE Microsoft Extended Basic
KEYBOARD QWERTY Mechanical keyboard 53 keys
CPU Motorola MC6809EP
SPEED 0,9 Mhz
CO-PROCESSOR Motorola MC-6847 Video Display Generator
RAM 64 kb
ROM 32 kb
TEXT MODES 32 x 28 and 51 x 16 under OS9
GRAPHIC MODES Several graphic modes, max : 256 x 192 (with 2 colors)
COLORS 8
SOUND 1 voice, 5 octaves with the Basic 4 voices, 7 octaves with machine code
I/O PORTS TV connector, 2 analogue joystick ports, cassette port, Centronics parallel printer port, cartridge slot, composite monitor port, serial connector
BUILT IN MEDIA None
OS OS9
POWER SUPPLY External AC transformer. Built-in power regulation
PERIPHERALS Single or dual FDd unit

I have reached the conclusion that the Dragon is truly extinct, and I doubt whether there is any future possibility of it 'coming in' for something unless possibly as some future museum exhibit. The dustmen come on Monday by which time I may have decided whether it goes with them, or whether I find it a corner of the garage against that distant exhibition of obsolete technology.

When I was 11 or 12 years old, we went through a period of looking at a lot of houses with a view to moving. (We didn't move and stayed where we were for nearly twenty years more.)

One house we looked at more than once and were really serious about was White Lodge, Humberston Avenue. Humberston Avenue is - or was - the 'Millionaires' Row' of the Grimsby area and the last stop before the country estate. It was a charming house: built, I would guess, in the 1920s in a sub-Lutyens country cottage meets stately pile style.

Outside it was, as the name would suggest, painted white with, at the front, smallish windows divided into smaller panes top give it a rustic appearance. The front garden was gravel drive and shrubs, the back was a wide (slightly waterlogged) lawn surrounded by somemwhat overgrown beds.

Going through the front door was a small entrance hall with, as I recall, both a lavatory and a cloakroom opening off it. It may be my imagination, but I think it also had a telephone booth! This small entrance hall opened into a magificent oak panelled staircase hall cum reception hall cum sitting room cum formal dining room with plenty of room for a grand piano and a select audience for the recitals given thereon or - and this is what my just sub-teen imagination preferred - a production of Romeo and Juliet making splendid use of the balconied landing above. At the far side of the hall was a small conservatory or glazed alcove with french doors leading onto the garden.

To one side was a square breakfast room with a hatch leading to a frankly poky galley style kitchen with off it all the necessary pantries and larders. At the other side of the hall were two other rooms - both square and of reasonable size which we saw as a library/study and a bed-sitting room for my grandmother.

The reception hall was for the most part double height so the upstairs accomodation was somewhat meagre: a bathroom above the entrance hall etc., a huge billiard room (!!!) above the two small rooms and two bedrooms (one accessed through the other) over the kitchen and breakfast room.

As you will see the proportion of sleeping space to living space was inadequate and the upper floor needed serious thought and redesign - none of which detracted from the real charm of the place.

It was on the market for £6,000, and that was the sticking point: my father had paid off our mortgage and didn't want to have to take out a new one to cover the £2,000 gap between the expected price for our house and the asking price for this, especially as the firm he worked for had just been taken over by another about whose ethos my father was having serious doubts, and he was thinking of setting up on his own. (In the end that is what he did, which is why the house move never took place.)

I assume that the subsequent owners of White Lodge made the necessary improvements regarding bedrooms and bathrooms, brought up the kitchen to modern standards and put in central heating.

Three years ago it was sold for just shy of £400,000 (which is a huge amount in the Grimsby area).

A couple of weeks ago in the Cleethorpes Chronicle there was a sob story about a couple who had build a luxury 6 bedroom (all 'ensuite') lottery-millionaire's gin palace as a speculation, having pulled down this lovely house. It had been on the market for £1,500,000, but they were now open to offers just to recoup the money they had spent on their investment.

I can only say, serve them right, the vandals!

PS At the same time I note (using the site on which I found the price for which White Lodge last changed hands) that our old house - the one we didn't leave then - holds the record for the most expensive sale in Signhills Avenue this century. Shame we sold it twenty years too early.

I had a lovely day out with Liz today.

Walk at Snipedales, a pretty wooded valley with springs near the site of the battle of Winceby. Some good blackberries en route. (First time there for Liz)

Picnic in the ruins of Bolingbroke Castle - the birthplace of Henry IV (part 1). (First time there for Liz) Some children were there playing proper pretend games all around the ruins. One boy was the bossy know-it-all we both remember being who told the others what to do, including in his play the line "Make sure he's properly dead, then come here!"

Visit to Gunby Hall - a first for both of us since the new tenant took over: the garden is still stunningly lovely and they still don't serve teas.

Tea at a nearby farm shop.

Visit to Saltfleetby All Saints Church. (We both think it was our first visit there, but we have both visited a lot of Lincolnshire churches over the years - this one is redundant, but wasn't when we were children)

Next a walk at Saltfleet Haven where I gathered some samphire. (First time there for Liz. She's never had samphire either, and won't be doing so this visit either as she's heading home again en route for Dubai at the end of the week.)

Next North Cotes churchyard for Liz to photograph an ancestral gravestone - the William Pennell two generations on from the George and Elizabeth Pennell who at the end of the eighteenth century are our closest ancestors in common - two of their children William Blyth Pennell and Ann Pennell (Mrs Thomas Coulbeck) were respectively her great-great-great-grandfather and my great-great-great-grandmother. (A first for me)

And finally - a light meal (starter and pudding - too hot for a main course) at the Crown and Anchor at Tetney Lock.

All the pictures are by Liz as I forgot my camera - the whole thing this time, not just the battery!

I first went to Haddon Hall on a school trip in July 1965. Liz was also on that visit. We were ten. I still have the original guide book from that visit.

I have been back on several occasions since, and Liz went with her family once or twice either just before or just after the school trip. I know that my next visit was in August 1965 as I couldn't wait to show my parents the most wonderful, magically beautiful place I had ever visited, and my views as to the loveliness of Haddon haven't changed one jot or tittle since then. This was, however, the first time Liz and I had been back there together in 44 years. Before Liz proposed this trip I had already promised Joe that we would go to Haddon this summer, so it was the three of us who went.

Liz and I have long played a game together of choosing our personal stately home/historic house, and, although I have inserted all sorts of rooms and furnishings from other houses (most notably Lady Marjorie's bedroom from Plas Newydd on Anglesey and Winston Churchill's dining room table and chairs from Chartwell) into my stately home, Haddon Hall remains the basis of my perfect house.

When we arrived not only were my companions very funny about my venerable guidebook, but the man at the ticket booth chose to be equally amusing. The new guide book has many colour pictures, but it is far too large comfortably to insert into ones handbag. Some houses change considerably over a period of over forty years, but at Haddon they appear to have moved a few chairs - not far, but their positions in the room have changed since the photographs were taken - and members of the royal family (Prince Charles and Princess Anne) have further vandalised the Earl's Bedroom chimney breast by adding their signatures to those of their great grandparents. By the way I noticed at least three people going round the house with the 1980 edition of the guide book.

I suppose I really ought to describe what is so perfect about Haddon Hall. I could write about its hill top setting above the Derbyshire River Wye, or the perfect preservation of its mediaeval structure, but for me it shares with Jervaulx Abbey in Yorkshire that sense of being forever bathed in the sunlight of a perfect (wasp-free) summer day. Or, as "Uncle Alf" (see earlier blog) might have put it
And one, an English home — grey twilight pour’d
On dewy pastures, dewy trees,
Softer than sleep — all things in order stored,
A haunt of ancient peace.
though we shall be visiting Gunby Hall next week which probably, along with Harrington Hall, has a more genuine claim to be the inspiration of this description.

I'm afraid that I haven't any photos as I discovered that I had forgotten the camera battery which I carefully left to recharge overnight, but (until Liz posts hers on facebook and I 'borrow' them) I have borrowed this by way of googling. (Update: Pictures posted August 24th)

In 1964 we had a set lunch at long trestle tables in the cafe which in those days still looked like a loft over the stables and then went on to the Blue John Mines for the afternoon. Yesterday we had some very well filled sandwiches in the well decorated and equipped tea room, and on the way home visited the ruins of Sutton Scarsdale Hall which lasted only 200 years before it was dismantled and its treasures sold, some to William Randolph Hearst to be exported to America.

I promised Jess another day out, but it seemed Joel couldn't manage Monday or Tuesday, Jess couldn't do Wednesday and I couldn't do Thursday or Friday. However Joel rang me this morning to say that Jess had asked him to ask me to take them out today. I had several jobs I needed to do (including some tidying I am busily not doing while I write this), but zoomed through most of them so that I was ready with a picnic packed and dinner in the slow cooker not long after 11 o'clock.

Picking up Joel on the way, we drove to Tattershall Castle and ate our picnic almost at once. Both children had spent an energetic morning riding their horses since they had eaten breakfast and they were HUNGRY!!!

Here they are coming back over the bridge having taken the picnic things back to the car.

They opted for the audio tour but both really hated the accent of the speaker and gave up not long after this.

We went slowly up the tower visiting each floor. They had a series of art installations each commenting on different aspects of the castle - some more successful than others. I found the level of the audio in basement and the audience chamber so painfully intrusive that any merit these installations had was completely lost to me. The delicate golden cobwebs of the great chamber were rather beautiful, but the visual commentary on the rescuing of the castle in 1913/14 in the bed chamber left me wondering "But is it art?"

while the combination of packing cases with fairy tale elements (here we see Rapunzel's hair . . . and Jessica's) was just confusing.

On the roof we discovered that Joel is scared of heights which Jess and I find pretty incomprehensible. Fortunately Joel isn't seriously phobic and was fine looking out, just not down.

From here Jess and I could appreciate my favourite of the installations which was called 'Restored Carpet' and was a mediaevalish design shaved into the ghrass of the Inner Ward. My camera simply isn't good enough to capture the detail so you'll just have to take my word for it.

On the way down we noticed this grafitti and realise that Joel's dad was there way back in 1840! We knew he was old, but . . .

Outside we walked round the outside of the castle and looked at the final installation which included camera obscuras in the remains of the stables. I thought about posting these next two pictures upside down to give an impression, but decided against it.

For the first time in years that I can remember the moat was relatively full of water so I took a picture to prove it

While I was taking this the children had rushed back to the outer moat which was merely boggy - and both thought it was amusing to run down the sides and jump the narrow wet bit at the bottom, although Jess is looking as if such naughty occupations had never crossed her mind.

We then had tea and cakes in the church - that is I had tea and cake and they just had cake - for which we paid the magnificent sum of £3 for all three of us. The coffee cake was so good that I bought a whole one to bring home despite having made scones this morning for father's guest tomorrow.

On the way home we called in briefly at Hubbards Hills where they had a quick paddle, we all played Pooh sticks and Joel went 'mountaineering' - so much for his fear of heights!

When I got home I learned that Nottinghamshire police had phoned wanting a statement about the accident we witnessed last week. The motorcyclist unexpectedly died on Saturday so it has all suddenly become more serious and urgent. I don't want to have to tell the children as it has clearly already made a bigger impression on them than I would wish - and they have already lost a friend/playmate/honorary cousin this year as well as the fact that not so long ago Joel's uncle was seriously injured in a motorbike accident and Jessica's aunt was killed in a car crash.

We have a visitor - or to be accurate my nephew Joe, who lives next door, has a visitor.

Sid is Liz and Ed's cat, but since they will be living in Dubai for the foreseeable future she is a long-term house-guest. Last summer Sid stayed here, but the relationship with Albert was not an easy one as Sid is very much a lone cat - all right for a short stay, but not comfortable as a permanency, which is why we all thought that she would be more comfortable next door where she can be sole pet and rule the household as she thinks fit. Sid is also a cat who likes her freedom to roam the outdoors.

And therein lies the problem: Joe's neighbours on the other side. There is Nes, and Nes's spaniel Bram, and Nes's housemate Laurence. Bram is kept in the yard behind the house and is only let out when Nes is around to keep an eye on her - and, boy, is she a dog who needs an eye kept on her! At the moment Nes is working nights so it falls to Laurence to let Bram out and exercise her. Laurence hates cats and thinks it funny to set Bram on Sid, and Bram doesn't need much encouragement.

So we now have the complicated routine of Joe bringing Sid round here for the day and taking her home at night, which will work as long as the summer holidays last. Let us hope that by the time August ends Nes will be back on days, and Bram will be back under the control of someone who has some idea of responsible dog ownership.

In the meantime I am thinking irresponsible thoughts about rotweilers - to set on Laurence rather than Bram - or, since I understnd that Laurence is cat phobic (lots of people are, but it doesn't make them nasty), has anyone got a pet panther/lion/tiger etc. I can borrow?

I received this email this morning which I think is moderately amusing

New Pandemic
I went to a dinner party last night, where I and other guests enjoyed copious amounts of alcohol. I awoke this morning not feeling well, with what could be described as flu-like symptoms; headache, nausea, chills, sore eyes etc.

From the results of some initial testing, I have unfortunately tested positive for what experts are now calling Wine Flu. This debilitating condition is very serious and it appears this is not an isolated case. Reports are flooding in from all around the neighbourhood of others diagnosed with Wine Flu.

To anyone that starts to exhibit the aforementioned tell-tale signs, experts are recommending a cup of tea and a bit of a lie down.

However, should your condition worsen, you should immediately hire a DVD and take some Nurofen [Nurofen seems to be the only drug available that has been proven to help combat this unusual type of flu]. Others are reporting a McDonald's Happy Meal can also help in some cases.

Wine Flu does not need to be life threatening, and if treated early can be eradicated within a 24-48 hour period. If not, then further application of the original liquid in similar quantities to the original dose has been shown to do the trick.

Good luck

My nephew, Joe, has a worse disease - Whine Flu. Yesterday his headache was definitely meningitis, while later in the day he was suffering from a deadly poison through having walked past an unidentified fungus. He was so bad all day that he was wholly unable to prepare a meal for the guest he had coming to supper; so it was back to Lissa's meals on wheels, and very lucky he was to get an egg and bacon flan, a fruit salad and a loaf straight from the oven. Other people who can't be bothered to cook do the decent thing and get a ready meal from the supermarket. If Ken wasn't such a nice person and hadn't been coming to give us a talk in church (one of a series arranged by Joe to raise funds for the church roof) I would have let Joe stew in his own juice! (Actually that sounds a terrible recipe - long pig at its worst!!!) But I could have left him to explain why he was serving baked beans followed by tinned mandarin oranges - or whatever it was that the back of the store cupboard supplied.

Today is the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, one of Lincolnshire's most famous sons.

The statue outside Lincoln Cathedral

When I was a little girl we would go and explore the vast and ruinous Bayons Manor at Tealby, ancestral home of the Tennysons, Tennyson-Turners and Tennyson-D'eyncourts. It was an amazing place - nineteenth century gothic romance at its most gothic and romantic. It was there that my father told me how his grandfather would tell him that we were related to the Tennysons and that wonderful house and the famous poet were part of our inheritance.

Sadly, so far as I can tell (and my family researches have been pretty thorough) there is not a shred of truth in this assertion. Yes, at somewhere around the same time the Turners who were kinsfolk to the Tennysons and the Turners who were my ancestors were both living in and around Alford at the start of the nineteenth century: both families were incomers and all the evidence suggests wholly unrelated to each other.

Nonetheless, I still retain a certain affection for 'Uncle Alf' and his poems and can recite great chunks. The Penguin book of his selected poems in the Swallow Bookworms' book of the month, and I gather that some members may be invited to talk about them on Radio Lincolnshire - generally we all go bashful and Veronica finds herself nominated for things like this.

Possibly one should never actually try to find out the truth behind these family legends - the truth tends to be so much less romantic than the fiction - but I really don't think we are related to this particular great poet. However . . .

Great-great-great-great-grandmother, Mrs. Thomas Turner, was born Hannah Byron in a little village in Nottighamshire not twenty miles from Newstead Abbey, ancestral home of the great poet . . . and the name Byron meant so much in the family that it has been in regular use as a christian name to the present day. Now, I wonder . . .

Today I took Jess, her friend Joel and Joe to Bolsover Castle.

Our journey to Bolsover had been somewhat marred by witnessing an accident on the way there when a motorbike decided to overtake a stream of cars (including ours) on a fairly narrow A road, realised too late that he was heading straight for an oncoming car, tried to swerve back to the left hand side of the road so that his bike tipped over and he hit the car head-on and slid under it. The first car in the stream paused and went on, I stopped, as did the car behind me. So far as I can tell everyone reached for their mobiles (including me) but it was a woman from a couple of cars back who was out of her car fastest, phoning the police and telling the motor-cyclist not to move. Joel thinks she knew him and was calling him by name, but I'm inclined to think that it was just the soothing endearments anyone would use. I went across to check the driver of the car and assure him that I had seen it all, that there was nothing anyone could have done to avoid that accident and that it wasn't his fault. By this time the three cars behind me had pulled into an area at the side of the road which wasn't quite a layby (possibly a turning point for tractors coming out of the field opposite?) and I was the only person still in the roadway on my side, so I gave the driver my card to give to the police so that I could make a statement if needed, and took the children on our way. There wasn't anything any of us could do there, and I NEEDED the coffee boost of the picnic.

So, on to the castle. I have long wanted to show the two horsey types the magnificent riding school there. They teenagerishly refused to be impressed in that it was too small for show jumping, although they grudgingly admitted that it would be excellent for dressage - which is what they would have done in the seventeenth century.

I didn't see anything of them as they went round at their own pace and Joe and I went round at ours. We were all slightly delayed entering the Little Castle where the seventeenth century Duke of Newcastle and his friends played their games of naughty mediaeval knights and ladies by a wedding party. Here (for Liz) is a picture of the bride

and for me a picture of the 1952 Daimler Consort

When I first visited the castle it was a much less polished and restored place than it is now and our dog (Peppi) was allowed to accompany us all round including the interior of the castle. She really enjoyed trotting up the hundred and thirty or so steps and exploring all the rooms - all that is except the painted room where she hung back and whimpered in a most un-Peppi-like way. (She was a small terrier who believed - as do most terriers - herself to be the biggest, fiercest, fastest dog in town, and wasn't scared of anything.) The then custodian told us that his own dog always hung back from entering the same room when they did their nightly rounds. Odd.

Much later I took my little nephews there and in the same room baby Josh (aged about three or four) lay on the floor to look at the ceiling.

"Oh, look," he said, "the angels are doing the hokey-cokey and Jesus is beckoning us to come and play too!"

Fifteen year olds do not come up with such wit and wisdom, but I think they enjoyed themselves despite the incident on the way there, and I got Joel and Jess home in time for their five o'clock riding and stable management lessons respectively.

Today at communion we shared the common cup and passed the peace in the traditional way, and all felt a lot better for it. See http://swallowedwhole.blog.co.uk/2009/07/27/swine-flu-and-communion-6596706 for why this so pleases me. Just the difference between Canon Judy and Rev Daphne, or to some extent a reaction to last week's reaction?

We had planned it for Wednesday, but the forecast (correct in this instance) was so bad that we thought that on the whole we wouldn't go. I'm all in favour of not letting bad weath stop enjoyment, but there is no sense in specifically going out to enjoy a garden in the rain when you have a whole six weeks to choose from.

However, Friday dawned bright and clear so Joe and I went to Hardwick for the day. hardly an adevnture as we visit this particular historic house on average once a year, but usually a flying visit on the way to or from somewhere else (one of the many advantages of national trust membership). Our last visit was in the pouring rain, so this time I was determined to see the garden properly.

We started with Stainsby water mill: I love mills, especially when they are running and I could stand/lean/sit watching the wheels turn for hours. Joe, who is less keen on sitting contemplating the prospect (strange as he can sit for hours in front of the television or the computer), is fortunately very interested in mills and enjoys explaining the technicalities to me. (I tend to know these, but try stopping an enthusiast in full flow!) This particular mill is mediaeval in origin with currently a mainly nineteenth century mechanism and a breast-shot wheel. This means that the water comes in about half way up the wheel rather than running it from the botton (undershot) or the top (overshot) - yes, I can do it too! The wheel is enclosed so it is hard to get a good picture so these are the best I could manage.

Next we went on to the house - Bess of Hardwick's spectacular creation.

I was going to say that I had blogged extensively about the house a couple of years ago http://swallowedwhole.blog.co.uk/2007/07/07/hardwick_hall~2588313 but I find that I skimped on my description there, and I am going to again as you really need to visit to appreciate the wonderfully unspoiled interior with quite an amazing quantity of furniture and decor dating right back to Bess's day. Some day I must go there with Liz and spend several hours looking at and discussing the portraits in the long gallery - itself one of the country's great rooms - as Joe is only marginally interested in either portraiture or the personalities and family histories in this wonderful collection.

Enough of these superlatives. I shall only say that the Derbyshire Cream tea at the end of the tour was very nice, and add that, although it was after three, the tea room staff were very obliging in finding Joe a bowl of vegetable soup. (My biggest criticism of the tea room is the lack of tea-time savouries even sandwiches.)

And on to the garden: I loved the herb garden which looked and smelled absolutely wonderful (we are back with the superlatives) - my photos don't even do the looks justice and smellyvision has yet to come.

I also fell for this old stump framed by living trees in the old orchard.

Sadly we didn't get to see the old hall this time as, although it was still a quarter of and hour before closing time, they were not admitting anyone. This is something which really annoys me. By all means remind people that they only have limited time and that it probably is not worth paying admission for such a short visit, but we have English Heritage membership which lets us in free so there would be nothing lost by having a quick canter round the best bits. Anyway, here it is viewed fron the 'new' hall's gardens,

and the 'new' hall viewed from its own gardens.