Origins of Leah

That’s the title Sivan gave to today’s tour of the area, taking in the petrol station my parents owned for the first 11 years of my life, my infant/junior school, surrounding villages, taking in the where I work in the morning and calling in for coffee at the farm, before taking a walk through the surrounding woods to one of the many carpets of bluebells that we are blessed with at this time of year. They have invested in a Polaroid instant camera, so we had fun guessing if we’d all be in when we took a ‘selfie’ and waiting with anticipation for the result! Also, Guy was very taken with the Dandelion Clocks, but my effort to photograph him blowing the seedhead of one off into Sivan’s face didn’t work.

Sivan said she couldn’t believe that in all the years I’ve known her, I’ve never mentioned how beautiful it is here. I said I think I’ve mentioned it, but not pushed the point. Jean ( at the farm ) said it’s because we don’t want to people to know ... it’s our secret.

Next stop was a walk to the site of the biggest man made explosion before the atomic bomb - We call it Hanbury Crater, but it’s often referred to as the Fauld Explosion. There’s a pub nearby with newspaper clippings framed on the wall showing photographs and write ups of the aftermath, so took them there first to try to get an idea of the scale. The footpath to it is populated by sheep and their lambs - all the bleating As mum’s and babies called to each other was deafening! As we reached the end and looked back, they’d all resumed their positions in the hedge and across the path - Guy said he now knows how Moses felt!

The crater itself has now been reclaimed by nature, so it’s a bit difficult to get an idea of the depth and breadth of it, but I knew a vantage point had been cleared, so we wandered along to that, and to the memorial to the people who lost their lives in that moment.

Because they hadn’t walked enough (!), I phoned my friend Maria, who I know walks her dog Meg ( already done her Blip debut! ) in the evenings, to see when she thought to go ... ‘ as soon as you arrive ‘, was the answer ...

This time we took them down to the River Dove, the boundary between Tutbury, Staffordshire ( Maria and Sav born and bred there ) and Hatton, South Derbyshire ( where Sav and I live now ). Getting Meg in the photo proved nigh on impossible! In the end I got the humans to hold their pose, whilst I threw a stick for Meg into the river and then quickly took a snap as she brought it back!

We had company for the journey back towards the house. At first the visitors were a bit nervous, but I told them to stay calm and absolutely not to run! They relaxed and wanted a cow selfie, so we stopped. The cows stopped as one behind us, looking at us as if to say “ what’s the crack? “. Sivan, like her mum, her older sister and myself, had worked in the dairy on the kibbutz, but there are no large areas of open pasture there, so even she was amused when every time we stepped forward then stopped, the cows did the same!

Sav met us then and Maria insisted we took our visitors to see Ashleigh House, the renovation we’d worked on a couple of years ago. Didn’t want to intrude on any of the tenants living in the flats now, but the staircase and atrium are impressive enough and I was surprised how emotional I was in there. There’s now a sofa at the bottom of the stairs which fits so well there that I’d like to think tenants sit a moment and have a chat ... I doubt it, but it’s a nice idea.

Finally we called in at the local chippy - well, you’ve not really visited England is you haven’t had fish ‘n’ chips, have you?! Washed it down with some beer too!

Bit of a long entry today so well done if you made it through!