Out Exploring

So. Sunday. Neither of us was working. We’ve run out of digging space, temporarily. It’s true that we do now have the rest of the glass for the greenhouse, The Builder finally having found the eBay man he bought it from. But there’s no pressing need to finish the greenhouse at this exact moment. What shall we do?

Shall we go out for the day?

Shall we have lunch at home and potter?

Shall we go out for lunch, and potter?

Hmmm.

In the meantime, we washed, cleaned, tidied, ironed, chatted on SKYPE, pottered. And then decided to go to Southwell for lunch. It’s near Newark and we pass the turn offs to it when we go to Cambridge but have never been. And it is, bizarrely enough, the home of the cathedral for the diocese of Southwell and Nottingham. I’m not at all sure why. AS far as I can see, it has always been a slightly out of the way market town. I’m not absolutely sure quite why it was decided that “This would be the place for a cathedral”, though it had been an established Minster for centuries. The only reason I know of its existence is because, months and months ago, I happened to hear someone discussing the church with Roger, but they didn’t say much beyond the fact that they had been there. Ah well. Let’s go and investigate.

So we did.

It’s a lovely little town (question: if it has a cathedral and is the diocesan heart of Southwell and Nottingham, why isn’t the town a city? I thought city-hood was conferred by the presence of a cathedral, other than some without such adornments which have been civilised by recent acts of parliament?!?). Largely Georgian. Lovely, grassy squares and parks. Beautiful buildings. Most things were closed, of course, it being Sunday and the town being out in the middle of nowhere. But the pubs were open. We chanced into the Saracen’s Head, an old, old hostelry which now acts as a hotel, restaurant and bar. We had Sunday roast in the bar, not wishing to have a set, 3-course meal in the restaurant. I was a bit suspicious when it arrived. The beef was fatty and pale. The carrots were unpeeled. I took a cautious mouthful. Goodness. This is *real* food, not pub grub. Absolutely smashing, it was. The carrots were tasty; so was the cabbage. The meat tasted of beef. It was great.

Then we ambled off to find the Minster. Got there to find explained the presence in the town of oodles of scouts – St George’s Day Church Parade at 3:15. Fortunately, this left us lots of time to potter about and explore the church. Which is lovely. And huge. Well, not huge for a cathedral, but very huge indeed for a parish church in the middle of nowhere. Though not, I suppose, as surprisingly huge as the church in Newark, now I come to think about it. Anyway. There’s beautiful stone tracery and lovely carvings (there’s a beautiful stone hound’s head on the way into the chapter hose. I know you’re not supposed to touch – but I had to stroke its nose as I went past. You have to stroke doggies!). It’s a mishmash of architectural styles, but is quite modern in feel. I like it. Then we went for a wander around the town centre, which has lots of interesting, specialty shops. Must come again when they are open, having arranged to leave my wallet at home! Then we picked up an ice cream and went for a stroll in the park, beating a hasty retreat back to the car park when we realised that the scouts’ parade was about to start and that the police were getting into place to stop the traffic through the town for the duration!

And so home. Where I decided to pot up my lavender plants while The Builder was watching the cricket. I had bought them through a seed company when I was on the hunt for some soya seeds a few weeks ago. I thought at the time it was expensive for one lavender plant, but assumed you got either one very big one or two or three smaller ones. But no. What I got was a tray of lavender plugs. 84 very tiny ones!!! I had *just* enough seed pots of an appropriate size to put them into (I inherited lots from Mrs Hallam when I acquired her Wendy house, and loads more from the man we bought the greenhouses from). It worked out that I ended up with 82 – 2 were too small to pot on. Quite what I’m going to do if they all survive, I don’t quite know. A hedge of 82 lavender plants would be quite something to behold, but might somewhat overtake the orchard!

Speaking of the orchard, we have harvested our very first picking! Rhubarb, which we found when we shifted a dead tree trunk two or three weeks ago, has now grown big enough to pull. We are eating magnificent stewed rhubarb with a Bramley apple. Yum!

We probably didn’t need much more for tea than the stewed fruit. Nevertheless, I wandered up to the chippy on Sunday evening and we had haddock and chips with wine (me) and beer (The Builder ). The advantage of Sunday evening is that the queue is nothing like as monstrous as it is on Fridays and Saturdays!

We had been merrily making our way through Mansfield on the way to Southwell (pronounced as it is spelled – no elision) on Sunday, when we became aware that the car sat next to us at the traffic lights was tooting at us and its driver and passenger were waving. The Builder opened the window to be informed that our brake lights were stuck permanently on. Oops! When we checked in the car park in Southwell, they were indeed stuck on. And quite hot, at that! The Builder took the Vixen to Nick the Mechanic on Monday morning. He’s fixed the lights, but seems to be a bit worried about the slackness of the brake thingies. It’s going back to Fiat on Wednesday for inspection. It is, after all, only an 18 month old car!

I was on the evening duty yesterday. It is our practice, when we are both at home at lunchtime, to go out for lunch. This is often a Sunday lunch (on those rare Sundays when I am not working) and equally often an evening duty lunch when The Builder is not working. It is exceeding rare for these events to fall on consecutive days. Even rarer for us to have a roast lunch on both days, especially when they are consecutive. But yesterday we called at the Toby pub at Parkhead which does a carvery. Not quite sure why I decided it was A Plan to have a roast lunch when I had been intending a salad, but there you go. A HUGE plate of food for a fiver. Nothing like as nice as the much more expensive food in Southwell, but you couldn’t complain about the quantity. Or even, really, the quality. Was not bad pub grub. But very, very salty. I think I drank about 8 pints of water during the afternoon. And this time I really only did have stewed fruit for tea :-)

Oh - I knew there was something else. When we came back to Tupton on Friday afternoon, I happened to notice that the walk along the railway sidings on the other side of the bridge was, at long last, open!! Yesterday, in between rain showers, we went to investigate. It goes up as far as the railway bridge, which is still closed. But now you can go on along a bit, then come under another bridge and do a round walk back along the wetlands. It’s very exciting. At least, it’s very nice to have such a lovely walk at our doorstep. Eventually, I believe it is to connect up with the reclamation work they are doing at the old coal mines closer to Chesterfield. The website suggests there is now a visitor centre somewhere near Wingerworth. Must go and investigate.

There were two tree pipits by the pond on Saturday morning. At least, I think they were tree pipits. And there was a Yellowhammer on a fence by the wetlands yesterday. And a skylark in the sky.

It’s raining. Gently. It’s the first rain we’ve had this month. Which is usually one of the wettest