We just got up and decided to go. This time it was Quarry Bank Mill. It’s a National Trust property. I’ve been with a work group of new students who can’t believe the conditions a 10 year old child might expect to work in.
Quarry Bank is special because it was the very first “ideal village” in that Mr Greg (not the pasties) built housing and two chapels and a pub for his workers as well as housing. Paying them with one hand and taking it back in the shop or over the bar. This is one of those properties that gets more visitors in the week because it’s popular with school parties.
What an amazing place.
Park signOak Cottages Inside the spinning shed
Engels visited this place. He found it to be better than central Manchester but couldn’t speak to the residents privately so was pretty sure there was stuff to hide all the same. Yep model.villagw ties directly to the Communist Manifesto. Bear in mind that although the village had a school and a library the Greg family very much controlled what people could learn and read.
I’m off to Valencia. I’ve never been before and it’s 50 years at least since I was in Spain. The journey is part holiday and part Ingress Anomaly. Ingress is an Augmented Reality Game (ARG), which I’ve been playing for a number of years now and which I’m using as the basis for the ole’ PhD. One day (maybe two) will be battling for my team on the global battlefield, and the rest will be rest.
I wrote the message above before we left on the 30th October. We heard there had been heavy rain. People at the airport were happy enough but as our flight time approached there was increasing concern as I was seeing messages from friends already there that roads were closed and they were having to walk from the airport. The flight took off as planned but staff began talking about the metro system being totally closed … No taxis… City buses may or may not be running…
We arrived to find a queue for taxis which stretched back for hours (talking to people in the queue). Thankfully we snagged an Uber within minutes and made the city and our apartment just before 10 pm. Our hosts were very concerned and very confident that the trip we had planned by train out of the city was not going to happen. Local government information suggested we would be ok at that time.
Then we caught the news.
Waking up in a beautiful restored historical monument of a home in a city searching for it’s own was surreal. The historic centre of Valencia was totally dry and safe thanks to Franco having drained the river years before in case of just such an emergency. This was not something local people wanted to acknowledge had saved lives. We wandered the streets a little dazed. How do you act as a tourist when people are dying just a few miles away? What could we do? Of course the obvious thing was to leave and let the people get on with repairing their city. Naturally flights were booked up and also (naturally) the scalping had begun with one airline raising ticket prices over 500% How is there not international law against this?
We found there was no way out until our planned leaving date anyway and it wouldn’t be our planned route as 3 km of track had been washed away and train tunnels filled with rubble etc. We were not going that way. In fact we ended up flying into Mallorca and then home.
Unsurprisingly the events planned for the weekend had been cancelled. I was more than a little irritated by fellow players complaining about this because they wouldn’t get their badge! FFS! People have died here. That evening we called in to the meet up said our hello’s, ate, collected our game packs and left still wondering what we could do.
The answer turned out to be to donate to the food bank. We took a couple of bags of the things they had requested. It was little enough. This image is one of five collection points half an hour before it was supposed to open. I honestly don’t think it had closed for siesta. There was a lengthy queue of Valencians waiting to bus out as volunteers. The rules were : wear boots and bring a broom.
We saw quite a bit of the old city. The ceramic museum , S Joan and S Nicholas churches, the ancient city wall (part of which we were staying in). We spent a whole day at Oceanagrafic, the aquarium. We met new friends and found ourselves invited back when the city has recovered. The mayor is in trouble for a breach of his duty of care. The king was covered in mud from the clods thrown at him on his visit but we were invited back. We tried to be thoughtful and respectful. We asked after people their friends and family. They shared their stories and thanked us. Good luck Valencia.
I stopped to take a picture if these new shoots. I was deciding whether to crouch or lean when, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a movement. The tiniest mouse was nibbling on some new leaves at the foot of a fallen tree. She scurried out took a leaf and retreated behind the log. I stood still and, sure enough, she reappeared two or three times taking a leaf each time before borrowing into the fallen autumn leaves. I was alone and stayed very quiet. Anyone passing by would’ve taught I was crazy but that little mouse made my day.
Spring is springing. It’s been su shine and showers all week and mainly too cold to do anything meaningful. A couple of weeks back I managed to get 4 buckets of potatoes planted. The garlic planted last autumn are growing strong but a few weeks way from harvest yet.
This is when the seeds go in. The beds were dug at the same time that the spuds went in and the solid layer if fertiliser had leached in nicely. Time to top out the potatoes with farmyard manure and put some brassica in to sprout. The strawberry plants are growing nicely
Today peas, mangetout, broccoli and cabbage. There are new tubs on the windowsill slowly streaming up and hopefully getting the plants revved up for planting out before we jet off again. The cats are fascinated.
My personal task today was putting together cold frame. I hate using chemicals and avoid them if at all possible and, since last year saw us losing to slugs and caterpillars, the next line of defence is now a plastic half formed greenhouse in miniature which fits over one of the raised beds. Let’s see who wins this one sluggies!
The blackcurrant is putting out new shoots. The gooseberry is spiky and green. We may have enough for a pie this year! As ever, the garden is a joy since we converted it to growing food crops. We use it so much more with the summer house being a glorious place to sit.
It’s good to see these growing in the little woodland near the house. It means the woods are mature and well managed. I do wonder how many people walk past these and never notice.
ffiftypluses 