Heaven and Hell

A 10 minute drive out of Sheffield brings you to the Derwent Valley. The area around this side of Sheffield is covered with beautiful dams that are used for supplying drinking water to most of the midlands. On Saturday it was a perfect day for the long (13 mile) walk around the top 2 lakes in the valley - the Derwent and Hewden dams. Can you believe that this lies between Sheffield and Manchester - 2 of this county's most industrialised city's?

As you walk around, there are lots of tell tale signs of the town that was built to house the navvies who built the dams and their families. Apparantly, navvies could be very difficult to control, and letting them bring their family to live here had a big calming influence on them - except when they had been drinking. If you enlarge the picture below, you can read what happened to 2 of the landlords of the "canteen"!!

The dams were used by Barnes Wallace to help him develop the bouncing bomb in World War 2. You can get helicopter rides which fly you over the dams (playing the Dambusters Theme tune!!) from a nearby hotel. Whilst we were there, an old Dehavilland Dakota (I was reliably informed by my live in WW2 expert) came over the moors and flew down the valley - it looked brilliant and it made my day! We also got a fly-by by the Red Arrows - I just love it when the Red Arrows show up out of the blue!!

The scenery all around the dams is truly spectacular - and will look more so in a couple of weeks time when all the leaves turn golden.

The water is faily low. I know some of you have had a lot of rain this year, but we seem to have missed it thankfully (after the deluge and floods of 2007 and 2008)

We had a great picnic spot, and stopped to paddle in one of the rivers that feeds the dams.

The sky was clear blue and the temperature was perfect for such a long spectacular walk. I couldn't think of any where I would rather be on such a great day. It felt like heaven.

On Sunday we travelled north west to Preston to visit the University open day as it has a course that is of interest to the dancing queen. She fancy's doing Media Production so that she can work making TV programs - ideally for MTV. The Uni wasn't bad, and the course looked ok. The druggies and drunks that hung about between the halls of residence and the main campus were of great concern to me, as was the lecturer who gave us the talk and tour. He was head of the department and hubby said it looked and sounded like he had spent Saturday night on the real ale and smoking waccy baccy . He had nothing prepared and couldn't even work his PC or TV. Ah well, I hope that Salford inspires me more next week.

We finished at the Uni at 1.30pm, and as we were only 15 miles from Blackpool, I thought it might be a great idea to go and have a stroll along the prom prom prom, and then stay for the famous "Illuminations" which get switched on at 7.30pm.

Now I have some really lovely memories of Blackpool. When I was a little girl, we holiday'd there every year. I remember having great fun in the Pleasure Beach - seeing Cilla Black and Jimmy Clitheroe (so showing my age here!!!) at the end of the North Pier (every year that we went!!!), watching the ballroom dancing at the Tower Ballroom etc etc. I know that it went down hill rapidly when families decided to go to Spain instead in the early 1980's. I last went to Blackpool 20 years ago when hubby and I first got together, and whilst we did have a nice day then, it was turning into just a "Party Town" and not very appealing. Well, I can report that it has gotten much much worse. Its dire and dirty and crumbling and I couldn't find even one thing that I thought was remotely ok about the place. The young man thought we would have a problem killing time before the lights came on and he was right. We walked from the South Pier, up to the North Pier and back again and promptly got back in the car and went home. The young man said that you can tell how bad a place is when McDonalds looks like the best restaurant in town. The place is like hell.

We did laugh at the amount of Hotels, Self Catering Flats etc that had the word "Luxury" in the description of their establishments when they clearly were anything but!

I'll show you mine....

.............If you'll show me yours!

Everything in blogland is generally very lovely, practically perfect in every way. However here at "Heart shaped", things often go pear shaped. So I thought I would show you one of my very prominent disasters. Did you ever see a more sad and sorry looking hanging basket!!

Don't you just love the cascade of flowers that totally cover the mechanics of the basket?!! And the really bad thing is that it has hung in front of my house all summer for all the world (well the neighbours!!) to see. I'm not really into hanging baskets (obviously!!) but next year I plan to put tomatoes in it instead. So come on - show me something that didn't quite turn out as planned.

Garlic Bread Men

Tonight's tea was Pork Chop with a creamy sauce - recipe below. Served with boiled potatoes and carrots.

For the sauce :
Chop and fry (in butter) a bunch of spring onions , some sliced mushrooms and a clove of garlic (crushed).
Add a glass of white wine, some chopped tarragon and a tub of low fat creme fraiche. Season with salt and pepper. It was very tasty, and we mopped up the sauce with..........
Garlic bread men - made in school cookery lesson by the young man - his own idea I hasten to add!!! Delicious.

Everybody's doing it!

Sunday was a perfect day. The weather was gorgeous and so we went for an early morning walk around the lakes. We took a bag of bread to feed the fish, then filled the bag on the way back with what looks like the last of the blackberries - but they were huge ones.
Sky should always be this colour - except at sunrise and sunset.

Then it was back to an afternoon of pottering around in the garden.

And finally, I decided that I would do what everyone else who has been to see "Julie & Julia" has done - and that is make Julia Child's Bouef Bourguignon.
I haven't bought the book (yet!!) so I used this recipe from the internet. It looks a bit long winded, but I think that's just the way its written. I found it a bit salty (I suppose thats the bacon), but it was totally delicious and was scoffed in no time - followed by our forraged blackberry crumble.

A bit of a lie in, a lovely long walk, the sun on my face, a spot of foraging, gardening, time spent with my family, cooking to feed my brood, sharing a nice bottle of red - What a perfect day.

Demolition

Introducing Demolition Dance Crew - the crew that occupies all of the dancing queens waking moments. Available for Weddings, Barmitzvahs, Birthdays etc etc They are urban and edgy, colourful,fun and very good. (The dancing queen is the one in the daft specs!)

Along came a spider........

The onset of darker evenings is slowly forcing me indoors earlier and I have finally started to sew again in preperation for you know what!! I have started experimenting with corsages and brooches.

However I had a bit of a shock when this monster crawled out of my sewing box!!! Thankfully a knight in shining armour was able to liberate him into the great outdoors - I just hope he stays out.

I love this deep purple velvety pansy.

And here is one of my displays moving into Autumn. It has been filled with pebbles, sea glass and driftwood all summer, but now contains Autumnal leaves, pine cones, acorns, rose hips and "helicopters" (see below). I dont know if you can see, but there is a candle in the top which gives off a warm rosy glow as the evenings turn chilly.

Helicopters (I think that they are from the Sycamore tree, but please enlighten me if I'm wrong). I still cannot resist playing with these at this time of year. The young man and I had hours of fun when we went to pick these. Snap them in half and throw them in the air and they twirl back down to earth, just like the blades of a helicopter.

Mid week treat

As part of the ongoing birthday celebrations (Ive decided to have a year of them!!) we decided to treat ourselves to a ride on the big wheel in Sheffield City Centre. We used the free car parking tickets from last weeks freebie night out and parked in the Cheesegrater. I thought I would just show you this famous Sheffield icon - no Dr Who hasn't landed!! The Old police box lives on Surrey street and has been here for many years. After long deliberations about what should be done with this now that the police no longer use it, they have decided to renovate it and leave it where it is. Hurray!! It will be open during the day to house a city centre ambassador - so you can pop in and ask them things about the city. Don't shut the door though - you never know which Galaxy or time you may end up in!!

The big wheel is situated across from the tardis - and it is big. I cannot believe it was my idea to go in it. The dancing queen and I suffer badly from a fear of heights, and hubby's not too hot in the air either. The young man is the only one good with heights. Any way, we paid our money and got on. We pressed the button for a commentary - which took my mind off things a little, but I have to confess that on the first rotation I did have my eyes closed most of the way up - I got much better on the way back down. My palms were very sweaty, and I couldn't speak, but I was determined to be brave. You are supposed to get 3 rotations, but we actually got 4. The worst bit was when we stopped at the top! I did see some fascinating aspects of the city that I had never seen before, and it really does look wonderful from so high up. I couldn't take any pictures of the views as I was too scared to move! Having said that - I would go on again!

After the excitement of the wheel, I was allowed half an hour in John Lewis (or Cole Brothers as we still call it in Sheffield!!). Whenever I wander around John Lewis, I realise just how out of date our home is.

When we came out - it had gotten dark already - I am no fan of dark nights, give me light nights anytime. The wheel by this stage was all lit up - I believe you can go on this up until 11pm!! I cannot make my mind up whether it would be better or worse in the dark.

Somehow, I was persuaded to have tea out!! We decided on Mamas and Leonies which was Sheffield's first Pizzeria and opened back in 1968. Its a lovely place and great for theatre tea as its just around the corner from the Lyceum and the Crucible. Ive been coming here for well over 30 years now. The place gets a lick of paint occasionally, but nothing much else changes. You can either eat upstairs or downstairs, and both have different atmospheres.

Hope you enjoyed coming along for an evening out with me.