Ticking away ... Day 867 ~ the low side of normal ...

Six visits to hospitals and a medical centre in eight days ... and now I've got a bit of a break, not literally thankfully.

I'm not going to go into details as regards the visits you will be pleased to hear but I can show you a photograph of my mallet finger in its splint made especially for me by one of the therapists at the Pulvertaft Hand Centre within the Royal Derby Hospital ...

Except when I wash my finger every four or five days the splint has got to stay on for eight weeks and then for four weeks during the night after that. If I bend the end joint of my finger once in that time then we're back to square one. Oh boy.

The most important visit though was probably the last one on Wednesday [Day 864] when the doctor at the Chesterfield Royal Hospital told me everything seemed to be going ok in the circumstances and, wonder of wonders, my potassium level is up to the low side of normal [namely 3.5]. What have I been doing that resulted in this revelation ? My theory is that it's the red wine ... I need more red wine.

After the good news Jamie and I adjourned to the Cafe@theRoyal and had a bacon bap each ... well Jamie had two.

We walked to the car and a photograph was taken. The old boy's hair seems to be getting whiter ...

I am in good spirits and enjoying life. 

Back to Whitesprings ...

Just a few weeks after I'd first visited Whitesprings I went back there with my grandson. There's nothing that is quite so exciting for an eleven year old as an old ruin ... and I'm talking about the old farmhouse, not me.

The first thing Benjamin had to do was squeeze through the squeezer stile ...

Benjamin's a bit of a photographer like me ...



 After following the clear cut paths/trails we tackled some rougher stuff which brought us to a gate leading onto the moorland known as Big Bumper Piece ...

 

We didn't go onto the moorland though. We stayed in the woodland and visited the pond where I'd seen the frogspawn ...



 Benjamin negotiated a dangerous woodland torrent ...



 Then we reached Whitesprings ...







On the way back, on this short walk, we passed a redundant old squeezer stile ...



We finished at the entrance to Whitesprings Plantation. As you can see Benjamin is rather shy ... like me ...



 This walk was followed on the 27th March 2011 [and I have also added in the 14 mile walk I undertook on the 25th March 2011]
 
Length of walk ~ 1.77 miles *
 
Total mileage walked so far in 2011 ~ 90.49 miles
 
Total mileage between the 1st September 2009 and the 21st March 2011 ~ 618.54 miles
 
  20 of 2011 [which means in 2011 I was averaging just 4.52 miles a walk. This from the man who had once walked 56 miles in 24 hours ...]
 
* distance calculated on Ordnance Survey's Getamap

A Farm Journal ~ from the 16th to the 30th June 1868

My great great great uncle John Bayliff Bowman lived at Summer Hill, near Monyash in the County of Derby.

 

The Bowman family, who were Quakers, had three farms, One Ash Grange [which John Bayliff Bowman often referred to as O.A.], Cales and Summer Hill [which he usually referred to as S.Hill or S.H.]

A Farm Journal continues :~

3 - 16 Ditto sheep shear[in]g

6 - 19 Ditto Ditto Jesse went to W[illia]m mow[in]g with machine

7 - 20 Ditto shear[in]g - very heavy thunder & strong lightning even[in]g & rain

1 - 21 Fine Irish came

2 - 22 Fine shear[in]g

3 - 23 Ditto pull[in]g thistles & Ketlocks* etc showery at times thunder rain spudding thistles etc

6 - 26 Irish began in Watricle thinning turnips at 11/- p[e]r ac[re] very full of Spurry weed** - horse hoeing etc

7 - 27 Very hot cut turnip seed bees swarm - seeds in Flat want cutt[in]g - fair pastures yet - corn very short some just beginning to shoot

3 - 30 Fine dry weather W.N. & N.E. began mow[in]g last night mow[e]d Flat Long & Barn 
closes - fair crops


* ketlock is another name for charlock or wild mustard  

** There are images of spurry weed here  

If the lines are close together I apologise ~ Blogger seems to be letting me down today.

Bay watch ...

You may have read my blog about my mallet finger ... but that wasn't the only mishap on Wednesday. Early in the morning, after a coffee with Katy, I returned to the car park to find I'd been given a ticket [or a Penalty Charge Notice to give it the proper title]. I had 'Parked beyond the bay markings'.

I don't lose my temper often but I'd parked in the same spot many times before and there had never been a problem. 

After taking Katy home I stomped into the District Council office and slapped the ticket on the counter. I explained that I was a reasonable man but this [the ticket] was the limit. I did really well though ~ I didn't swear.

The guy I needed to speak to was out but to cut a long story short I met him yesterday at the bay ... and he said the ticket wasn't enforceable anyway because the bay wasn't defined clearly enough.

I had to challenge the Penalty Charge Notice though [which I did online] so that he can comment and have it discharged. 

My challenge to the PCN read : "I do not believe I had parked beyond the bay markings. I have parked in this particular spot many times since the car park opened and never had a PCN before."

How many motorists would have paid up though. Still, I'd better shut up, the Penalty Charge Notice hasn't been discharged yet.

Here's my car in the bay ... or is it ?
 

Ticking away ... Day 858 ~ mallet finger ...

As you may have noticed elsewhere I have been out walking for an hour or two at a time for five or six days and generally I'm doing OK.

 I'm off to have a bit of a check-up with the Lymphoedema Department at Ashgate Hospice tomorrow and then I've off for my monthly cancer check-up on Wednesday [after a bloodtest on Tuesday].

As if this wasn't enough I also now have to factor into the mix a visit to the hand clinic at Derby Royal Hospital.

It all started last night when I was taking off the compression stocking on my right leg. I slid both my hands firmly down my right calf to slide the stocking off ... but something didn't quite work out right. My left hand slipped and there was a sudden pain in the middle finger. 

The tip of the finger wouldn't straighten up ... 

 I bent it this way.

I bent it that.

It wouldn't straighten.

Was it dislocated. It didn't feel broken. In fact it didn't feel painful.

I jumped in the shower and as I washed my hair I was aware that it felt different. So I tootled along to the Minor Injuries Unit at the Whitworth Hospital. 

"That's mallet finger ..." said one of the nurses, Sheila "... you've torn a tendon". She fixed me up with a splint. A splint that will have to stay on for six to eight weeks. I can't bend my finger for six to eight weeks.





 If [when] I wash my left hand I have to keep my finger flat on a flat surface. 

I've had an x-ray this morning and there's no broken or chipped bone which would apparently have been better as bones heal better/quicker than tendons.

So ... Derby here I come ...

It's funny what you find in the middle of nowhere ...

How many times have I photographed Burbage Brook as it passes under the bridge near Grindleford Station ? Every time I've passed over it with a camera in my hand I should think. Well, here's another ...

 It was going to be a good walk ... I was feeling lucky ...

 

I crossed the bridge over the railway line to enter Coppice Wood  ...



 Once I reached the River Derwent I did a sharp left turn and walked downstream ...

 




I left the wood and entered the fields before Grindleford ... and found a fire extinguisher ...



  At the bridge in Grindleford I stopped to admire the old Peak & Northern footpath sign. Is this really over 100 years old ? It's beautiful ...

 

The path behind the Peak & Northern sign led into Horse Hay Coppice ...

 

The paved path leads through the woodland ...

 

... until you reach a pond ...



... where, as I have mentioned more than once, I once swung across, Tarzan-style, on a rope. There is a photo ... somewhere.

The paved path continued ...



 ... beyond the trees there are two or three fields before you pick up the northern end of Spooner Lane with its paved path ...



 By the time you reach the southern end of the lane there is a tarmac surface and some typical Derbyshire cottages ...



A couple of hundred yards later there's a distant view of Stoke Hall [built for the Reverend John Simpson] across the Derwent ...





   There's more about the hall here.

A testing walk up Moorlands Lane brings you back into the woodland ...



 Woodland that was given by Lady Riverdale in memory of her parents, Charles and Josephine Bingham ...



 The path proceeds through the middle of the wood, across the hillside ...



   

 It's called Horse Hay Coppice and lo and behold someone had been coppicing ...



 I walked towards the edge of the wood ...



 ... before walking along Tedgness Road back to the car.

This walk was followed on the 21st March 2011
 
Length of walk ~ 5.06 miles *
 
Total mileage walked so far in 2011 ~ 74.72 miles
 
Total mileage between the 1st September 2009 and the 21st March 2011 ~ 602.77 miles
 
18 of 2011
 
* distance calculated on Ordnance Survey's Getamap

A Farm Journal ~ from the 1st to the 15th June 1868

My great great great uncle John Bayliff Bowman lived at Summer Hill, near Monyash in the County of Derby.

 

The Bowman family, who were Quakers, had three farms, One Ash Grange [which John Bayliff Bowman often referred to as O.A.], Cales and Summer Hill [which he usually referred to as S.Hill or S.H.]

 

A Farm Journal continues :~

 

6 Mo[nth] 2 day 1st Very fine hot day B[akewe]ll Fair but slender show of all sorts bo[ugh]t 20 store pigs of  Ward of Derby 27/6 & 36/- but they have the tick - we have been careful & dusted the places with McDougalls disinfectant & the cows have escaped so far the pigs are hearty but very lame

 

3 - 2 Ditto weather tho cloudy at times home hoeing swedes

 

4 - 3 ditto ditto club feast men all off

 

5 - 4 Ditto to Ashford to tea doing gaps up etc

 

6 - 5 Ditto to Middleton oldest reared calf dead at Cales

 

7 - 6 Ditto Fine 7 hogs & lambs cut & put in Fern dale - 4 more hogs to lamb & 4 lambed & lambs died from want of assistance or not foundering they should be sat up with as the lambs if small & weak or the hog will will not get to the pap - Middleton cow calved - the last calver except a sturk

 

1 - 7 Fine

 

2 - 8 Ditto B[akewe]ll market bo[ugh]t 9 more pigs finish[e]d doing gaps up began thinning the swedes

 

3 - 9 Ditto Ditto work all week sheared a few sheep & sold 2 fat ones 42/- each - hog with maggots sheared

 

2 - 15 Beautiful fine day tho' looked like thunder & rain at times - Mary Blackwell never came home last night & we hear that she is going off with Jim Green to be married wash day too so we are left in the lurch again - sold 2 fat sheep 38/- Irishman thinning turnips in Farpiece @ 10/- p[e]r ac[re]