Horsley and Castle Wood Circular Walk

A lovely local walk through a bluebell wood is exactly what you need at this time of year. Taking advantage of the lovely weather we picked a local AllTrails walk and pulled on the walking boots and got going. We parked at the Stilwell Arms pub car park so with a bit of good timing there is ready made refreshment on your return!

It’s not a long or arduous walk but had a couple of hills and lots of fields. The recent dry weather has made for quite lumpy fields from animals tramping around when it was really wet so needed a bit of care underfoot but it didn’t spoil the walk. I imagine it can be a bit boggy sometimes but c’est la vie.

The bluebells in Castle Wood were so lovely in the dappled sunlight through the trees.

The route takes you within view of the A38 which was a bit noisy, but once back over the hill into Horsley, you could barely hear it. Horsley village was lovely - it’s an area I’m not familiar with even though it’s just a hop, skip and a jump from White Heather Barn. The church spire can be seen from the A38 and I always wondered where it actually was. The rhododendrons were just poised to flower so will be well worth revisiting in a couple of weeks.

After walking through the village we again took a footpath and came across some charming highland coos. The footpath across the fields meant we had to take a bit of a diversion to avoid walking through one of the fields with cows. We were extra cautious because of calves and bulls!

The very last part of the route before rejoining the road took us past a fairy grotto which was a little unexpected but quite cute.

Seasonal Wall Art

Seasonal decorating is a thing on social media. Not wanting to fall by the wayside whilst also not wanting to follow every trend going, I have decided that I will do it if I feel like it and I do put pressure on myself to home make everything so that does slow me down a bit. It does go without saying that Christmas is seasonal. I mean, you are not going to miss the Christmas bling even if you are feeling a bit grinch in the extended run up to the the big day. So, back to the seasonal decorating theme, that’s winter sorted.

Autumn has also had a valiant effort with a autumnal wreath. I had a million projects on the go and didn’t really have the time to make it but decided that it just had to be done so just stopped planning and prevaricating and got on with it. I was really pleased with it in the end so we ended up with one for the holiday cottage and one for home. They could both do with some further embellishment but that I can do nearer the time this year (or, true to form, just before they are going back up).

Halloween also had a little bit of homemade fun. I had big plans but not much time so just did some ghostly buns for the cottage guests with a little bit of second hand halloween themed decorating to at least give the ghostly cakes a reason to be there.

Ghostly buns

I have always wanted to do a floral wall hanging and when gifted with a workshop for my birthday last year I found a local quilters guild workshop that exactly fit the bill. It was quite a wait for the workshop (from a birthday present perspective) but it was so worth it. I could probably have worked out something myself but developing a pattern takes time and it is quite inspiring working in a group of like minded people and to just get on with it. Of course it wasn’t finished in the day but I cracked on and finished at home. I now have a lovely spring wall hanging giving some springtime cheer in the holiday cottage. I really need to do one for us now, but maybe a bit bigger as the wall in the dining area is huge. It’s on the ‘to do’ list!

Now, for a summer theme. At the moment I’m drawing a mental blank but will do some research (ie googling) to give me some inspiration.

Wirksworth Art Trail

Wirksworth art trail is part of the annual Wirksworth Festival and this year on 8th September we went for a look to find out what it’s all about. I went to the art trail a number of years ago and have managed to miss it each year since through one thing or another. The art trail is set throughout the whole of the town with residents of the town making a couple of rooms of their houses or garden available for a visiting artist to set up and sell their work. There really is a great variety of artist including printers, painters, metal work, woodwork, drawings, pottery.

The map shows the area covered by the trail — at trail time the brochure has all the artists listed and marked on the map so that you can work out your route. The trail runs for 2 days and the entrance price includes both days.

I personally am really interested in the houses and gardens as well as the art displayed. Perhaps I’m just nosey.

Wirksworth Festival

wirksworth art trail 2024

We had a great time wandering through jitties (gennels, alleys, snickets- whatever your local name is for a little path between houses).

St Mary’s church has its own attractions even before you browse the artist’s work including T’Owd Man (the old man) which is an 800 year old stone carving of a lead miner.

T' Owd man

outdoor sculpture display

garden leading to artist display no 32

Local artisan food stalls

St mary's church

st mary's church wirksworth

following the trail through wirksworth

Northern Lights

Well, what a treat as last night we saw the Northern Lights from the front garden. I was already in bed when a daughter phoned and said that she had seen on the local facebook site that we should be able to see the lights from the barns. Quickly pulling on some jeans, coat, hat and wellies I was outside looking north. It wasn’t desperately spectacular but you could certainly see a pink/purple glow in the sky, but it was the photo’s we took which really highlighted it for us. Even just using a camera phone and no tripod we were able to capture some pretty impressive views. We were a bit hampered by the light pollution caused by our outside lights coming on from the sensors sensing all the movement but we were happy. I messaged our guests in the holiday cottage and they came out too. Sad to say, but I can’t arrange this for all our guests :)

Lumsdale Waterfall Walk

Last year we holidayed in Ingleton, Yorkshire during a particularly cold and wet spell and made the most of the resulting huge volume of running water by visiting many of the waterfalls. Today we thought that it was time to take a look at our local waterfall walk at Lumsdale near Matlock. It’s a lovely walk and not too long at under 3 miles and is full of history. It’s one of the local early industrial sites with the remains of a series of water powered mills. It is a protected Scheduled Monument owned and preserved by the Arkwright Society. Click here for more information on Lumsdale valley and the Arkwright Society.

It has been dismal and wet of late, but this morning it was all set with sunshine and frost. We got off early to make the most of the weather and to miss the crowds as it can get quite busy. We parked just off the A632 at Highfields school and walked down the lane towards the first pond.

Lumsdale waterfall walk

Lumsdale Middle pond

During the worst spell of covid lockdown the waterfall walk was closed. It’s now fully open but you need to walk past the first locked gate after the pond to access the big waterfall.

Info board

Chimney

Lumsdale Waterfall

There are a several steps down past the waterfall and onto the lane, but there are handrails and the steps are quite level.

Lumsdale steps

Steps take you down to the lane from the waterfall

Lumsdale Mill buildings

Information board - Lumsdale

Lumsdale factory building

We were too early for the brewery and cafe. It looks tempting enough to walk this way again!

Continue down the lane until you reach a footpath on the left. We weren’t sure of which way to go so went the wrong way, but the route we marked on the map is the way we should have gone. We retraced our steps and followed the footpath which takes you to Tansley.

Lumsdale waterfall

Lumsdale pond at Tansley

Speedwell mill

We also missed the path through the woods and instead followed the Old Coach Road into Tansley. There are some lovely houses along there, but next time we will take the path through the woods which then pops up into lower Tansley. Then you take a left out of Tansley and follow a lane that turns into a track, up and up until the views open out across the Lumsdale valley and you can see Riber castle above Matlock.

View to Riber Castle

View across Lumsdale valley to Riber castle

Ocean Breeze Patchwork Quilt 1

This quilt pattern caught my eye a year ago and with a little patience and perseverance is now my favourite quilt. I knew I wanted to make a quilt with the appearance of a drift of colours and not with traditional perfect colour symmetry. I’m also not great at planning and buying fabric to the pattern. I tend to buy fabric here and there and hope there is roughly enough to finish to the size that I eventually decide to make.

I used my sizzix cutting machine to cut all the pieces and it saved such a lot of time and of course the pieces were all perfectly cut which made accurate sewing together much easier.

This is the blocks all laid out ready to sew together. It took about 2.5 hours to lay all this out and I was relieved that we didn’t have any visits from dogs or grandchildren before I got them all stacked up in rows! To make sure that I didn’t get mixed up with the layout I stitched all the rows together and then finished it off several weeks later when I had a bit more time.

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All the blocks laid out ready to sew together.

This quilt actually grew a bit bigger and the plain fabrics were padded out with some prints, which of course was according to the original plan. Possibly. Anyway, with a bit of sewing here and there in between house moving, barn converting, starting a new job and having 2 new grandchildren I finally have it finished. I think the pandemic helped with this since apart from all the necessary stuff of life, there was a lot more time for sewing. Oh, and I also have the impetus that comes with having a new sewing machine! I have been very fortunate in being able to upgrade my steady Janome machine with a shiny new all singing all dancing Bernina 570QE machine. I love my new sewing machine……it has so many wonderful features and stitches just perfectly.

Further pictures to follow!

Sewing and crochet

I’m always making things and I’m a pretty good ‘finisher’ but not quite so good at taking photo’s of everything made. Most of the time I’m making for someone and want to give it away as soon as it is finished, hence either no photo or a bit of a snap rather than a beautifully styled web and instagram worthy composition. Ah well, it’s real life in my house. So, in no particular order here is some of my stuff.

Zip Pouch

I made many zip pouches for Christmas, this is the latest quick pouch with my favourite Bernina stitch sampler pouch in the background.

Crochet cushion panel attached to a shop bought cushion. This is the third made in this pattern and is a gift, though I’m quite liking this for myself!

Birthday Banner

I’ve made a couple of these with the names of the grandchildren as a separate banner. There are now 2 more grandchildren so I need to get cracking making some more!

New baby

‘Mini Me’s’ were the family Christmas present of a couple of years ago. New babies in the family have meant the ‘Little people’ families need to increase too. I have to say that this baby was the most fiddly thing ever!

For this family setting I needed to make a new ‘big boy’ so that ‘baby’ could represent the new baby.

Ahhhh so cute!

18 months ago I would never have dreamt that I would be making face masks but I’ve made loads and loads. Something clearly went a bit wrong with this one, so is probably not just covid proof but everything proof haha

I made this pirate outfit for a friend as a joke - who knows why, but it does look good on his grandson. As you can see it comes complete with parrot.

In the interests of actually making a blog post, I’ll stop here. I’ll be back with more later!

Local Sunrise Walks

It was beautiful this morning, all crisp and clear. I have to admit that I just pulled on my wellies, hat and coat over my pyjama’s, grabbed my camera and did a little circuit around the nearest field.

A sunrise a few days ago was just ablaze in orange and purple

Another early morning frosty walk exploring the footpaths. Definitely one of the perks of working from home during the pandemic! We found one that crossed the Midland Railway Centre.