The aerial view of Derby was beautiful, too.

This morning River and I set out to find a swimming hole along the River Trent between Swarkestone and Barrow-on-Trent. One of Molly’s co-workers had described how to find the footpath. We managed to make our way through the massive field of six foot tall nettles of which we’d been warned. Along the way, we found these Himalayan Balsam (Impatiens glandulifera) plants, which are in the same genus as Jewelweed. Jewelweed is quite common in Massachusetts and is especially popular with the kids because its seed pods explode when you touch them. Himalayan Balsam behaves in a similar fashion, though unfortunately as you might guess from the name, it is an invasive species in Britain.

We popped quite a few nonetheless.

We did eventually find the swimming hole. There is a channel between the bank and an island where the water is about five feet deep. Just downstream, there is a shallow pebble beach suitable for splashing. A rope swing is attached from an overhanging willow branch and I thoroughly enjoyed splashing into the chilly water.

It was great to find a nearby place to swim, though the weather isn’t often hot enough to require immersing oneself. I’m sure that we’ll visit there again sometime soon.

Kedleston Hall, the home of the Curzon family who was once the viceroy of India, was very interesting. Much of the architecture was designed in the neo-classical style by Robert Adam who was influenced by his Italian voyages. The central portion of the home was designed as a showcase for the family’s collections and for lavish entertainment. The family and servants lived in separate wings on either side of the main hall.

One of the nicest parts of visiting these National Trust properties is exploring the grounds. The kids and their cousins enjoyed romping in the fields with the sheep.

In the background you can see the hall and the family chapel. The wall was designed to keep the sheep out of the gardens, but I could imagine revelers emerging from the house for a stroll in the fresh air and dropping precipitously.

We also visited Calke Abbey again. It was particularly interesting to see the decline of Calke in juxtaposition to the elegance of Kedleston.

Sudbury Hall was also very interesting. The house was used for the BBC’s production of Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre. I’d like to go back again sometime to see the recently renovated Museum of Childhood which is also located here.

It was great that everyone found something of interest in the exploring these old houses, regardless of age.

We went to see our local premiership football club play yesterday. It was quite exciting, though a bit disappointing; They lost the match 0-4. It was a great experience with over 33,000 people in attendance to support their team. It was an important match for their opponent since they needed a win to stay in the Premier League.

Our local team was easily outplayed. I’d have thought the teams relatively evenly matched, but perhaps they didn’t put as much into the game as they might have, since their standing was not affected by the outcome?

We enjoyed hearing the chanting and singing that accompanies the match. It’s almost like a conversation between the players and the fans. After the match, the fans rushed the field, perhaps hoping to get a chance to get autographs or give the players advice? There was a face off between opposing fans, competing to see which could out-sing the other. River and Sage did their share of chanting to support their team.

Here I am at Lover’s Leap! The stone steps leading up to this outcrop contained myriad crinoid fossils. Apparently, this part of Derbyshire was part of a warm, shallow sea just north of the equator about 300 million years ago. It stretches my imagination a bit to picture this place as a tropical lagoon with coral reefs, brachiopods, and crinoids.

I soon came to Reynard’s Cave, a place reportedly long used as a shelter. There is a beautiful arch just outside the entrance and the stones on the ascent have been worn so as to be polished much like an abalone shell. There are many ferns and bryophytes growing amongst the rocks, including Asplenium scolopendrium, the harts-tongue fern.

There was a small tunnel leading further back into the cave. I went a little way in using the red LED on my camera as illumination, but without a proper torch I was reluctant to go any further.

I watched a pair of goosanders (a.k.a. the common merganser, Mergus merganser) in the River Dove. They were excellent divers and it was a pleasure to watch them fishing.

Another large limestone cave eroded by glacial meltwater.

This spire is known Ilam Rock and is apparently a favorite of local rock climbers.

I began looping back to the carpark at the quaint village of Milldale.

I ate lunch in the shelter of one of these stone walls. Out of the shelter of the dale, the wind was quite fierce.

And though it was mostly sunny, a big dark cloud blew over and a flurry of precipitation somewhere between snow and hail descended.

The round trip was just over six miles. You can see

the route I took on Google Maps.  All in all, a lovely day out!

Long an important river crossing, the village was named after a Dane who was granted the land during the Danish occupation in 874 AD. Swarkestone is most well known, however, for its bridge which is documented as early as 1204 AD. It was here the Bonny Prince Charlie’s army turned back for Scotland in 1745.

The Church of Saint James in Swarkestone was first built in the 12th century, though it has been much altered since then and most of it dates to the Victorian Gothic period.

The church and the Swarkestone Pavilion (below) were both part of the Harpur estate, which grew to encompass vast tracts of land in South Derbyshire. After the civil war, Calke Abbey become the center of the Harpur activity and the importance of Swarkestone declined. Apparently, though, the Harpur Crewe estate owned essentially the entire village until the 1980s. The Landmarke Trust since bought the Pavilion and has restored it for use as a holiday home.

The Trent and Mersey canal was constructed in 1777, the same year that the our farm complex was built by the Harpur family.

I found this history of Swarkestone published by the South Derbyshire Council to be most interesting.

I’ve lost the power supply for our camera, so I don’t have any pictures. Here is a video produced by the people who made the rink. We aren’t in it, but you can get a sense of what it was like. It’s pretty with all the lights, but it was quite crowed and the ice was fairly rough. We had a great time, regardless!

In other news, Jumbles arrived safely from Brussels about two hours ago. She now has a Pet Passport! She seems healthy and not as disturbed as one might expect after a almost a week and a half on the road. Sage fell asleep with Jumbles on her bed. The kids were very pleased to see her, as you can imagine.

The house is pretty incredible. It fell into decline around the beginning of the 19th century and has been preserved basically as the National Trust received it. So the wallpaper is peeling in many places and it’s in need of a lot of love, though they’ve decided to maintain it as an example of an estate in decay.

There is an amazing collection of stuffed animals (not the kind the kids carry around everywhere), rocks and minerals, shells, fossils, and other natural history curiosities. I’m inspired to try making some cases for our own rock collection. I’ve been meaning to try to find a box with lots of little drawers in it, but maybe it would be easier and nicer to make display cases?

The house has an interesting setup: the kitchen is in the basement and a little elevator brings food to the butler’s pantry where they have a fireplace that heats water that to a warming oven where the food is kept until it is ready to be served. There were rows of bells with little labels so the servants could tell which room was ringing for service. And the dollhouse in the school room did not have a kitchen in it since the children of the house would not be expected to set foot in the kitchen. What a different world; We essentially live in our kitchen. I wouldn’t mind having a library like that though; something about walls with books up to the ceiling really does it for me. I don’t know if I would want to sleep with animal heads looking down at me at night, though.

The grounds around Calke Abbey are amazing! The kids and I had previously walked around on some of the trails here with another home ed family. Walking across the gently rolling hills, you are likely to encounter sheep, deer, and blackberries. Many of the roads and trails are lined with beautiful, big, old trees which gives it a stately feel. We scrumped some conkers¹ here before.

After lunch we went to a drumming workshop organized by some local home educating families. The workshop was quite good – we got the opportunity to try a number of different types of drums, learning a different rhythm for each instrument, and putting them all together in a complex, syncopated, if a bit cacophonous, piece designed to accompany the story of Anansi the spider.

River surprised me by telling one of the Anansi stories – the one about how Anansi and the turtle trick each other to get out of sharing their dinner. I was impressed not only with her recall and her ability to put the story together, but also with her courage to tell it in front of a group of people she had never met before.

Anyway, the families we met there were very nice and gave us encouragement that we would soon have many friends and have more to do than we could actually fit into our days. It was nice to meet so many friendly people.

We went to the Chatsworth Country Fair on Sunday. I think Molly was sad about missing the Three County Fair in Northampton this year. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate. Beautiful and sunny in the morning, we didn’t think to bring warm clothing for when the wind blew in the clouds. And we certainly weren’t prepared for the rain.


We spent some time under tents looking at the craft booths, got coffee and ice cream in the restaurant in the old stable house, and watched bagpipe bands, dog shows, archery, horse-drawn carriage shows, vintage cars, and clay pigeon shooting during breaks in the rain. They don’t seem to have the demolition derby (or at least we didn’t see it on the program) but we did pass a sign advertising the world championship tug-o-war competition on the way home. The rain didn’t entirely dampen the girls spirits – River went on the swings and Sage and Molly tried the Merry-Go-Round.


Chatsworth is reputed to be one of the finest houses and gardens in England. We might try to come back sometime to see it again in other circumstances. The grounds and the views from outside were certainly impressive. We stopped on the way home for a curry. There are plenty of Indian restaurants around and many of them are quite good. So far, though, India House in Northampton is still my favorite.