Roundabout

We must have driven through hundreds of roundabouts in the last fortnight. It seems to be a very efficient system - if you know where you're going. Thank goodness for the Tom Tom. Our conversations at roundabouts go something like this:

Tom Tom: At the roundabout take the third exit.
Phil and me (in unison as I point at each exit): One, two, three ... THAT ONE!
Tom Tom (after a very slight delay while the satellites catch up with where we are): Exit now.

If we do take the wrong exit Tom either recalculates the route or tells us politely to turn around.

Smith territory

I mentioned Ephraim Smith and Elizabeth Darker in the last blog. They were my Pop Smith's grandparents. There is a family story that Ephraim walked the six miles from Old Dalby, where he lived, to Plumtree, where Elizabeth lived, on the morning of his wedding, and fell into a ditch full of water on the way!

Ephraim and Elizabeth lived at Old Dalby for several years before they migrated to Australia in 1852. I don't know where they lived but it was good to have a look at the village.

As we arrived at the church we met the parish rector who was inspecting the new gate being installed. He opened up the church for us and showed us around. They have some amazing treasures tucked away behind cupboard doors, some rescued from an earlier church that was burnt down in the early 1800s. He showed us several interesting headstones in the churchyard - one is an old slate headstone that has been utilised as a draining board for newly pressed cheeses, one is of of style unique to this area depicting winged angels.

We also went to see Willoughby on the Wolds because Smiths were there as well. I would have liked to be there to hear the bells, as per the notice in the church vestry, and it was nice to see the list of  plants noted in the churchyard, even if it does include nettles and couch grass.

It would have been nice to linger in these villages, and I can see why people choose to live in them. Village life is a very appealing option, particularly when they're so close to big towns and cities.

Darker territory

Elizabeth Darker was my Pop Smith's grandmother, and she was born in Clipston in Nottinghamshire, not far from Nottingham. We went to have a look and found a few houses and a most amazing Farm Shop that has been operating for 60 years - fantastic meats, vegetables, cheeses and marmalades for sale and farm animals for the children to feed and touch as well as a playground with toy tractors to drive around. The Darkers would be amazed to see it. And there was a reminder of home - a pair of cockatiels.

Elizabeth's parents were John Darker and Alice Pegg. They were married in the nearby village of Plumtree and some of their children were baptised there as well as Clipston and the family may well have also lived in Cotgrave, another little village nearby, because the Smith family farm in Australia was called Cotgrove. This is Cotgrave and the photo below it is Plumtree where Elizabeth Darker married Ephraim Smith several years before they came to Australia in 1852.

I'm presuming John Darker was an agricultural labourer - we don't know for sure - but he had been a soldier when he was a young man. The village that he was born in, Bradmore, has been almost swallowed up by Nottingham or Nottingham commuters but there are few interesting old houses left.

None of these villages are very far from each other. It is a constant delight to me how the church spire of the next village can be seen from the village that I'm in. The roads are windy and hedge-lined but all of them are sealed. Not a gravel road in sight. But it must have been a different story in 1850 when muddy roads restricted travel.

Engineering marvels

Brunel was a marvellous engineer and we have been able to see one of his early masterpieces, the Clifton Suspension Bridge, at Bristol. It spans a very deep river valley and is quite spectacular and so is the view from the bridge (third photo). We didn't have time to go to a spot where we could see the bridge from down below unfortunately. Truly I trust his ability to engineer a safe structure but it's disconcerting to see the bridge flex as it adjusts to the weight of the traffic. Another of Brunel's designs is in Bristol as well - his ship called Great Britain is open to the public. We'll have to see that next time.

On the day after the equinox we visited the village of Avebury surrounded by circles of stones and henge and ditch that are 5000 years old. Some of the stones weigh more than 40 tons, one weighs about 100 tons. How did they ever get the stones in to place? And the ditch was dug with red deer antlers apparently. An awe-inspiring place.