The sansevieria is better known as a mother-in-law’s tongue. The one Susan and myself purchased from Southwell Garden Centre, on a warm mid-week afternoon at the beginning of September, is a fine looking specimen… and the red pepper tart was delicious. At home Susan looks after the house plants, bar one: the multi stemmed miniature […]
Dining In Derbyshire – Anila Indian Restaurant
For many years I’ve driven past the little single storey building that sits katy corner wise on the green at the junction of the A610 and the A6 at Ambergate. My first memories are when it was the Little Chef and we considered it a treat for the family. Times change however and during lockdown […]
Celebrity Interview – Chris Amoo founder of The Real Thing
No matter how talented you are, you need a fair amount of luck if you’re to succeed in the music business. And Chris Amoo, a founder of pioneering, million-selling soul and funk band The Real Thing who are best known for their massive hit You To Me Are Everything, knows that well. During our chat […]
The Lost Houses of Derbyshire – Blackwall Hall
When one speaks of houses that are lost, one speaks of houses built, lived in and eventually discarded as redundant, too expensive, too damaged or too inconvenient to continue living in. With regard to the potentially spectacular house that Bess of Hardwick no less, built or intended to build at Blackwall-in-Peak, none of the above […]
Walk Derbyshire – Along Lover’s Walk – Ilam
The popular village and National Trust property of Ilam and its hall, are based on a Saxon settlement, later expanded in Victorian times. In its early days it was where the early Celtic Christian missionary St Bertram baptised his flock, using a well on the slopes of Bunster Hill to the north of the village […]
Dining Out – Meynell Langley Gardens & Tea Rooms
Which ever way your journey takes you, the approach to Meynell Langley Nursery is through the most pleasant, verdant, typically English countryside that you could wish for. Meandering down twisting country lanes you could imagine yourself back in the days of the grand country house, where kitchens were supplied with produce, lovingly cultivated in the […]
Dining Out – The Machine Inn, Ashbourne
You may, like me, wonder what the Machine Inn in Ashbourne and a corset have in common, and your interest may be further piqued when you see the simple line drawing that identifies one of Ashbourne’s newest restaurant and boutique hotels. But looking into the history all becomes clear as for 125 years Ashbourne was […]
Celebrity Interview – Mark Thomas
Mark Thomas is exhausted – he uses a more colloquial term – yet exhilarated. The comedian, writer, presenter, journalist and activist has just completed another one-man show at the Edinburgh Fringe, “the world’s largest performance arts festival”, that he’s been attending for the past 41 years. An hour later he’s telling me why for the […]
Celebrity Interview – Neil Smith
Co-Founder of the International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival Thirty years after the festival was first staged at Buxton Opera House it’s back at the Derbyshire town in its entirety, with professional productions, a competition for amateurs and performances by mature performers as well as youth groups. The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival was founded in […]
Lost Houses of Derbyshire – Morley Old Hall
For somewhere so close to Derby, and somewhere which was once on the very edge of a coal-mining area, Morley is today a remarkably sequestered spot. The village is discrete, as the archaeologists say – not nucleated, but scattered around its parish – but with a magnificent parish church, a very grand Georgian rectory and […]