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Days when you know why you live in the British Isles


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  • 2 weeks later...

A break from bringing our new home in NW Cumbria up to our requirements involved a drive down to the Staffordshire Moorlands to stay with family/attend a concert in Manchester & collect more of our possessions from Cheshire. The warm Easter weather also allowed a few walks through the scenery…

 

the old road in the Manifold valley nr Swainsley (the narrow gauge railway ran through a tunnel beneath the hill in the picture) before heading to Longnor for some smashing fish & chips.

 

Eastwall farm from Hawksmoor in the Churnet valley (subject of a Time Team dig associated with the historic bloomery site). The Staffordshire way continues towards Kingsley.

 

A second Churnet valley walk earlier around the Coombes valley RSPB site allowed the rare sighting of a spotted flycatcher.

 

The Roaches partially obscured by low cloud, seen from Morridge.

 

BeRTIe

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Edited by BR traction instructor
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The decent Easter weather continues and allowed the previously unexplored section (transition from upland moorland to wooded valley) of the Cauldon Low to Froghall gravity worked incline (abandoned 1920s, when the standard gauge route to Leekbrook jnc opened) to be walked…this one from adjacent to the upper limits of Whiston golf course, adj the A52, towards Froghall (part way down the side of Whiston bank). Note the smaller bridge opening in the first picture.

 

This Oakwood Press title by Peter Lead covers the area and its history.

 

The trackbed of the tramway crosses a farm track just above Froghall wharf.

 

BeRTIe

 

 

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Edited by BR traction instructor
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  • 2 weeks later...
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Ooh, dinner! I have had rabbit once (maybe a couple of times) but it was farm-raised critters. Would I have it again? Probably I would.

 

Note that I would not want to kill one myself (or deer, bear, wild hogs, etc for that matter) but I have no problem eating meat that someone else prepared.

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8 hours ago, BR traction instructor said:

I started on the railway at Buxton in the mid eighties and the local Kentucky Fried Chicken had just been prosecuted for substituting rabbit for chicken, I haven’t knowingly eaten rabbit but who knows?

 

BeRTIe

I would have thought that rabbit would be much more expensive than chicken.

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In a country where people famously eat snails, frogs' legs and horse, rabbit is not hard to find. I occasionally do a rabbit stew with supermarket meat, adding tomatoes, potatoes, red wine and herbs and it is very pleasant. News items tell me chicken is becoming harder to find and pricier. Where I live pork is the regional speciality, so pork chops are silly-cheap. A sort of pâté is made from pork, called rillettes, and a widely sold delicacy. When late wife Deb was in the rehab hospital after her car crash, she chose rillettes for starter every lunchtime and evening for months on end.   

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…thanks Peter…too nice to just leave in the Iphone, better to share. Dawn, the girlfriend, chooses the destination for the Lakes, I sort out the drive to get there/parking etc. We’re just starting to alternate Scottish borders walks/climbs with Lakes destinations and the former will be my choices.

 

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On 27/04/2022 at 22:09, PhilJ W said:

Rabbit doesn't even taste anything like chicken. Snake tastes more like chicken which is perhaps more understandable as birds evolved from dinosaurs which were reptiles, like snakes.

I've eaten snake in the Far East and it's not nice. Scrappy, gritty and full of bones. 

 

My late mother used to refer to rabbit as "spring chicken", I never understood this as several of her uncles and cousins, being country folk called it by its name.

 

I do know that cat can very differentiated from rabbit by the number of ribs.

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A quintessentially English seaside feature - a row of small multi-coloured beach huts.

 

These are at Hamworthy...

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...and look out over the expanse of Poole Harbour, with the Purbeck Hills in the distance.

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The British Isles are blessed with many picturesque towns and villages*, each with their own blend of attractive features.

 

Here is Corfe Castle on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, taken from the vantage point of East Hill overlooking the village.

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With the remains of the castle, blame the English Civil War, just to the west of the village.

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* Yes, I know that there are plenty of nondescript and down right ugly towns and villages too.

Edited by 4630
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