Stampede ! Hikers almost trampled to death. Plus Mad Meg's Curse!

Dairy (Lol) 2013 – Week Fourteen. Part One.

Friday September 27^th.

Little Loll wasn’t needed at Uni again today so she stayed put. This meant she decided to have a lie in while I walked the woof and went swimming afterwards. Sarah was impressed that we had won the quiz last night and disappointed that her team had not done all that well. It is hard to know what to say in these sorts of situations. When you know that your mind is full of loads of stuff that other people don’t bother to, or can’t, retain, it is tricky. She has told me of a prize quiz in a pub near Barnsley that has a current roll over jackpot of £378. I have asked her for more details, Maybe the Scampis could go on the road?

Felice is back. Rah, rah, rah!

We had a long meeting with our supervisor and the guy who did all the testing of the casket. Some of which I had heard before and some of which was new. I told her all about the V & A caskets and we are going to see them soon. How soon I don’t know. I told her I’d get in touch with the Collections Manager and see if they had any others which weren’t on display, that we could examine too. Felice is a part time embroiderer. She claims to be not very good.

It seems that as Felice is technically not part of our department and has her own office I get to use the shoe box office which Andrea and I were going to share as my own. How neat is that? All that may change at the end of next year, of course, but I am not bothered. It will be my feet under the table already. Her BF is now history, that’s her big news of the summer. She hasn’t hooked up with anyone else yet. The BF was the one who, having met me, asked Felice if she thought that I’d be up for a threesome with them! Why are men’s penises in charge of their brain most of the time?  She almost dumped him there and then but for some reason she didn’t. The straw breaking point was the fact at the height of passion with her, during the vacation, he called out another girl’s name! Whoops!

She was pleased that Laura had moved in with me and jokingly said “Maybe you two and me would make a better threesome!”  It took me a moment to realise she was joking, though. She has driven across from France in her car, it’s a new Twingo. I used to love those as they have really cute faces. The new one has lost its face and is just another run of the mill car. She has to keep going back to France in it so that she doesn’t have to reregister it over here or something. I didn’t quite follow what she was getting at TBH.

If we go to Alport Castles tomorrow she has asked if she can come too. I said, “Bien sur. Naturellement.”

Back at Chez Nous the Lollster had done it again. This time with a plate of Scampi! How appropriate! We had homemade chips and mushy peas. Heavenly. She had cooked so many scampi I almost didn’t have enough room for dessert. Almost. Well, the apple cake needs eating up. I must get on with baking some more. They really are utterly marvellous. Good old Woman’s Hour.

I dropped Laura at the restaurant and then drove across the city to Mum’s house. I had promised to go and check it out for her. She is coming home next week so I went to make sure there was nothing amiss. As far as I could see the only thing wrong was the back lawn was rather longer than Mum would have liked. If it hadn’t started to go dark I would have got out Mum’s lawn mower and given it a trim.

She had a mountain of post in her hall. Nellie, her next door neighbour, picks up the mail everyday [except Sunday obviously] and puts it on the console table in there. I had a similar heap at home when I got back; 90% of which I threw straight into the bin. As I had quite a bit of time on my hands I decided to give her home a clean. I dusted and vacuumed everywhere. I am not sure if she will notice when she gets back but I felt good about doing it.

Callie had a good old charge about the garden, I used her ball wanger to give her a bit of a run. She just loves retrieving stuff but doesn’t know when to stop, so I have to be careful that I don’t tire her out completely.

Laura was changed and ready when I got to the restaurant so I did stop for a chat. They were rushed off their feet all night but the plus side she had made over £40 in tips! She wasn’t too whacked to walk Callie with me and as I’d given her loads of exercise at Mum’s we only did a tiny stroll, up to The Big House on the Onesacre Road and back. They often leave their cars on the drive at night and they have consecutive personalised number plates. I am not sure if that is really cool or totally tacky.

I hope the weather’s OK for tomorrow. I am sort of sad about selling my Little Picanto. It’s done me sterling service over the two years I have owned it. The Ce’ed is quite a different proposition all together. I hadn’t realised that Laura is a little wary of driving it. Just goes to show how I can be totally insensitive at times, doesn’t it? I hadn’t even registered what she felt about it.

Saturday 28^th September.

OMG. The 'Dairy' bit approaches! A cattle stampede nearly wiped out the Scampi Tails!

After walking the pup and swimming we had a huge fried brekkers this morning. It is always useful to have one if you are going on a long walk. [Alport Castles from Ladybower – and back – is about 8 miles in total.] First, though, was the small matter of getting my new car.

It looked brand new at the garage. Fully cleaned inside and out [they call it valeting for some reason] and full service too even though it hasn’t even done the 12K before its service  is due. They have even given me a full tank of diesel; I dread to think how much that is going to cost when I have to refill it. I was asked if I wanted to take out their service plan which meant that I’d pay £19.50 a month for the next three years and that covers the next three services of the car. Laura did the maths and told me I would save marginally by not taking it out but just putting away the amount each month, when you factor in the compound interest over three years. I have no idea whether that is true of not but my savings interest statements each six months give me enough extra cash if needed so I declined their offer.

It turns out I needn’t have fretted about Laura and the car after all. It appears that my Ce’ed is the Kia version of Hyundai’s i30 (how was I supposed to know that?). Laura learned to drive in an i30 up in Cumbria. So there is no problem at all, in fact she knows more about how it will handle etc, than I do. The salesman who sold me the car looked like a bloody sixth-former! He told us if we have any problems with it at all to contact him direct. I should hope we have no problems at all. He watched with amusement as I tried to get Callie to jump into the boot. She is used to it with Dad’s car, obviously, but seemed reluctant at first. The guy told us to hang on a moment. (Hang on?) He came out of the showroom with a catalogue of stuff to buy. There is a bumper protector thing which fastens round the bottom of the tailgate and covers the top of the bumper. It’ll be ideal for stopping Callie’s claws scratching the paintwork. I have ordered one. They will phone when it arrives.

I have put Callie’s chew bones and her vet bed in the boot, plus her rope knot. I hope she likes her new travelling space. One of Dad’s dogs used to be sick every time it was put into the boot. Luckily she grew out of it and now occasionally salivates a river if she travels in a different car! Callie spent the entire journey to Ladybower standing up, leaning against the dog guard. I think she may have been getting her sea legs!

Seven of us met up at the end of the road to the higher Dam walls, Laura, me and Felice and four other Scampis. We all had fairly well stuffed rucksacks as, unlike last week’s walk, there is no pub in the middle to stop for lunch. It almost didn’t matter at all. My route took us up through Crook Hill Farm, from there we follow a really well defined ridge all the way to Alport Castles. It is so easy really, once you get the initial climb up through the farm out of the way.

 In about the third field from where we’d parked there was a herd of cattle. About half a dozen heifers and nearly a dozen calves, at a guess. One of the girls asked me if I was going to put Callie on the lead. Talk about bloody prescient! I had just explained to her why this wasn’t a good idea when one of the heifers decided that my little pup was a threat to her baby and headed down the slope straight towards us and her. One or two of the other bloody stupid creatures decided to join their mate and we had a mini stampede heading straight at us! It was really fcuking scary [pardon the language], we were too far from the field boundary to leg it. I knew we’d be better in a bunch than spread out across the field. The sensible part of my brain knew the heifer was targeting Callie the scaredy-cat part was ready to scream.  

Some of the Scampis started to panic and wanted to try and run, even though I had told them it was the wrong thing to do. I had to shout to stop them. I had Callie’s ball in my hand, so when the herd got a bit closer I threw it away off to our left and yelled, “Callie” Fetch!” The good old dog’s retrieving instinct took over. She zoomed off after the ball, the heifer change direction and pursued Callie and all the cows followed her. Bloody hell! I felt a bit shaky and some og the others had gone a bit pale.

I told the others to keep walking steadily towards the stile, which was about 50 yards away, and if Callie came back with her ball I’d throw it again. The heifer almost caught up with Callie as she stopped to pick up the ball. Its head was bent low down and it made a wild sort of lunge, as though it was trying to head butt her. Callie looked up, saw what was heading her way and simply dodged off in the other direction. The girls scrambled through the stile and I called out, “Callie! Come!” She circled around the, by now sauntering, herd and headed straight for the stile. I suppose the heifer, realising that Callie was too quick and agile to be caught had given up the idea of chasing her. I knew I had to sound really calm and collected, as though this was something I had encountered lots of times before. I simply said, ”Aren’t cows just the most stupid animals?”

I absolutely dread to think what would have happened if I had tried to keep Callie on the lead. Some of the Scampis were a bit shook up by being charged at by a herd of cattle, others were quite excited at their lucky escape. I knew that people had been killed by herds of cattle when walking their dogs, thinking that keeping it on the lead and close to them was the safest thing to do. It is a good job I had seen that particular news item or I may have tried the same with my puppy. Phew, eh?

The rest of the walk was uneventful in terms of our lives being threatened by marauding domestic animals. The weather was brilliant, though, and so clear for the time of year. The ridge, which is actually the edge of the valley of the Alport River, winds its way steadily and gently up to The Castles and if you followed it all the way up it would eventually take you to the Bleaklow Plateau.

Alport Castles is an old quarry, I suppose. It’s one of many dotted about the Peak District, where at the start of the industrial revolution people from Sheffield and Manchester used to come to get their Millstone Grit grinding wheels. In places there are huge finished wheels just lying about. The place would have looked pretty much like a modern working quarry when it was a going concern but centuries of neglect and the ravages of weather have made it a magical place. It is great for scrambling about. There is a really nice stack, called The Tower, which I climbed while the others just hopped about below me on the boulder field. Sandi attempted to get to the top with me, but her nerve gave out and she told me she’d wait where she was and we’d scramble back down together. Even the usually proficient Laura took one look at the stack and decided to give it a miss. [This is the girl who has climbed Nape’s Needle with Dad and I, baulking at what was, in effect, just a scramble.]

We had our lunches, swapping morsels with each other and then after some more messing about and photographing we decided to head on back. One or two asked if there was an alternative route back to avoid the cattle [wusses] so I told them we could veer off down to Lockerbrook Farm and then drop down to the reservoir side and walk back along the lake, if we wanted. The majority decision was to do that. So we did.

We had a bit of a surprise down at Fairholmes, the Upper Derwent Visitor Centre was open. As was the refreshment kiosk. I hadn’t mentioned all this in case they were closed and the girls would have been disappointed. To arrive and find them open was a very nice treat for us all. We must’ve spent about an hour here too. There is nothing as refreshing as a freshly made cup of tea out in the open. It appeared that everyone and their Dad was out for the afternoon [did I mention the weather?] and had decided to descend on the centre. Felice caused a stir by calling the coffee she was given “Camel’s pizzle” and throwing it away. I supposed she was expecting a little more than instant! The kiosk person tried to answer back but she was met a string of French invective and furious arm gestures and decided to shut up. She did offer Felice a soft drink instead (Why? It would never happen to me.) so she chose some flavoured water instead.

The last bit of the walk along the reservoir was delightful. The Ashopton viaduct comes into view eventually and you know you have almost finished the walk. I told them the story of Mad Meg and her curse on the village of Ashopton. [I read it in a book of local legends.] It goes like this: (paraphrased)

In the middle of the 19^th Century Ashopton was thriving farming community just far enough from Sheffield to not be influenced by it. In the village lived an old herbalist / healer / wise woman, called Meg. She was the one the villagers would turn to for remedies, cures and potions. The older she got, the crankier she became and some of the villagers became frightened of her. She ended up being branded as a witch and was driven from the village.

Now Meg, who was most definitely not a witch, loved the area and didn’t want to leave, so she set up a bivvy of sorts on the edge of Kinder Scout, at a place which is now called Mad Woman’s Stones. Here she would live her life and could be seen occasionally on the hillside shouting curses at the villagers of Ashopton for throwing her out.

Life continued as it does, as normal, until one autumn a farmer hired a jobbing shepherd for round up. There used to be lots of these itinerant shepherds who would work their way down the Pennines, from the Cheviot in the north to Darley Dale in the south, being employed as extra hands for the round up. The shepherd was given the task of fetching the sheep down from the edge of Kinder as none of the local ones would go up near Meg, being frightened of her.

The shepherd found a pile of rags near a mound of stones and poking them with his crook was horrified when a decomposing skull rolled out. Not knowing what to do he gathered up the remains and took them down into Ashopton. There the local constable and doctor decided they must be Meg’s remains and by the state of decomposition she had been dead for almost a year.

This is where the story takes a twist. For, in the months leading up to the finding of her body a Meg-like figure had often been seen silhouetted on the skyline near Win Hill summit, shouting curses on the village and villagers. One person remembered the last curse they had heard. It was, “You shall all be drowned in a great flood!”

In 1932 the people of Derby and Nottingham needed more drinking water so they formed the Derwent Valley Water board and built three huge dam walls across the Derwent River: Ladybower, Derwent and Howden. So that nowadays the village of Ashopton can be found 120 feet below the surface of Ladybower reservoir! Meg’s curse had come true!

The girls thought it was a great story. They demanded to know if it was true. I couldn’t answer that but told them that there is usually a grain of truth in most legends. What is clear is that Ashopton can only be reached by divers, but Derwent village, which was also drowned by the reservoir, occasionally appears when the level of the lake gets really low. I have seen pictures of the summer of 1976 and the streets and bridges of Derwent were clearly visible.

We parted at about 6pm, having had a brilliant day, despite nearly being trampled to death by a herd of stampeding cattle. At home our beef stew was done to perfection. Aren’t slow cookers a marvellous invention? [There is an unintentional irony there, isn’t there?]

We ate before we showered. Dirty cows that we are. Then we sprawled on the sofa, snuggled up together. I had day dreams about the Young Montalbano and Little Loll fell asleep in my arms! [We watched the TV show on BBC4.] Callie was content with a romp around the field as her final walk.

As a post script the Scampis want to do the prize quiz. It is down to me to sort out the details. Thanks for that!

Sunday 29^th September.

Oh No! Bad, bad, bad news! The Dockers LOST! Bloody Hawthorn beat them in the Grand Final. The family are gutted, sick as parrots and any other sporting cliché you’d care to mention. Even more so as they had flown over to Melbourne to watch the final live. I was Skyped by Annabelle after they’d got back to Warnbro and she was still tearful over the video link. According to Mum, who is a little more dispassionate, the Dockers weren’t out played and it was a very close, low scoring game. At one stage they closed down Hawthorn’s lead to just three points but the win wasn’t to be. They lost 77 – 62. If three of Freo’s behinds had been goals they could have won. They scored three more behinds than Hawks which is always disappointing. Knowing that a few feet would have turned one point into six!

I was hoping the Dockers would win. I was all set to watch the edited highlights over the interweb this morning but in the end I didn’t bother. Too painful to watch. Mum is all set to fly back home. She leaves on Wednesday. I have arranged that I’ll come on over on Thursday night and cook her dinner for her when she gets back from Manchester airport. Then she is going to have a girly day with us, in town on Saturday and lunch on Sunday. I have missed her not being here. Strange how that happens, isn’t it?

Before lunch I decided to take Quokka for a spin, so we zoomed up the M1 into Leeds and through to Horsforth to visit the Older Brother. He was surprised to see us; more surprised at the new car and even more surprised by the deal I’d got. He wanted to take it for a drive too but I wouldn’t let him. That brought out Mr Grumpy for a while but not too grumpy to invite us in for Sunday lunch. That was an unexpected bonus. He also played the CD of Jane’s ultrasound scan which still looks like nothing at all to me. Even Peter and Angela had to agree. I think Peter was a bit embarrassed by the fact his Mum is pregnant again, Angela is looking forward to having a living dolly to dress and play with.

She then asked are you going to have a baby Aunt Vicki? I was sorely tempted to say, “Yes. Barbequed!” but held back just in time. Peter came out with, “She can’t you idiot!” You could almost hear the intake of breath round the table before he went on with, “You have to be married before they’ll let you!” Never has a mouth full of roast potato produced such an expectant pause.

This innocent remark brought about a huge squabble about cousin Julie who had her baby and wasn’t married. Their spat doesn’t bear repeating but it was funny to hear the sort of concepts children get into their heads. I wonder if I was full of such total misconceptions at their age. {Arrghh! No pun intended!} Laura really confused them both by saying, “Vicki isn’t going to have her baby until she’s forty, that way it’ll be older when it’s born!” You could almost hear their brains trying to work this one out!

I was so pleased we had to press on, leaving Phil and Jane to deal with the consequences of that particular pearl. We decided to drive back the A road way, rather than use the motorway, to get a better feel of the gears and the power of the engine. I am gobsmacked by how the thing accelerates going uphill! I used to have to change down in the Picanto but with the Quokka you just put your foot down and off it goes! Another thing we have noticed. When you get that loud 'enginey' working hard noise that the Picanto used to make at about 65mph, in the quokka you are doing almost 90 before you hear it!! Both of us will have to watch out for that, speeding tickets are the last thing we need.

Laura took over in Huddersfield and we made our sedate way through all the speed cameras back home. The drive on the front of my house is plenty big enough to park straight across the window but I used to park the Picanto pointing down the garden. Quokka needed a bit more thought to get it in. Mainly because the wheelie bins are in the way. I have had to shift them down the garden.

Our joint of meat had cooked itself through nicely, and was ready to eat but as we’d stuffed ourselves at P & J’s we decided to have our Sunday lunch tomorrow night instead and have salad filled wraps with satay chicken pieces for tea instead.

It was so warm we were able to sit out in the garden, where we were joined by Steve & Ann and Muriel & Ken. When it got a bit chilly, as the sun set behind the Onesacre road, we decamped to our conservatory. We got through five bottles of wine between the six of us during the evening. It was hard to believe it was the last Sunday in September.