A Tropical Day In Derby

The weather continues sunny, hot and dry - more like midsummer than April.  Apparently the other day the East Midlands was hotter than Rome. Today L and I arranged to meet S in Derby. We caught the Derwent Line train from Cromford station and enjoyed an alternative route into the city to the usual Park n Ride.  Don't you just love the little Victorian waiting room across the track?  It was designed by Mr Stokes, son in law to Joseph Paxton of Crystal Palace fame. A couple of years ago it was renovated and turned into an unusual holiday cottage (www.cromfordstationwaitingroom.co.uk).

The journey only takes half an hour but from Cromford meadows through Whatstandwell, Ambergate and Belper to Duffield it's a very pretty run, especially the Whatstandwell - Ambergate section, with Chase Woods on one side of the valley and Shining Cliff Woods on the opposite.  We tried to count how many times the railway crosses and re-crosses the river Derwent and came to about nine.  Road, rail and river run close together along the narrow band of flat land in the valley bottom. The trees look at their best at this time of year, when the new foliage is fresh and growing strongly, and the fields are a bright green.  At Duffield we noticed the terminus of the newly opened Ecclesbourne Steam Railway (http://www.e-v-r.com/), which runs down from Wirksworth. It looked spick and span.  Nearer Derby, the rolling scenery gives way to industrial sprawl, as is inevitable on the approach to any city. 

S was already waiting when we arrived, and so were several police vans and a number of constables, but fortunately the reception committee was not for us but because of a Derby match taking place later.  S regaled us with the improbable story of a crocodile trying to get through the ticket barrier, which made us wonder how many lagers she had drunk whilst waiting, but she assured us was something to do with football mascots.  We sat down for a while on the cool stone steps of the Midland Railway War Memorial.  I remember as a small child been slightly freaked out by  this creepy looking cenataph - a tall block of Portland stone  topped by a dead soldier lying on a bier. It's a strange sculpture, apparently by Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens.  He should have stuck to designing houses. Anyway, Mr Lutyens' memorial was as good a place as any to eat the Easter Simnel Cakelets that I had made and brought as a snack.

By now it was midday and very warm.  As we expected town to be heaving with pink fleshed proles and not a spare table to be found at any pavement cafe, we headed for the cool interior of the Crown Derby Visitor Centre on Osmaston Road (www.royalcrownderby.co.uk/visiting).This proved to be a shrewd move as there was space aplenty, and there is the added advantage of having your tea out of proper china.  The teapot was large enough to have supplied a small garden party.  (This design of tableware is called "Grenville")

There was an exhibition about the Titanic at the Visitor Centre, to publicise the launch of a new range of porcelain based on the crockery which Crown Derby produced for the ill-fated liner. But it was a pricey £6 to get in so we gave it a miss.   However, in the china shop S allowed herself to be tempted by the "Little Owl" paperweight, which cost considerably more.  A year or so ago when the design was launched, there was an event at the factory telling the story of Florence Nightingale's pet owl Athena.  The Lady with the Lamp apparently brought an injured Little Owl back with her from a family holiday abroad, which recovered to become quite a character.  reputedly the diminutive creature was trained to curtsey for food, and spent a good deal of time riding around inside Florence's pocket.  Who could resist such a charming story?  The sales lady, a slightly dotty lady of mature years, thought Athena had "beady eyes".  I beg to differ.

From there, we walked across town to Friar Gate, to visit Pickford's House museum.  We were amused that almost every premise on Friar Gate appears to be a restaurant. bistro, bar or eaterie.  What a lot of consumption must go on along this thoroughfare.  The museum is a Georgian town house complete with tiny garden.  Its interiors are rather plain, except for the ground floor kitchen, which is enlivened by much polished copper and blue and white crockery. We were rather taken by the (still functional) Edwardian and 1930's bathrooms.  L said that the ornate and colourful floral design inside the Edwardian toilet made you feel bad about using it. Chinzy ornamentation knew no boundaries in those days.  In the lace exhibition there were some interesting facts about the enormous number of work hours required to produce one of the fancy lace collars on display, and the curious statistic that King Henry VIII spent £20,000 on lace, the equivilent of £5M today.  Clearly no cheap frills with those Tudors!

A hot walk across town brought us back to the station in time for a cuppa before departure.  Our train was full - not a things which happens very often in April according to the slightly hassled ticket collector.   S reported that later, after a day of tropical heat Nottingham was deluged with an inch of rain, resulting in "lots of folk stranded under gazebos in comedy shorts".  Brackenfield continues its drought as yet but seeing as we are planning on attending Crich 1940's weekend in costume tomorrow, there's every likelihood of a downpour.