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COSY GARDEN ROOMS – THE BEST USES FOR A GARDEN ROOM

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Ashbourne’s Take on Football – (Temporary) Anarchy In The UK

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Saying you were once a vegetarian is like admitting you were a once better person. But here’s my guilty secret. After ten long years of eating mash and vegetables for Christmas dinner and crying into a bean burger at barbecues, I was lured off-course by the siren sizzle of bacon. Sixteen years of meat-eating later […]

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The Manifold Valley

March 26, 2019 VickyP

Two major Peakland rivers, the Dove and Manifold, begin their lives a little over a mile apart, high up on the gritstone moors of Axe Edge, between Buxton and Leek. They both flow south west, almost parallel to each other, separated by limestone ridges, before joining below Thorpe village; here they continue, now known simply […]

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Local Collectibles – Classic Histories of Derby

February 27, 2019 VickyP

In 2013 I wrote an article in Country Images about collecting local books, and threatened to continue the theme with further examples at a later date. Since then, we have been concentrating on modern collectibles, but following three separate appeals from readers for me to continue with collectible old local books, I thought I might […]

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The National Stone Centre

February 27, 2019 VickyP

Travelling back in time a few millenia, Brian Spencer describes what the Peak District looked like when land that became the British Isles was part of a tropical island situated near the Equator. A series of small inter-connected abandoned limestone quarries off the road to Ashbourne, near the top of the hill marking the boundary […]

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Taste Derbyshire – A Slice of Italy – Lambarelli’s

February 27, 2019 VickyP

The outskirts of Chesterfield on a grey and dismal morning seems an unlikely place to find la dolce vita. But follow your nose into Lambarelli’s Italian Caffé and Pasta Bar on Chesterfield Road and you’ll be instantly transported from North Derbyshire to Southern Italy on an aromatic cloud of fresh herbs, strong coffee and sweet […]

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Taste Derbyshire – Spotted Calf Cafe

February 5, 2019 VickyP

There’s something a bit magical about the Spotted Calf café – the small but perfectly formed off-spring of the Spotted Cow pub at Holbrook. It’s not just the quality of the coffee – roasted to perfection in the Derbyshire Peaks – or the tanginess of the home-made lemon polenta cake. It’s the cosy, welcoming nature […]

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Images of The North

February 5, 2019 VickyP

With an introductory splutter, the public address system announced, first in Norwegian, then in English and German, that we were summoned by King Neptune to assemble on the after-deck to receive our icy baptism. During the night a few hours previously we passed a small island at exactly 66°33’51’’ north, marked by a globe tilted […]

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John Flamsteed England’s First Astronomer Royal

February 5, 2019 VickyP

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Brian Spencer follows the life of this Denby-born man who went on to be the first Astronomer Royal and set the stage for Greenwich to become the centre of time and space. John Flamsteed was a sickly child, being troubled by arthritic knees and ankles, weak legs, and frequent headaches – conditions that affected him […]

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Attracting Wildlife into your Garden

February 5, 2019 VickyP

People often asked me “What can I do to attract wildlife into my garden?” I ask them what they already do to try; most often they tell me that they have bird feeders and put out bird food but not much seems to visit them. Firstly, we need to understand the needs of any visiting […]

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Modern Collectibles – Gentlemen’s Stickpins

February 5, 2019 VickyP

Last year, I bought my wife a complete boxed set of The Avengers. So many episodes does it contain that we are still ploughing through them and, indeed, enjoying the kitsch nostalgia and humour of them enormously. The late actor Patrick McNee, as John Steed, the one constant protagonist of the series, was increasingly presented […]