Salad Days

Another post that will only be of any use for people in London (sorry, we will do something a bit closer to home soon) and before Jan 11 when the show  closes; howeevr, if  you are in London and able to go, Salad Days at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, is an absolute must! The blurb says ‘A sure-fire cure for your winter blues’ and how right they are.

Eight of us went after the family wedding mentioned before, and it ended a wonderfully happy day on a truly magical note. Everyone, and not just us, came out of the theatre with smiles on their faces and their feet tapping. I would have loved to have sat through the whole performance again.

The atmosphere is set as you enter. The entire cast is amassed at the door, in academic garb. The ‘chancellor’ solemnly hands everyone their degree scroll impressively rolled up and tied with red ribbon and congratulates them on their tremendous academic achievement… Then they all rather surprisingly break into dance and the fun starts.

Salad Days was written in 1954 but seemed to hark back to the 1930s and the era of the Charleston although there was a bit of rock and roll and jive. The theme however was very topical – it is all about a young couple, freshly graduated from university but unsure of what lies ahead. You even have the two mothers singing rather plaintively that they don’t understand their children.

The singing and dancing and comedy is superb. The audience sits facing each other across the stage in the middle. It is all very relaxed and intimate, with no sound system but the strong voices carried perfectly. Most of the cast are very young and freshly out of music or drama school but I feel sure they will go far.

I would simply love to find an excuse to go down to London, snow permitting, to see it again before January 11th, unless of course one of the big theatres takes it up.

English as she is Spoke

…This report will be of more practical interest if you are in London, or planning a trip before the end of April.

We are not often there ourselves, but when we do go try to make the most of any spare time available to visit art exhibitions, the theatre or other interesting things that are on, and even perhaps indulge in a little bit of window shopping (there’s nearly always a birthday or Christmas coming up, or we are on the look out for some new little treat for the barns…).

We went down to London last weekend a day early for a family wedding on Saturday 11th. On the Friday before son Nick and I went to ‘Evolving English’ at the British Library (very conveniently near St Pancras for those of us whose main station that is).

Pardon me for not having the pleasure of knowing your mindset before making you this offer and it is utterly confidential and genuine by virtue of its nature.

If you are at all interested in English, this is fascinating. It is so easy to assume that although the English language has continually been influenced over time (if nothing else think of the time after the Norman Conquest when for several centuries anybody posh or official spoke French) that the English we speak and have been taught now – and some of us have even taught – is how English should remain forever more.

But of course that is simply not true. Even a short spell at the British Library shows one that the language is alive, permanently developing and changing fast. From audio headphones dangling everywhere one can listen to examples of English spoken by people from earlier times, different walks of life and other countries; rap music, slang, texting, official business jargon, the accents and idioms of the millions who visit our country… These are all ‘English’ and all influence our language whether we like it or not.

I can’t resist adding a quote (see the bit in bold on the right) taken from some kind bank manager from Ghana who was  writing ‘to solicit my assistance in a funds transfer deal’ involving US$3.5M profits made by his bank during the last two years).

If the majority started writing like this so-called bank manager or pronouncing a word ‘incorrectly’ or writing ‘you are’ as UR does that make it correct?  Who is to decide which of these changes is good or simply not acceptable?

You can record your own voice, which will be used as part of their research into the various influences which affect the language and what the majority are now doing. You can even  record your voice online although Nick and I did ours while we were there.

…Sledges, snow shovels, road salt and mince pies

Today we bought two new plastic sledges for the use of our guests and/or rather less excitingly for pulling luggage up to the house if that becomes necessary again. Determined not to be caught out next time round we also purchased a new snow shovel – our last one is now in London having been urged upon son Nick when he left here in heavy snow over a fortnight ago – and some road salt. This comes in fairly minutes 20kg bags – heavy to carry, expensive to buy and somewhat ineffective on the snow and ice – but considerably better than nothing!

We’ve also ordered some mince pies from Riverford Organic just in case the Aga and I can’t keep up with the demand, and one or two new Christmassy candles and decoration etc for the barns.

But more importantly,  we need a weather update, particularly for those of you planning to arrive here on Friday…

It has been much warmer, and drizzly and wet the last two days. There is very little snow about, apart from heaps at the side of the road in some places, and pockets of white on the hillsides where the snow has settled in the dips and furrows or banked up under stone walls.

We seem to be hearing a little less of the dramatic talk of an ‘Arctic blast’ bringing heavy snow that was being loudly proclaimed  last week. There is talk now of rain turning to sleet and possibly snow on Thursday but we haven’t had any general weather warnings (or that we’ve heard, anyway). If you are at all concerned, keep looking at the BBC weather for Ashbourne.

Parwich has NO snow!

The snow has pretty well all disappeared! We have been away for a few days for a family wedding in London, and in spite of genuine determination to write posts from the big city itself our time was so happily busy – more of which later – we never got anywhere near a computer.

Anyway, to update everyone on the weather situation: we left on Thursday afternoon, taking the car very gingerly down the lane for the first time since 27th November…! There was still a lot of snow and ice about, and it felt extremely cold. We parked the car on an ice-covered surface at Derby station (which incidentally almost cost more than our fares down and back) hoping things wouldn’t have frozen up completely by the time we returned.

We returned on Sunday evening to find no snow, no ice and the temperature  a relatively warm 5’C or so. However, before any of us start feeling too confident, apparently there is talk of another cold snap – a so-called  ‘Arctic blast’ – with bitterly cold weather and maybe more snow. Keep an eye on the BBC Ashbourne weather.

The Sun Keeps Shining over Parwich

The sun blazes away, day after day, the snow sparkles and the sky is blue but the temperature remains well below zero – one hears of -14’C and even lower at night.

The height of the snow is reducing, but almost imperceptibly. Our guests today managed to leave OK with baby (Douglas’s Barn)  and cello (Tom’s Barn). Philip K from next door had most kindly offered to ferry them down in his Landrover but our intrepid guests insisted on making the journey to their cars on foot as did the incoming guests, having tried and failed to make that final slope by car.

John has been out taking more photos – we thought this view of the garden in the late afternoon was rather attractive, with the sun casting shadows through the trees.

Bert Broomhead’s View of Parwich in 1950

Idly watching  the Antiques Roadshow at Chatsworth tonight we were intrigued  when the daughter of an artist called Bert Broomhead (who up until that moment we had never heard of) produced a rather beautiful picture of Parwich painted in 1950. John had recorded the programme and was able to ‘rewind’ and take a few stills but a picture of the actual painting can be seen on the artist’s website

Momentarily we struggled to place the view until we realised it must have been painted from directly behind Orchard Farm. Interestingly there is no rusty haybarn which we had assumed to be even older than 60 years and of course no sign of any of the ‘newer’ houses along this road.

What is there in pride of place is nostalgic reminder our old two-seater privy in the foreground on the left. There was no loo and no bathroom and not much else either in the house when we bought Orchard Farm  in 1983  but needless to say we did improve the facilities somewhat before moving in. The privy sadly was demolished by a van taking the corner too fast at least twenty years ago so now all we have left is the levelled off waist-high wall.

The church is there in the background, the McCabes’ old barn, and is that Knob Hall in the right hand corner?

Update on the Weather Front

There is no dramatic news of thaws, or indeed even more snow. The last two days have seen blue skies and apparently warm, bright sunshine but not either warm or bright enough to melt much of the snow although the level is down on its previous highs. I thought the photo of the wallflowers gamely peeping through the snow might give us encouragement!  Maybe the snow can’t last for ever.

Life below our final slope has more or less returned to normal although getting in and out of the village still needs care; apparently once on the main roads everything is pretty well all right. Our guests are parked below the snow line, and those coming tomorrow plan to do the same.

Meanwhile, our bad weather contingency plans worked well and as so often happens when conditions are different/difficult it creates a rather exciting sense of fun, of everyone appreciating and enjoying the unusual even if that unusual means wielding shovels and spades to clear the drive and dig each others’ cars out.  And we are extremely grateful to our good neighbours, without whom we would still be virtually marooned up here!

The way everybody rallies round and offers help – and most of it sheer physical flog – is very moving. It is a cliche, but this sort of situation does seem to bring out the best in us all (as long as it doesn’t last too long…).

Snow still everywhere but it isn’t actually snowing

A quite beautiful day today and an action filled one, by any account. (Photos to come, tomorrow.) With an enormous lot of help and generous good will we managed to get two cars off the premises and safely parked at the bottom of the slope, dig out and push both the ‘milk girl’ and her van to safety and also James the Riverford Organic Veg man, both wonderful people having braved the frozen heights to deliver to us at Orchard Farm, risking in the process having to stay here until the thaw sets in.

The sun shone, the snow sparkled in a dazzling fashion all day, our amazing neighbour John K ploughed a track from one of our gates to the other, David G shoveled an impressive amount of snow and we suddenly feel almost civilized again, helped by a tot of whiskey thoroughly enjoyed in the sunshine after all their exertions by the Orchard Farm team of guests, neighbours and good friends.

Our new guests arrived safely later, wisely parking in the village and now all is peaceful and settled for the weekend.And hardly a snowflake has fallen all day but apparently, more is due…

Weather Notice Board

Some of our guests who have booked winter  breaks and are concerned about the weather may find the following links and information helpful:

Local weather conditions for BBC reports for Ashbourne – they do a five day visual report and an all-singing/all-dancing one which is worth just watching for its entertainment value!

Local road conditions for BBC Travel News for the area

Very local reports from the Parwich website (locals email in with reports on local roads and conditions)

Conditions in and around Buxton for those coming from the north and north west

You may find the Wintery Fun photos in the Gallery amusing but disregard the first page which were taken in Jan/Feb this year (2010).

Our responsibility is to have everything ready for you when you arrive and we will do our best to ensure the barns are ready warm and waiting for you, beds made (those Hungarian goose-down duvets…), fires on, relaxing music playing quietly in the back ground and freshly made cake on the table.

If the final stretch up the slope to Orchard Farm is perilous, park your car safely down at the bottom somewhere below the Road Narrows sign and let us know you have arrived; we’ll come down on foot with borrowed sledge to ferry your belongings up, perhaps with the help of a hot drink or even a nip or two of something stronger.

Getting here is your responsibility. Obviously, if it became quite impossible to get to Parwich we would let you know but decisions about all other aspects of your journey are up to you; where you are coming from and in what sort of vehicle all make a big difference and we cannot possibly advise.

It’s December now, and still snowing

It’s hard to believe, and the sun did try to shine for a while; we just have to hope that things will start improving.

John has been out and about, taking masses of photos. Just to cheer you up, have a look at the gallery on our blog. The first lot of snowy pictures disregard as they were taken earlier this year (what is it about 2010?!!)