Matlock

Here we are in Matlock, visiting Kryssy and Chris. Everything is green, very green - the gardens everywhere are beyond colourful (notice the British spelling - my accent change will be next !!) Matlock has changed visibly since the last time we were here 3 years ago - much construction of new homes, a huge supermarket (Sainsbury purposefully does not have a fresh meat counter since there are excellent butcher shops in town - nor do they have a pharmacy either, for the same reason.....politically ever so correct !!!!) and a road where there are so many cars that we had a difficult time finding a break to cross it in order to reach Old Hackney Lane.

Old Hackney Lane has no numbers, each house has its own name and that is how the postan delivers mail !! Being that the road is so narrow, no one else now is allowed to build a new home with the entryway facing it - if there is no other exit - oh well - you cannot build. some of the empty lots will have to remain empty ...

in the empty lot next door, for 3 years, someone had some sheep and some donkeys - the donkeys had cute names - one was Tinkerbell - but one of them esp brayed all night long .... he got yelled at a lot ... no animal there now, but there was a lot of trash in the empty lot which was quite surprising .... being that I am on my clean up La Bocana rampage !!!

The shops are very interesting and quite similar all throughout Wales and England - they are, for the most part, quite small ma and pa spots, everyone is very friendly when you go in. I had a funny experience day before yesterday ... with the cup of coffee (see pic above) in my hand, I entered a store - walked around - finished my cofee as fast as possible and went to one of 3 clerks and asked if they had a trashcan to put it in. They looked very stangely at each other and then one of them asked me, " Do you want us to throw it away ???" "Yes, please" and they were perplexed ... and one of them finally took the cup and said "well, we'll have to wash it "...

I have to admit, I don't get it , this was only a paper cup !! I mean, I could have thrown it in a public trashbin outside ..

whatever..

This part of England has a lovely tradition of devorating water wells every May, June and July. The decoration is done with flowers and have a religious oveertone to them, I saw pictures but not the real deal ...

Kryssy and Chris are going to try and meet us in Wroclaw - cousin Iga has breast cancer and we are not sure how serious it is. Maybe we will get to meet les's first cousin Maya, Iga's mom. We have never seen Iga's baby boy either !!!

Ok - we are about to leave for Thatchum ..more later....