Making Do

When life includes two new babies, planning is a speculative business. They must be fed, they must be clean, they must be content and comfortable; everything else fits around those imperatives. Time is malleable; objectives are flexible; sleep-deprived parents must navigate a path between what they want to do and what they can do; any achievement beyond those must-do obligations is a bonus

We wanted to visit Cromford. It is internationally known as the cradle of the Industrial Revolution, where Richard Arkwright built the first true factory, along with the houses in which his workforce could live, and shops and pubs to serve them. This in the mid 18th century. A plaque on a pub says the mill workers were encouraged to drink beer because the lead content of local water made it toxic

All well and good but, to us, Cromford is a bookshop - one of those old style, labyrinthine kind, where room leads to room, books are piled up on the floor and every title you notice on a shelf is a temptation to start reading. Worse, there is a tea room selling cakes and scones (Jam or cream first? We had the discussion)

Some people walked all the way, some walked half then rode half, some rode then walked, some were carried wherever they went; a driver joined the dots. The predictable people bought books. Ad hoc but effective; everyone had fun; everyone got fresh air; everyone ended with a sense of achievement

Our route included part of the High Peak Trail, which here follows the route of the Cromford and High Peak Railway, built to link two parts of the canal system, where the terrain was too difficult to dig more canals. Even then, it included 'inclines': slopes too steep for horses to pull up, or locomotives to grip on. The makeshift solution was a steam engine at the top, a wheel like this at the bottom; a continuous rope, chain or hawser; ropes and leather straps to attach the rolling stock to the continuously circulating line by friction. Inelegant, rough and ready, unsophisticated, but it got the job done and kept the railway in business until the mid 20th century. Not a bad metaphor for our day