web design and Derbyshire

This week I've been working long hours on some web design
for a relative of mine, who is a singer/songwriter. I'm
using Dreamweaver 4 at a fairly amateurish level, and I've
done Google searches for extra bits of HTML code (for
variations on text rollovers, which are quite fun to do,
when I can get them to work).

I find the web design work challenging, stimulating and
entertaining - well, I have said that I've become a nerd.
I'm one of the Merry Nerds of Nottingham.

Mrs C and I are going off to Derbyshire for a very long
weekend, tomorrow. We've invited along a couple of friends,
and we'll be staying in a modernised two bedroomed cottage
with en-suite bathrooms, etc., and we'll be self catering.
This will be the first time we've spent a whole weekend
with friends - well they are more like family members now.
They've been awarded uncle and auntie status by our girls,
and in fact we feel closer to them than our own brothers &
sisters.

One of the reasons for our trip to Derbyshire, is for me to
do a little family history research. I think I've blogged
this already, but one of my great uncles married a
Derbyshire lass in secret. That was in 1901. She worked in
the family grocery business, based in Eyam, the famous
plague village. So I'll call in some of the shops and pubs
to see if I can find out which shop it was, and possibly
contact any present-day family members.

We've been to Chatsworth a few times over the years, but have
only looked round the inside once. So we plan to do a tour
of the house, and if the weather's good, we'll do one of the
walks around Chatsworth.

One of the best ones we do is from the car park at the
southern end of the park, across the fields just to the west
side of the house, and along the footpath to Baslow village,
where there are various restautants and loos, and then all the
way back again (about a 5-6 mile walk).

When I went with a friend recently, we went first of all to
Edensor, for a light lunch at the village post office, and then
went round the church graveyard where the Devonshire family are
buried. I was surprised to see the grave of JFK's sister,
Kathleen, in the graveyard. She married a member of the
Devonshire family and was killed in a plane crash in France.
JFK is said to have visited her grave during his presidency.
Her mother Rose did not attend the funeral, as K. had married
someone who wasn't a Roman Catholic. Oh dear.

The two of us later walked up the hillside round the back of
Chatsworth to see the lakes on the hilltop, and the views
over the valley towards Edensor. It was a cold but sunny
winter's day, that day, and it became quite foggy. Very
atmospheric.