Bartimaeus

The museum was interesting and the size of some of the machinery was awesome inspiring. There was still more to see, but it is free and we would happily come back and go round again, preferably on a day when they are running the big machinery, but the great wheel will not be turning during this visit. 

Heather had invited us to dinner and also some other of her friends with whom we have shared narrow boat holidays in the past. It wasn’t a rainy day so it wasn’t necessary to hide inside and Heather lives near the Botanical Gardens so we thought this would make a good contrast to head there and if Heather was able to free herself from the kitchen, she might join us.

We arrived at the Botanics and let her know. She had made a good start on dinner and felt able to join us and I  agree that spending time with your friends is better use of time than hoovering. We sat in a walled garden listening to a parent playing a pretend school game with his young daughters, teaching magic e, before they could go playing. Shane sent a photo of an ant statue opposite our seat so she might guess where we were.

Since we had earlier that day learnt that an entire Steelworks had been moved across Sheffield, it was no guarantee that Heather had ever seen this shiny statue at all or that it might have previously been in a different place. Indeed it might be new and Heather may not have seen it at all hidden in that walled area. Sure enough she messaged to let us know she had arrived and told us where she was, so we went to find her. 

Pretty as the gardens are, it was all the better to go round with Heather, not just for her company, but for her knowledge of where the highlights of the gardens might be. Rather than heading to the teashop she showed us where the black mulberry bush was. It had a path around it so visitors did indeed go round the bulberry bush. We hadn’t ever had the pleasure of a mulberry and associated it only with the childhood action song. The mulberries were a bit hard to reach and clearly others knew they were ripening. Shane lifted me up so I could reach some. They were tasty indeed, and we enjoyed the novel experience which would not be available  on a cold and frosty morning but on a sunny afternoon it was fun. Shane had amused us all on the first day in Sheffield with his involuntary facial expression on eating Heather’s tart plums, but it didn’t stop him eating more. His first underripe mulberry brought a similar contortion of the features but once we focussed on the darker fruits, his facial muscles were relaxed.

We had a few each then moved on through the gardens, licking our stained fingers. We resisted singing “This is the way we hoover the floor….” More childhood memories awaited us.

A poster to engage children had a photo of a rabbit and the question ‘can you find this?’ We found it and many other creatures on a statue of Peter Pan. I don’t know if any Sheffield connection to Peter Pan, but it was an interesting statue. Tinkerbell was much more hidden than the rabbits.

I remembered that when we had come with our boys many years ago, the unique feature that had made an impression on me in these gardens was the Bear Pit. Heather took us through to where it was. The experience reignited a memory of the tame grizzly Bear, Hercules, who had been a sensation after being lost in the Scottish Hebrides for three weeks. He attracted audiences without harming anyone.

There was time for a cup of tea in Heather’s garden while she prepared a pudding using the dessert plums from her garden. Heather and I prepared some fresh salsa and guacamole together and soon Caroline and Christine arrived bringing drinks and snacks, followed shortly by Benny bearing a good crop of blackberries gathered from his own garden. After delicious nibbles and dips with beer we moved on to Heather’s black bean chilli, wraps with all the trimmings. She had warned us to keep space for pudding. If Little Jack Horner had joined us he may have been confused by the array in the first two courses but enjoyed pulling out a plum in pudding course. It was delicious with yogurt and blackberries. Our faces were all smiles and while we looked at Shane there were no grimaces for the cooked dessert plums.