The Burrowing Duke's Welbeck Abbey is now ...

the Harley Gallery, where a touring interactive art & craft show is on at the moment... Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution -they have two blogs Taking Time  and "Making a Slow Revolution". One beautiful exhibit, made by people who visit it, is about the way knitting and textile creation can interact with lives and their passage... another shows how folkdancing and weaving & knitting use similar moves, loops, stages, steps, to reach a finished performance piece... on the left is a section of the Garlands dance/weaving/knitting piece, and right is a 'comment' by one of the contributors that links to my Retirement Project... interesting for me that I started out as a textile arts teacher, became a dancer, and did a Life Course Perspective Masters...I wonder if I tried to link the three in the passage of my life reflection, what would emerge...

The "Burrowing Duke" is the 5th Duke of Portland (1800-1879) who dug tunnels underneath his estate and was the subject of Mick Jackson's novel The Underground Man... a fictional account of the Duke's motives for the tunnels, and a fascinating story. The real story is just as odd, and there apparently is an underground Ballroom too! We were up in the area (for a Blowzabella dance weekend at Thoresby) and I realised the estate was nearby so we went on a hunt... what Treasure I found!