I didn't by any means feel I had fully explored the Erewash Valley, but I had completed my planned routes and got some idea of the transport, industry, and general geography of the area. It was time to return to the Portway. There are lots of -leys around here. Smalley, Morley, Mapperley, Stanley, Horsley. The suffix means "woodland clearing", and although there are not many woods around any more, it doesn't take much imagination to think of little villages among the trees. I started in Dale Abbey (or should that be Daley Abbley?) where the monastery once dominated the surrounding area. I've been to Dale Abbey several times but never actually walked through the village before. There is a neatly trimmed pub, an old chapel, now a church known as The Gateway, and a house with an odd lumpy corner which I realised must be part of the ruined abbey. A field path led me up to the main Derby-Ilkeston road. I crossed it and followed a couple of horses along a single-track l...
It was about Exodus 39 that I began to spot the similarities. I'd started back in December , reading the gospel of Luke. Then I'd moved on to Isaiah - enjoying the much-loved poetic prophecies, and realising I'd forgotten how much of it was railing against Moab, Tyre, Tarshish and Edom - and after that I turned to page one, In the beginning... and reckoned, with solemn determination, that I could make it all the way through the Pentateuch in one go. That's the first five books of the Bible. The Law. The Torah. Genesis was great. Of course, I couldn't read the narrative of Joseph without hearing the music from Technicolour Dreamcoat in my head ( seven fat cows came up out of the Nile, uh-huh-huh) . It's an excellent story. And so into Exodus, and the equally flamboyant story of Moses. But halfway through the book of Exodus comes the Ten Commandments, and it all changes. The Israelites are in the wilderness and the reader is too, with nothing but rules, regulat...