LeapFrog Leapstory (Green) Listen and Visualise Musical Baby Toy, Toddler Toy with Sounds, Shapes, Poems & Stories, Interactive Educational Toy for Children 3, 4, 5, 6+ Year Olds Boys & Girls

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Stoney Middleton also served as a camp during World War Two for Italian and German POWs, as well as displaced persons who were set to work in the quarries. Descendents still reside in the village to this day. The narrator begins by introducing her mother, Anna, as “ the surviving half of a blindfold trapeze act”. Anna is now truly blind due to cataracts, and navigates the house with a gentle grace. The narrator almost forgets that her mother used to be a trapeze artist, for she does not talk about it at all, and preserves no memory from the time. The narrator feels that she is almost in debt because she owes her existence to her mother- Anna has saved her life three times. My mother is the surviving half of a blindfold trapeze act, not a fact I think about much even now that she is sightless, the result of encroaching and stubborn cataracts.”

This formula produced too many leap years, causing the Julian calendar to drift apart from the tropical year at a rate of 1 day per 128 years. This was not corrected until the introduction of the Gregorian calendar more than 1500 years later, when a number of days were skipped to realign our calendar with the seasons. Leap Months It’s half a mile out of Stoney Middleton and anyone visiting the village will actually find it difficult to see the heritage trail boards. That was deliberate because the parish council wanted them placing discreetly. The year 2000 was the first time the third criterion was used in most parts of the world since the transition from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, which began in 1582.Whilst these might not be as widely known or celebrated as places such as Buxton, these springs played an important role in the development of the village.

The third incident that put the narrator in her mother’s debt was a direct one- Anna saved her daughter from a fire. The narrator was seven, and the babysitter ran out of the house to save herself. The narrator rolled a rug and kept it by the gap beneath the door, and wore her flannel robe as she had learnt in school, waiting for her parents. When her parents arrived at the scene with the firefighters, Anna knew the only way to save her was through a flimsy branch next to the window. Anna then took matters into her own hands, stripping down to her underwear and scaling the tree. The narrator remembers feeling relieved and embarrassed as she held onto her mother and escaped through a window. Her mother jumped down from the house and towards the firefighter’s safety net. As they fell, the narrator realised that there truly is time to think while falling. For a moment, she was worried about whether they would survive, but as she heard the beat of her mother’s heart, her fears were quelled. The ancient Roman Calendar added an extra month every few years to stay in sync with the seasons, similar to the Chinese leap month. Lover’s Leap may be a huge part of the village’s psyche but it is by no means the only point of interest.Anna’s trapeze accident took place because of unexpected lightning. It is key to note that the first instance and the last instance were both influenced by nature– in the former, lightning, and in the latter, fire. This may symbolise the power nature has over a human life. Fascinatingly, on the day of the accident, “There was time, before the storm, for three acts.” This is a parallel between leaping and real life- there were also three instances where the narrator felt that she owed her mother her life, just like how there were three acts before the storm hit the circus. We also see the theme of motherly love here- Anna chose to save herself in hopes of keeping the unborn baby alive. In paragraph five, the nature of the Flying Avalon’s show was described to be flirtatious and extraordinary. This playfulness may symbolise youth, and the accident represents its end- it is after this that Anna truly entered a difficult period, the stormy path from a carefree, love-filled youth to adulthood. During the second instance, when the narrator’s parents met in the hospital, the father taught Anna to read, and soon she was always seen with a book. We may note here that while her first passion- the trapeze act- involved her being blindfolded, reading is something that specially requires vision. This can be linked to Anna ‘ opening her eyes,’ removing the blindfold and entering a new life. The narrator described it as “one form of flying for another.”- the real-life flying versus the flying of the mind in different universes. The inability to read was the greatest difficulty of Anna’s blindness. After the father’s death, the narrator continues to read aloud to her. We may wonder whether this action- enabling Anna to ‘fly’ once more– is the narrator’s way of ‘paying off the debt’ that she believes she owes her mother. The village's former Toll House - it is now Britain's only Grade II-listed fish and chip shop (Image: Stoney Middleton Heritage) If you asked everyone across Derbyshire if they know Lover’s Leap in Stoney Middleton, a decent proportion would know the story or would at least have heard of it.