The Chalk Pit: The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries 9

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DISCLAIMER: These example sentences appear in various news sources and books to reflect the usage of the word ‘chalk pit'. You can spot relics of the railway line in our Pan Mill Meadows reserve, and the cement kilns have been rediscovered at Dodnor Creek and Dickson’s Copse Local Nature Reserve. Here and there are milky puddles and patches of slick pale rock polished by rain and the feet of local ramblers; their dogs leave pawprints in the chalk mud. But if my memory's just quite right - there may be much more surprises in the future awaiting Ruth and Kate, Nelson and his daughters - and especially poor Michelle. A final scramble brings me up to the fence, the edge of the reserve, and in the fence is a narrow gap filled with light.

It was a chance remark of my husband's that gave me the idea for the first in the series, The Crossing Places. Nature then took over with grassland flora colonising the site, with small areas of scrub also establishing. Butterflies typical of chalky soils occur in good numbers on the nature reserve including marbled white. Scrub and weed control is carried out and cutting and laying takes place to manage the hedgerow on the northern boundary. The rare moon carrot only grows here and at two other locations in the country (Beachy Head, East Sussex and Knocking Hoe, Bedfordshire).

The Chalkpit Cassette Club (CCC) is an exclusive and limited edition physical cassette tape imprint brought to you by Chalkpit Records.

Perhaps the novelty is all the more likely to wear off, and yet I feel a renewed sense of discovery and quiet ownership of this obscure patch, the chalk alcove and the ivy arch and the carpet of moss. These are downloadable on site from the Information Pillar at the entrance and can also be accessed here.

Although The Chalk Pit can be read as a stand-alone I personally would not recommend this as knowing the history of the characters and the relationship dynamics makes this series all the more rewarding. Only the very serious problems that Ruth's family and almost all her friends have to face this time are in my eyes a bit overdone.

Ruth seems to have resigned herself to staying single if she can’t have the man she really wants, even if the practicalities of such a situation would bring a plethora of complications with Radio 4 listening, feminist and Guardian reader Ruth being the very antithesis of Nelson’s wife! The who, how and why of the crimes twist and turn, speeding up as the squad moves closer to solving the case. The Norfolk settings are beautifully portrayed, the pace is gentle with conflict and tension never far away, and the writing makes the story a joy to read.The chalk grassland contains many interesting grasses and herbs, such as the elegant quaking-grass and clustered bellflower. It will describe the entrance, the size of the area, where to find further information or help and any major obstacles or features. In places, the lichen Cladonia rangiformis has become abundant giving a greyish, crisp character to the turf. We manage Shide Chalk Pit for its rich natural habitat – the succession of bare chalk through to a chalk grassland plant community and tall scrub and trees.