A day out in exotic......Shropshire

First of all, thanks to both our lovely Mums for the great comments that keep us motivated to continue the blog. We are glad you enjoy it. It helps us feel closer to you and it will one day be a great diary for us to look back on.

As always, we set out reasonably early so as to get in all the things carefully planned for the day. As always, everything was much harder to find and took far longer to arrive at than was carefully but incorrectly planned, it seems that kilometres are hard to unlearn, and so it was a good job we set out early. First on the list was 'Croft Ambrey', an ancient hill where a battle took place and that we thought might be interesting even if there wasn't much to actually see. After 1.15 hrs, which I calculated should have been 45mins, we found Croft castle. This was closed for winter but the map ther told us it was a 2.5hr walk to Croft ambrey. I like a good ancient hill probably more than the next person, but 2.5hrs? Not that much.

On to Wigmore Castle, shown above because my cursor was in the wrong place when I uploaded and I dont't know how to move them without deleting and starting again and that takes a looong time. Anyway, Programme sat nav, 20 mins, and we're there. That was a little scary I have to say but sometimes luck is on our side. This was an awesome place. You have to park and walk 20 mins ish up a thin, muddy path, but it is worth every slodgy step! This 12C ruin is on private land but the owner has kindly passed it into the care of English Heritage and allows all and sundry to trek across his land. Unlike many of the buildings of old, this has been deliberateyly kept wild (perhaps as it is on private land?) which means no cars, no toilets, no info centre. The lack of all these mod cons means that as you stand amongst its broken walls, in the still, looking out over the fields below, you can actually get a sense of what it was like in days of old.

Some of you may be familiar with the first thing Glenn says whenever we stand somewhere that is so old it simply can't be comprehended...'What were they talking about?', but I don't think any of you know what my first question is..."How did they keep warm?'. Anyway, if memory serves, this was a Norman castle, owned by the same family for 400 years who came under regular attack, probably from the ousted ummmm non-Normans. Eventually in the 1600 they succumbed and the castle was destroyed leaving the ruins we see today. The walls are massively thick and the hill is so steep that it is hard to imagine anyone ever getting through the security. I think that they only lost in the end because by then someone would have been using some kind of explosives.

These steps were incredibly steep so there were some barriers to slow you down and/or stop you falling. Pity the barrier makers didn't stop to think about the people whose heads are directly in line with the little bit sticking out the end of the barrier and who have really poor spatial awareness. Besides, I have my own barrier for going behind me when we go up or ahead of me when we go down..can you guess who boys and girls? Sufficiently impressed by  the atmosphere and setting of this castle, and , having made up for the distinct lack of Croft ambreys, we headed for our next destination......a Welsh viaduct.

Over the border we went into 'boyo' country. Glenn informed me that the welsh language seemed quite literal to him , so I asked him what was literal about 'araf' the word painted on the road alongside the English 'slow'. He's still thinking about that one, or, perhaps how he can exact his revenge. Anyway, the viaduct was called Knucklas and there was a town called knucklas and as we drove past the sign that said knucklas, I told him we should be able to see it from the road. I was using our giant atlas map for this information and I suddenly saw a red line pointing from the picture of the viaduct to the town of knucklas because it was too hard to put it on the town itself...'oops' I said 'turn around' A few choice words exacted said revenge and we sped back to the turning and there it was.

It was really hard to find a parking spot in this tiny village, and even harder to climb the embankment up to the top of what appeared to be an operational railway line. A quick scramble through some barbed wire fence and some blackberry bushes saw us at the top.

Having enjoyed the view and agreed that even though we are on the 'slightly more cautious' side of 45, we will not bow to arbitrary rules, we headed down again.

From Knucklas viaduct to Clun Castle and along the way, the most adorable, curvy, cute hedge you have ever seen in your entire life...it was breathtaking.

Another excellent sat nav trip later and we were in a lovely little village with...wait for it...FREE parking for the castle. It was hidden at first behind the hill it was built on, but as we got closer, we could see great scaffolding surrounding a rather substantial section of it and were quite disappointed. I know they have to preserve these things, but couldn't they time it better so we get to see them all 'eu natural'?

Sadly, as the information board was way back at the car park, and because most of it looked like an apartment block; never mention apartments again!, I can't remember anything about this castle. A lady fell down and even though she had people to help her I spent the time worrying about her and you will be pleased to know that not climbmg on scaffolded castles is one of the arbitrary rules we do see reason to follow, so we walked around the moat and went to look for afternoon tea. What the castle lacked, the lovely old bridge had in spades; whatever that means.

Over we went and had our tea and cake in a very old place...is there anywhere that isn't very old? I am beginning to doubt it.

And off we went again. This next place, whose name escapes me, was on our map but the internet site said you can't get in as it's private property...weeeelll.....they were having work done on it and the gates were open so in we went.

Imagine owning this! Personally I was just as amazed at the still frozen lake. Do you have any idea how cold it has to be for a lake to freeze? Oh yes, that's right you do, and you didn't have a nice warm car or house to rush back to :(

And so onto the final stop for the day and Fanny once again did an excellent job. All things considered, one of the best days out navigation wise; except for 5 min from home when she told us to leave the road that Glenn knew he should be staying on but it is really hard to know when to trust yourself and sent us round in circles a few times before he knew where we were and found his own way thank you very much!. Here we come to the impressive Stokesay Castle.

English Heritage define Stokesay as 'quite simply the finest and best preserved fortified medieval manor house in England'. Can't argue with that. there are lots of pics because it has so many different elements.

The yellow part is the gatehouse/entry. This is the back of the first picture. Lawrence Ludlow, a wealthy wool merchant bought the property in 1281 as he wished to set himself up as a country gentleman. Well, we know what he was talking about; the price of wool. And, we know how he kept warm; wool jumper, sheepskin coat, boots and hat. It was built like a castle for effect, it was actually a house; I can't believe they thought about fashion a thousand years ago.

I think this giant fireplace would also have kept them quite warm.

Three floors up and still smiling, even though I had just managed to miss a step and nearly go head over. Thankfully I have learnt to hold rails, tree roots, hands, sticking out rocks etc. and haven't fallen down since my 'trip' in Carnaerfon castle in 2009. Sadly, all things must come to an end and what took us about 7 hours on Sunday has taken me 2 to present to you (just in case you ever wonder). But I will leave you with one last thing; Glenn's good deed for the day

Well it is quite old and when he noticed a bit leaning.....

Part two; what doesn't work

Upon arriving at our new abode, we find that even thought the property has sat empty for at least 4 weeks, there are several things which come to light over the day as having been left in unworking condition. What starts out as a minor annoyance.....a shower not working due to a shorted out isolator switch and a bath that won't stay full as the plug doesn't fit, goes to a rather teeth clenching.....

Television that can't pick up any stations and there are so many wires and even a box which needs power at the spot where the arial should be, that even this intrepid TV guy has to give up and spend a night and a day without television, yes, you heard me , he lived without TV and I lived to tell the tale! On from here, we go to the kitchen or as I like to think of it, the cupoard with a stove in it lol.

See that lovely looking washing machine there? Well most properties don't come with them so they have been on our list of must have's to avoid buying one. On our first day in, I had a few of Glenn's shirts that would be needed soon for work so I thought I'd throw them in. Press a whole load of buttons...nothing, read instructions...wrong ones....press buttons some more...think logically and then press buttons and wait, before pressing again.....machine starts to make noise, that noise that you instantly know means it can't get any water...machine starts to turn clothes, without water. So, look for taps...nowhere to be seen...get Glenn....repeat preceding steps plus try to pull machine out and look behind....not enough room to get a grip....both walk away silently so as to avoid making this someones fault who it clearly isn't. Contact landlord who's number we forunately have, and report all faults: await his arrival to check. (He tries to tell me washer isn't his problem as previous tenants left it so is not in lease..as I am arguing politely Glenn reminds me from his TV'less chair that the advert said 'Includes appliances'. Landlord backs down...he knows when he has been beaten by an BrAussie! (that's a British Australian hybrid such as ourselves)

Now for an interlude of house pics

It is a lovely bright and light house, a lot of money will be saved by not having lights on 24/7. The walls are mainly creamish BUT, there are 8 different floor coverings and the two bay windows have extremely busy flowery curtains that basically go with nothing. Now those of you who know us, know that we are not strangers to some busy decorating and use of colour but there has been zero planning behind this eclectic mix. All in all however, it is not massively unattractive and the furnishings we have work well. While we waited for the landlord we thought we would have a stroll through the garden, which had looked lovely on the google street view pics. However, things have changed. The previous tenants apparently didn't give a stuff about leaving the property in a good state and the agent neglected their duty to do a thorough check, because, the two recycling bins are both filled to the brim with stinking rubbish, the lawn is about a metre long and yellow, the garden shed is full of discarded furniture and baby items, there is litter all over the ground and they even had the cheek to hide some black bags of rubbish behind the shed...ahh there's naught as queer as folk.

The landlord comes round armed with a new switch which an electrician will fit Monday, a new doorbell which we didn't even know was broken, a bath plug. He helps Glenn get the washer out and discovers that the previous had disconnected the pipes to take it away but changed their mind and just pushed it back, he says he will arrange for the rubbish to be collected and says the electrician can look at the TV arial. On Sunday, I spent the day unpacking and Glenn attacked the TV again...lets face it, he was never going to sit around staring at the wall was he? Anyway, he plugged everything into everything and eventually the cry rang out 'The telly's working!' Thank goodness, radio football was about as entertaining as two big bins of rotting rubbish.

Monday morning I text landlord to find out when sparky is due...no answer. I wait a couple of hours and text again; he calls and says here's his number, you ring. I text, because our mobile calls are high due to the fact that we are on a cheap to Oz plan, and again I get no answer. Another couple of hours and I text landlord again...no answer. So I email the agent who has been quite responsive...not this time, I get no answer. It is now about 3pm and I know that if my slowly fermenting husband doesn't get to have a shower tomorrow morning there is going to be hell to pay, so I ring the sparky....'Didn't he tell you it would be after work, in the evening?' I had waited in all day for this guy but, when he did come, he was so personable and friendly and he made everything work even though he complained that the landlord had bought rubbish...he had to repair both the switch and the doorbell straight out of the packet!

All complaints aside, it's a lovely house, the neighbours...one who came round with her daughters and brought us a cake and the other an elderly Irish lady who said 'I'll not terrorise you' and 'I'm church mad you know' seem delightful. Today i went to join the library (15min walk away) and happened on their regular creative writing group....what luck! Glenn's journey to work is a calm 45 mins which he is very happy with and our Tesco is 5 mins away. It seems our research and efforts have paid off and flowery curtains aside, we would be happy to stay here until it is time to return to the land of Oz. Moving house takes up far too much castle/ruins/stately houses/European jaunts time. Oh, one last thing though; all that rain that we didn't have in Measham.....it's here in Birmingham and I finally got to use my transparent pink dotted christmas umbrella.

Its been 6 months.. time we moved. (Part 1)

Thursday... I get home to the piles of neatly and not so neatly piled boxes, over the past week or so Nic has been hard at work getting sorted,  how lucky am i that i married a Gypo who is now so well practiced in the art of moving that it generally goes without any problem, well certainly that we can control. The train falling off the tracks on the way to perth and assorted other mishaps are not our fault.

Friday ... i was booked to meet the agent at 1.15 to collect the keys, of course work here has no allowance for lateness or doing personall business on work time, so it had to be timed to perfection to get there.. (15 mins)...sign, collect keys (20 mins)..and get back to work (15 mins) total 50 minutes allow 10 mins for walking to and from the car park... military precision required.

I leave work at 1pm... arrive car park 1.04... out of car park 1.06... driving.. 1.10...all going well until... traffic jam... i dont move for 10 minutes...1.20...well thats it...  i now cannot make it, Call to nic ..re-arrange time for tomorrow morning..attempt to get back to work... avoid traffic jam.. get slightly lost, back to work at 1.50pm. Sigh..gotta love englands traffic.

Saturday..... "The Plan"....
movers due.... 8am
Me to leave... 8.30
Me to collect keys... 9.30
Movers due at new place around... 10.15
Nic to finish cleaning old house... 10.30
Agent to inspect old house ... 11.30
Nic to drive from old house at 12..arrive new house 1pm

Sat "The Reality"....
movers are late...ARRIVE.... 8.45
Me to leave... 8.30
Me to collect keys... 9.30

10.15...Nic rings me to advise... she has packed her car key and is now stuck with a car full of stuff in Measham.


Movers ACTUALLY ARRIVE at new place .... 11am finish unpacking 11.40

Nic to finish cleaning house... 10.30

Agent to inspect old house ... 11.30

Glenn drives to old house.. 12.25...give Nic car key
Nic to drive from old house at 12.30..arrive new house 1.15pm

and... we are IN!

Stay tuned for part 2...

The beauty of ...

We decided a day out was due, but where to go... the continent?, Irelend?... spectacular London or Edinburgh? nah... Its the West Midlands for us :)

We had a look in the English Heritage book and made our plans.
1) Head out at 8.30 make our way to Ironbridge, this is where the industrial revolution began just outside Telford... i mean, how incredible that this was the basic foundation of the life we now lead, the spinning jenny, canals, steam engines... all from around this area. the bridge itself is beautiful (do we all remember my love of bridges?) and it has the old toll house still there, i have attached a pic that shows the toll charges too.

The Severn was high and flowing fast, ironbridge is a fabulous town with apparently 11 museums nearby.. but that was not our agenda, our next stop was to be the town of "Much Wenlock".

Now personally ive always felt that a little wenlock was enough, but MUCH wenlock, well.. your just being greedy.

What a truly gorgeous medievil town, we were looking for "Wenlock Priory" ruins of another 12th century building, as we got out of the car, the current church bells were ringing out and the whole village was reverberating to the massive bells, as wandered through the streets we just stood open mouthed at building after building that was 500 years old and yet still perfectly functional and in use. We went into the guild hall that housed the market from the 1500's and still has a market each week.

and so after a wonderful walk around the village we made our way to the Priory, once again we are stunned by the sheer history and the fact that this is a building that has been around for 900 years, that all those years ago people were living and learning on this site. and this building is still standing.

oh yes.. and some soooo verrry cute Topiary....

How amazing.. people walking up these steps 900 years ago ???

So, from Much Wenlock we move on to Acton Burnell castle, in truth its more a manor house than castle but once again a stunning ruin, built in 1284, it is thought that the first Parliament in which the commons sat was held here. By now the rain had slightly begun to fall and so from this point on you are lucky enough to enjoy Nic and Glenn in wet weather style.. of course for Nic, this means looking stylishly warm and fashionable.. for me... well it pretty much meeans looking like a dork :)

although to be fair... running away flapping your arms does has a slight standard lowering effect.

How winter should look ^^^

Ok.. heres a couple of bridges that took our (my) fancy, the  first one is important for some reason, that i cant quite remember... the next are where we stopped for lunch and they just randomly happend to be there.

And so on to the roman town, Viroconium (wroxeter)... ok so yes i was amazed at buildings that werre 900 years old... but this... this ruined town is from 01 AD... yes.. 01... a lazy 2009 years old... i mean come on, this was one of Roman britains major towns and these people were going to baths, and markets and working hereTWO THOUSAND  years ago..what did they talk about sitting in those baths??? (possibly they had a premonition about my hat... and were laughing?) That wall behind us has been standing there and had people passing through it since 01 ???

after our wander round the Roman remains... a quick cup of tea and we were off to look for a little unusual Aquaduct... we werent sure of we could find it.. but after a quick trip we saw it off in the distance...

Now... this was quite a way off..behind a couple of fences and across a muddy wet field, but.. this was not going to stop me from seeing the ultimate love of my architectual life.. a bridge with extra excitement. So i set off climbing over the fences and across the field, but it was worth it... a little aquaduct that no longer carries any water but just a pleasure to view and be a part of.

 and so... the end of a fantastic day... and all in the exciting west Midlands :)