Oh my goodness!

Yes, my goodness I really need to work on this blogging.    I've forgotten how many posts I've started  then scrapped because they're out of date. Well, this time, I won't scrap what I wrote in early August, I'll just update it...

And sooo, we went to Shrewsbury in Shropshire a few weeks ago, a nice old city full of half timbered buildings of all sizes and with plenty of interesting things to see.  We liked the huge medieval church of St. Mary in the centre of town, open to all to explore,  and busy with exhibitions and special events.   It has a big shady churchyard  excellent cafe, and all its fixtures and fittings are being preserved.  Of all those fine fittings, it was this huge yellow clock from 1747 that appealed to me most.  It was probably intended for use in the service quarters of the church, (now the cafe), but I think it is so elegant and simple.  I think I might like to decorate one of my rooms in this appealing colour scheme of yellow and gold.

 

Shropshire adjoins several different counties, and since we are not often in that part of the world it seemed like a good idea to explore the area a bit.  In a drive that took us into neighbouring Worcestershire, we passed a sort of castle by the side of the road.  It looked to be a  gatehouse and lodge of some old mansion, likely built in the same castle-like style. 

I couldn't find any castles on the satellite map, but since a little sign stood nearby indicating that a public right of way went through the gate, we parked and walked right in to explore.

 After a couple of hundred feet it felt as if we'd entered another realm. It was wonderful.  Acres of crops full of wild flowers stretched out on either side, and no sound but the distant lowing of cattle and hundreds of birds.  It was like a nature reserve, with every hedge and field full of variety and different from the last one.  We couldn't believe it. 

   But, as the cynics say, there is a worm in every bud, and as we got back to the car I noticed a house opposite had a big sign in its window proclaiming "NO QUARRY!"  So when we returned to our Airbnb, I checked up and learned that the land'had once been the grounds of a stately home known as Lea Castle..   Here's a photograph of Lea Castle taken about 100 years ago. 

It seems that so many of Britain's country houses, it fell on hard times and was demolished, and after a while a villagey little care centre for people with learning difficulties was built in one bit of the land .  That has now gone, and there's also a small private housing estate on another bit of the land, though we didn't see it.  All we saw was a riding stables and the farm - all that unspoiled and curiously old fashioned farmland full of heartsease and St. Johns Wort and poppies and broom,  skylarks and a huge colony of rooks. 

Anyway, the quarry.   It seems the farm's owner (opposed by his environmentalist son, apparently) is determined to turn the whole place into a huge quarry which would tear up the whole lot up to extract  sand and gravel for construction. That would mean noise, pollution and constant heavy traffic transporting the sand and gravel.   Many local people think it will be far too near schools and residential buildings to be safe, and earlier this year they  took the developers to court to stop the scheme.   They won, but, predictably, the developer appealed.  When you consider how much money is to be made, the cost of prolonging a court battle must be negligible to a big company, I guess. .

It isn't fair, but the local people have to muster again for another fight.  Read about their campaign  here,  They're fundraising like crazy, seeking volunteer advisors with planning and legal expertise and organising public events. It's like David against Goliath, but I've contributed to their appeal.    I wondered if they could try and get the place designated as a nature reserve, but I don't know if that would be possible. . 

Another day I went from Shrewsbury into South Staffordshire to see the extraordinary rock houses at Kinver Edge, now in the care of the National Trust.  With views over the surrounding wooded hills, these unusual cottages were created a long time ago (nobody knows exactly when) when people burrowed into a bluff of red sandstone called Holy Austen Rock, near the interesting village of Kinver. Some of the dwellings were inhabited until well into the 20th century, and it is said that they were considered rather desirable by many people - at least, tcompared with the draughty ramshackle old cottages where most poor people lived a century and more ago.   But times change, and the houses had been abandoned for years when the Trust took them over. 

  Here's the path from the rock houses down to the village. 

Below, the large tree conceals quite a lot of the site, which is bigger than it looks here. It is built on  three levels, although only a few of the dwellings have been restored or re-purposed so far. 

Something is known of the residents and a few were photographed going about their lives. I snapped one print that I specially liked. It reminded me of the Hobbits, and I love the tin chimney sticking out of the rock! 

One of the cottages is now colonised by bats (it is a cave, after all). Not sure how they get in and out but obviously not through the front door... 

A couple of rooms in the restored cottages have been furnished to look as they did in the early 1900s.  Quite a snug home it must have been - well insulated by all the rock I think.  And that coal range would have been delightful on a lonely winter night. 

A teashop and a respectable Victorian villa are built into the rock face on the top level of the settlement so we bought some tea and sat in a delightful garden amidst the red rocks and looked at the view while we had it. 

And at that point in August, I stopped writing the post, so there it is.....    But I did go to other places and one that I look back on fondly was taking our second oldest grandson, A, to  a Museum of Science Fiction in a lovely little town. 

It's  Bromyard, in Herefordshire, not so very far from Shrewsbury in fact. The museum's housed in an ancient house-turned-shop plus a network of underground cellars at one end of the High Street.  

Bromyard is the sort of large village or small town where cosy British murder mysteries tend to be set .   It is peaceful and well kept, and with baskets of flowers everywhere including the porch of this old pub I snapped in the evening.

Young A. really likes the long running British TV series  "Dr. Who. "   So do his brother and his parents.  In fact, if you're British, you have likely grown up with this iconic programme - I certainly did.   

It revolves around a traveller in space and time called "Dr. Who" and his companion who is generally the opposite sex to the Doctor, though they don't have a romantic relationship.   Both Doctor and companion regenerate into completely different people from time to time and every new Doctor and companion have very distinct styles and personalities.   Their vehicle through time and space is a vintage police phone box called the Tardis, whose main characteristic is being  infinitely larger inside than it appears outside.  

As you've probably guessed, the programme ranges very widely through different adventure scenarios.   Various Doctors  have, for instance,  been captured by stone age people trying to rediscover the secret of fire,  and hung out with Vincent Van Gogh in 19th century France. They have been embroiled in a future war created by a sinister algorithm, met thriller-writer Agatha Christie at a murderous 1926 dinner party, and got mixed up in a war between the Rutans and Sontaran clone species.  Or hundreds of other things.    They encounter other time-and-space travellers regularly (few of them pleasant) and many ohers highly inventive and often creepy monsters and aliens. 

 Of all the aliens in the show, by far the best known are the  Daleks which appeared at the beginning of the first ever series.  You will spot a couple of Daleks in the 18th century bow windows of the museum, and here are some more.

The Daleks are a bit worrying if you're four years old but after being around for about sixty years  they've now acquired a place in British society like the Doctor's familiar old friends who just happen to enjoy acting tough.  Their gravelly  monotone voices and catchword "EX-TER-MIN-ATE!" are even more distinctive  than their appendages made out of sink plungers. In fact, they've become so familiar they sometimes make welcome appearances at village fetes, and are sometimes even seen participating in  morris dances.  (And if you can find more unthreatening things than morris dancing, I'd like to know).    But that's good.    At least it is as far as I am concerned. 

The museum has a wonderful collection of props and memorabilia, relying heavier on the earlier episodes than the later ones.  And there's a full sized Tardis in the front office which was used for filming. 

And was pleased  see that K-9, the lovable robot dog, was there in the flesh, so to speak. Here is a poster of K-9  at school. 

For me the museum was all about the atmosphere: very immersive with lighting and sound effects, and a  rambling layout thats' almost entirely underground.   It is so wonderfully idiosyncratic because it all belongs to just one family, I was told.

We all loved it and also liked Bromyard, which has a nice bakery, some old pubs, and lots of individually run, interesting shops.   Original paintings were displayed in the windows of many of the shops as part of an town art trail and when I wandered into Bromyard art studios and gallery I could see why. It is a lively place which runs low cost professionally taught art classes which were clearly very popular and some people were producing some amazing work. Some was on commission, some was for sale.  This picture particularly caught my eye. It is a large canvas of "Leda and the Swan"  and I really liked its feeling of movement and mystery. 

So those were my two most recent trips away from home. Unfortunately I've now done something to my right leg and now staying at home resting it and hoping that I'll be okay to go to Austria in a couple of weeks time. Fingers crossed!