Bridgemere Pool

You know, when sometimes you feel you want to go somewhere. Anywhere will do. We had a week  of damp and cold and rain, slothering through the mud. Then a friend rang up and asked us if we would like to go on a day trip she was organising to Bridgemere  Garden Centre in Cheshire. Why not. Though the last thing I'm feeling like doing at this moment in time is gardening as much as I'm enthralled with it in the spring and summer months.

We arrived at Bridgemere in just over an hour. True to expectations, the garden centre was massive, heaving with all sorts of plants, shrubs and Christmas trees as well as a collage of clothing, shoe, furniture, aquatic, gadget shops all sporting Christmas lights, the jingle-jangle and all the trimmings - but not for me.
We ate an expensive lunch in the Garden Restaurant and then wondered what to do with ourselves for the rest of the day.

I noticed  a sign which just said 'Gardens' and we followed a narrow forsaken woodland path. And this is what we found -

Whooshes of leaves which swept across more narrow stone paths and an empty wooden seat.

A deserted green wooden trelliced shelter. We did actually meet one other couple wandering about the same as we were. Probably thinking the same thoughts that we were.  I would think that this place would be heaving with folks in the summer months.

A little bit further on up the track, a rocky waterway with  shoals of fallen leaves caught up along a miniature stone waterfall.

And there it was, Bridgemere Pool

How fantastic is that?

Shadow Shot Sunday in Mid Wales (On Saturday)

We called in at the Coed y Dinas stores and Garden Centre yesterday. There was a 'Farmer's Market' with stalls outside the Garden Centre entrance. Well actually there were only three stalls and the stallholders who braved the cold, looked perished.  It was raining and blustery.  Like us, most people were walking straight past, diving into the warmth of the store.  Then the sun  came out throwing shadows across the cars and the parking spaces. Why is it that you always feel like buying more when the sun shines?

The sort of day where the wind and the sun, battle for supremacy.

A day for loving the view when the sun was winning

and soaking it all up

Happy Shadow Shot Sunday

Little Things

It's been tipping down for most of day here. That sort of windy, grey, wet, gets in your bones kind of a day.We have a solid fuel Rayburn which we hadn't lit for the last four years. That was in the good old days when central heating oil was relatively cheap and sawing up logs wasn't worth the myther. But I lit it today. Believe me, there is nothing as nice as a log fire on a wet day.  I've had the whistling kettle on the hob all day,  (tea on demand) and cooked a chicken in the oven.

When the brook at the end of the road  flooded in September, the torrents brought drift wood and  bits of branches from upstream. When the water subsided we managed to hook a few bits out of the brook and saw them up.

We stored them in wheel barrows in the polytunnel to help them to dry out.

I noticed these little toadstools growing on a piece of waterlogged timber. They're pale yellow with a goldeny bit on the crown. I wouldn't eat them but they're lovely to look at. What are they?

Caught In The Shadows

Why is it that when you want to take a proper photo of a shadow, your own shadow gets in the way. Like having a picture  with your own thumbprint stuck in the corner. A  MeMe.
 It was foggy this morning. I needed to go into Shrewsbury to pick up my grand daughter for her half-term hol. By about  1pm the fog had lifted and the sun came out. The colours of the trees along the river Severn were beautiful.  I'm one of those people who hates shopping - especially on a Sunday, so to pass the time until her train arrived, I took some photos across the Frankwell Foot Bridge leading down to the municipal car park and soaked up the sunshine.

Happy Shadow Shot Sunday

Keep Between The Lines

 Following on from John and Tom's recent blog posts, I'm writing another of those 'funeral' stories.  It really isn't intended to make light of someone's pain. No way! That's the last thing in the world I would want to do. The events just appealed to my wooky sense of humour. Bear with me.
It happened in Welshpool a couple of years ago when there was rumour of a tanker driver's strike.  The price of petrol and diesel was going through the roof and the petrol station was choc-a-bloc.
'No worries for him about the cost of diesel', Other Half remarked. We were quietly waiting our turn in the queue at the pumps. A sleek black hearse passed by on the main road ahead of us. The coffin was draped with the Union Jack and a wreath of white roses and lilies balanced on the top of it. The driver drove sedately over the mini roundabout and disappeared from view towards the town centre. Our turn to fill up - £1.33 per litre, cripes! (and that's nothing to what they're charging now). O/H did the necessary and joined the other queue at the till in the shop. I sat in the passenger seat idly watching the world go by. Suddenly the same hearse appeared from the opposite direction, going like a bat out of hell. Oops! Wrong venue! Oh shite!

The driver, mobile phone pressed against his ear - never-mind-the-law and one hand rolling the steering wheel. He shot over the mini roundabout, the coffin fairly bounced.  I was quite expecting his fare to sit straight up and tap him on the shoulder and tell him to slow down or end up by the side of him in the passenger seat. I never forgot it.

Another near death experience I had this week We have a green rain barrel at the top end of the poly tunnel. As I bent down to fill the watering can, I noticed something strange floating on top of the water. It was yellow and black no more than 2 “ long, with drooping exhausted wings. I picked a leaf from the apple tree and gently scooped the little insect to the relative safety of an upturned plant pot. It was a baby dragon fly. The warmth of the afternoon sun dried the tiny wings and before too long he was buzzing again with the joy of life and in the morning he was gone!

Shadows on the Wall

It's been such a long time since I took part in Shadow Shot Sunday so hope you don't mind if I'm catching the train to SSS2


A little glitch of sunshine was all it took for my favourite puss to warm herself near the heater outlet and soak up the sun.


 Faint shadows of  pussy willow in a vase tucked in the alcove as we mulled over a Latte in the Pinewood Cafe in Welshpool.



 Shadows in the porch when I went to the Harvest Festival at St Mary's last night.



Dark and light.
Happy  Shadow Shot Sunday

Chiselled in Stone

St John's Hill

As you go up St John's Hill in Shrewsbury, turn left through the wrought iron gate at the top. This is where St Chad's is and the church yard is at the back. There aren't any modern graves there now, most of them date back to the early 1800's. The pictures I've taken are at various times  through the seasons. 

You might think that walking around a church yard looking at grave stones is a bit morbid, but I don't think so. Death is an inevitable part of life. It is. Like they say, the only two certainties in this life are dying and paying tax. And me? I just find a sense of peace there. When I go into Shrewsbury, if there's time, I never get tired of walking the narrow stone paths. And they even provide a bench by the cobbled circle for you to sit and ponder it all as long as you want to.

St Chad's Churchyard

At the top end, nearest to the Quarry gardens is a cobbled circle. I would imagine there is something beneath it - but it doesn't say what. Been there for quite a while.

The one above is a crypt in cast iron, beautifully engraved. Indication that in those times that they were quite a well-to-do family in the watch making business, so it says a bit higher up - but look at the ages - 25 yrs, 41, 26 - how did they meet their deaths so young? Was it through illness or accident or just sheer hard work. We won't know.

Mary Eccleston

Then there was Mary Eccleston - she was only fifteen when she died in 1827 and other infant children died with her. It happened on New Year's Eve. Was there an accident, epidemic? I've never been able to find out any more about her. There's almost a book in there.

Fungi at the base of the yew tree

One of my favourite things to look at was, a winter storm a few years back had upended one of the yew trees. The tree surgeons who dealt with it, carved their names where they'd lopped the trunk across.  You'd never know now because ivy has grown all over it. But they are there, underneath it, for posterity.