Days out in the West Midlands

Our own compartment on the Severn Valley Railway

The last blog was written on Wednesday morning, but he didn’t get all the photos in till Friday, so it’s all a little confused.

Wednesday afternoon we walked to Bournville station to get the train to Erdington, good value group saver for £10.60! The walk started off through various parks, and was interesting under Spaghetti junction and through the industry still on the outskirts of Birmingham. Ian’s estimate of 2hours for a 7mile walk however was a little optimistic, so bits of it did feel a little like a route march. Not to worry though, we arrived in the centre of Birmingham in plenty of time for a pint and a look round the changes in the roads and building in the centre.

This is the railway station for the heritage steam train from Kidderminster to Bridgnorth. Although it looks authentic it was only built in 1984. Originally the line was a British Railways branch and used the main station across the car park, but had to be separated once it became private and this was built to look like an old station - and very good it looks too!

All aboard!

Another pint, this time with Manu and Crystal before, as ever, a delicious Chinese meal. Having a range of food selected to be shared by us all, by Crystal really is a treat. A final pint before getting the train home made the walk back from the station fly by.

Thursday was our day on the Severn Valley Railway. A compartment to ourselves on a train of four carriages pulled by a steam engine. We went for the full engine experience, train from Kidderminster to Bridgnorth, half an hour to watch water and coal get loaded on before getting the train back a short way to Highley to the ‘Engine Shed’ train Museum where we had lunch, looked at the exhibits and had a private tour of the Royal Carriage of King George VI, built and travelled in during the war. Back to Bridgnorth to collect those who just went sightseeing before returning to Kidderminster.

So we sent a photo of the station to our friend Tim (a keen train spotter), without any comment at all. Within 5 minutes he sent  a message back saying 'enjoy your trip pulled by engine number 75069'. At the next station we went to have a look at the engine and, sure enough, it was 75069 - how did he know?

What do you think?

Friday, a day at the Black Country Living Museum. Another full day that we can all recommend. We didn’t see it all, but we talked to lots of people, in character and doing demonstrations. Our tickets are valid for a year so we’ll have to see if we can go again, it would be a whole different experience with different people talking about different things.

Saturday was the end of Monty’s holiday, so while Brian and Ian opened a path to a heavily laden apple tree in the park, he was brought home. He looked pleased to be back, but looked pleased when he went to the kennels too! An afternoon walk took us to the Covered Wagon, pub from the outside, but Indian restaurant on the inside. Sadly nobody was hungry but the food looked great. So much so, I messaged Abi to see if she was happy to go the following afternoon when we were seeing her, she was, though she thought it an odd request as when she was last there, 35ish years ago, having a farewell drink with her teachers from school it was nothing special! How it has changed, the sharing starter platter was stunning.

Here's a photo that encompasses two of our days out, West Midlands Safari Park and the Severn Valley Railway. The train passes next to the WM Safari Park and here, the black outline is the carriage window and, in the distance is a Rhino in the Safari Park

Shunting engines at Bridgnorth

Monday B cemented back the large sandstone window sills, that apparently had ‘just fallen off’ while I prepped and sanded the porch. I started painting it but then went with Abi to collect Sooty from the vets while Brian finished off. Back to mum before lockdown hit Birmingham, earlier than expected. Told her we’d done the porch only to be told “mine needs doing too!” Like a good egg, B did that on Wednesday while mum and I went out and spent money. She now has the same phone as I do so will hopefully not have to delete every WhatsApp conversation at the end of every day!

General ‘life maintenance’, eye tests, dental hygienists and catching up with Sarah, and Alex before collecting Ted to sort and load. Tomorrow a late lunch with Fiona and James to leave them our car as theirs has died before heading north on Monday, running ahead of lockdown again we feel....

Now this photo is taken aboard the King George VI carriage, now at the Engine House museum, and this is the sitting room on the bullet proof train where war cabinet meetings were held. The furniture is original and it oozes with history. Can you just imagine Churchill sitting there with the King discussing secret plans such as the D Day landings. I love this kind of thing

This is the oldest engine at the museum, built in 1898, called the Lady Armaghdale. It might look familiar - in its retirement it served for 20 years as Thomas the Tank Engine

At the coal mine at the Black Country Museum

All of these buildings are originals, taken apart brick by brick and rebuilt here at the museum 

All furnished with original items. Look at this old radio shop

Amazing to think that none of this was here. Even the bridge over the canal was brought here from Wolverhampton. It was due to be demolished so was salvaged by the museum

And they've even got people working here. Here's someone chain making

Walking in Moseley Bog with Monty dog. Did you know J.R.R. Tolkein lived nearby as a child as used this area as inspiration for ancient forests in his books Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit

We did manage the odd beer or two as well. This was at the Covered Wagon, now serving excellent Indian food

So next day we went back again with Abigail to try some. We were not disappointed!

Here we are at Abigails having refitted the stone window sills you can see behind and painted her porch

She didn't mention about the little treasure hunt we set for her friend Sarah, who's recently been quite ill and is recuperating by walking along the canal in Alvechurch. Jackie made 5 little and 1 big penguins (her favourite animal) out of flat stones and we hid them along her canal walk, just before she set off with husband John. The first one was placed outside her house with a note saying 'I couldn't keep up with my 4 siblings and mummy, please help me to find them'. Here's the first one in a damaged brick on a canal bridge 

Number two on a bear statue

Number three in the fork of a tree

Number four we placed on the side of someones narrowboat. The owner was working on his laptop and seemed quite amused when we asked him if it was OK

The last one was 'mummy' placed in a pipe outlet on the bridge that takes the M42 motorway over the canal. They found them all and it really made Sarah smile and cheered her up 

Lunch at the local pub, The Peacock, with Jackies mum on a glorious day

Whenever we stay with Jackies mum she hates it if we get our phones out and start looking at them accusing us of being like teenagers (if only!). Well, here I managed to get a photo of the two of them looking at theirs. Ha!

Rhinos, tigers, beer and beach!

Jackie having her hand sucked at WM Safari Park

We cleaned and tidied and said a fond and sad farewell to Nellie and Mr. Pickles. Back to mum for a couple of nights and then to Abi for lunch on Friday. Lovely to see her and Sooty. Then on to Helen and Ian for our staycation! We started with a pub walk with Monty dog before a curry takeaway on Friday (well we had had a big lunch already). Saturday was meant to be a big walk, but with not wanting to stress Brian’s knee too much at the beginning of the week, it shrunk to just a couple of hours. Monty was happy though, and it wasn’t the only one for the day, a table had been booked for an hour at the Birmingham Brew Company. How weird having to book a slot to go for a pint?

These giraffes certainly know where the food is

We were allowed to feed all sorts. Glad he didn't put his head through the window!

Sunday, out with the dog again, before a quick lunch followed by meeting up in Cannon Hill Park for conservation. 17 of us litter picked, pruned sycamore trees from by the path and hacked back brambles. A solid two hours work showed much improvement justifying the roast lamb dinner.

Rhinos - lots of them - and all with horns. After our trip to South Africa earlier in the year and the poaching of Rhino horns there, it was a pleasure to see them and the park rangers pretty relaxed and not paranoid about possible poaching

Look at this handsome chap enjoying his ribs!

Monday was the start of the staycation proper, Monty was dropped off at his dog hotel and we continued on to the West Midlands Safari Park. We all enjoyed it, though there were tears from Helen early on as she was almost mugged by a camel. We weren’t meant to feed them but try telling them that! Fortunately they were tears of laughter. Ian looked slightly nervous as a rhino approached the rear of the car, didn’t seem to be any damage, but there was grass and rhino slobber on the back of the car. A claim to fame that not everyone can share! The giraffes we were allowed to feed, and we did, they were lovely, much less slobbery than some of the other things. It rained briefly as we were sitting waiting for the sea lion show to start, but that wasn’t for long. We almost missed going into the parakeet house which Ian would probably have been quite pleased about and Brian would have been devastated about. Ian doesn’t like birds, but with the little pot of nectar in his hand they liked him! As ever with this sort of thing a picture will speak 1000 words, just hope they are not all put on, they were on a slide show while we were eating home made pizza for tea, they only went through twice in the whole duration of dinner!

Baby elephant wouldn't leave mummy elephant alone, even though she was getting a bit fed up with it

This rhino was OK until he got too close....

Tuesday was forecast to be the best weather day, so that was the beach day. Off to Colwyn Bay and then on to Llandudno. We all went out wearing shorts, paddled, lay on the beach, picnic’d walked along the pier and around the Alice in Wonderland thing in the park. Ate ice cream, drank beer and generally had a good seaside day, stopping for dinner on the way home, it was a full day out.

Today is a little housekeeping, shopping, blogging making bread rolls for a bbq tomorrow, the boys have been into the park to stake a tree that was unearthed while hacking back in a meadow on Sunday. A quick lunch will be followed by a walk to the train station, train to Erdington and walk back under Spaghetti Junction, through Birmingham to see what has changed before meeting up with Manu and Crystal in China Town for yummy Chinese tea.

Taking a close interest in Ian's car - a bit too close for comfort!

And then he/she headed towards our open window. Time to close it! I'm sure it said somewhere that we could feed them, but somehow it didn't seem appropriate! Perhaps we imagined it - in any case we weren't going to try

Rhino smeg on the car - not many people can claim that

Quite a cute photo of a giraffe leaning down and about to stick his head through the open window

Hippos! We like hippos (from a distance). This one seemed quite disappointed as he'd got out of the water to go indoors and found it locked, he had to go back into the water. Watch out little duck!

These red bellied lemurs came bowling down the path when we arrived and immediately jumped on us. How cute we thought - no, for two reasons, 1 is that they had very dirty paws, the other was that they smelled horrible - really horrible!

The Lorikeets liked Brian and particularly Ian (who doesn't like birds!) 

A day at the seaside. Guess where we are!

Beach...

...Ice cream...

A walk on the pier at Llandudno (the hill behind is the Little Orme and Colwyn Bay to the right)

A little walk on the Great Orme to the Victorian Garden (that's Llandudno pier behind)

A little story time from Helen in the bookworm corner

Sitting at the Mad Hatters Tea Party table

On the Alice in Wonderland Trail. Now that's a proper day at the seaside!

Finishing up housesitting in Cheltenham

Warm paws on a hot Aga, heaven for pussy cats

We really have had weather since we’ve been here, mum definitely made the right decision going last Monday, Tuesday was horrendously windy, so apart from popping to the local co-op for a few bits, and a newspaper, that was us for the day.

Wednesday we went out for Brian’s 65th Birthday, I know his birthday wasn’t till Thursday, but we didn’t know when we would be meeting Denise and Paul. We went to the ‘local’ Indian restaurant, a cut above our usual balti house. They’ve won spice awards and all sorts! I’d found a voucher on Travelzoo (no I’d never heard of it either) for 63% off their 7course tasting menu. Yes it was his birthday and he could have whatever he wanted, but it tasted so much sweeter at £59 with a glass of Prosecco each thrown in. We thoroughly enjoyed all the flavours and the presentation, a lovely lunch.

Its raining outside and pussy cats don't like rain. No, there's nothing we can do about it and we're certainly not going to hold an umbrella over you while you're out!

Brian and Paul chatting on Cleeve Common

Thursday for his actual birthday was a little quiet, apart from the rain which was relentless, and the bottle of Prosecco that our homeowners had told us to help ourselves to, when they realised it was the very day. There was also much chat with Tony in Scotland, it being his birthday too!

Friday was the last of the joints Nicky had sent us away with, mmm, lamb, my favourite, and more rain! Tomorrow though, it should be better!

Fortunately it was, a really good day for a walk with Denise and Paul. We met them across Cleeve Common at the Rising Sun Hotel for a very pleasant 6 mile walk. Once we’d left the carpark and persuaded Denise up a short sharp ascent by Castle Rock, the site of an SMC summer BBQ many years ago, to the plateau of the Common the views were stunning. Denise had read in the last blog about Belas Knap which was on this route and wasn’t looking forward to it after mum’s comments. However we’d actually done the ascent as we approached from the opposite direction and only had to walk down the way we’d come before. At this point route finding seemed to get a little tricky, but we were soon back on the right track and relatively soon back at the pub for our well deserved 15.00 lunch booking.

Jackie pointing out Cheltenham racecourse at Castle Rock

The weather was good on Sunday too, but Brian’s knee has been giving him some grief, well he did go out for a run the previous Sunday on our return from our walk with Helen and Ian.... He hasn’t run since, but he could feel it after the previous days walk. Monday he mowed the lawns, again. Takes a long time when we’ve had such great growing conditions!

Here's the view from Castle Rock, the racecourse in the centre, Cheltenham off to the left and, down there in front of the trees is the Cotswold Way footpath that we left to climb up here, much to Denise's dismay. Worth it for the view eh?

Today we thought we’d better actually have a little look at Cheltenham, so parked up and walked through the town to the Town Hall and the parks beyond before ambling down the High St. It just all takes a little longer popping on a mask to go into every shop. And tomorrow we are off. We shall miss these pussycats, they are both very affectionate and love a good lap to curl up on, a benefit, as it has cooled down dramatically! A couple of days and then we start our ‘staycation’ with Helen and Ian, staying at theirs and going out on day trips....

Up on Cleeve Common above Castle Rock and there's some climbers belaying people on climbs. Those hills on the skyline are the Malvern Hills. Not a bad place to climb or walk

Sudeley Castle near Winchcombe zoomed in from the top of the hill just past Belas Knapp (We haven't put any photos of  the very interesting Belas Knapp as we put some in the last blog entry)

 

The view we had through the window during lunch at the Rising Sun Inn

In the good old days we'd all meet up in a pub on a Monday night, now we do it by Jitsi (whatever that is). But at least we can still meet up with Mark, Tim and Bill even when we're in different parts of the country. Tim does need to get some furniture in that room though, it looks like a padded cell! Do you think he looks a bit like Monty Halls or is it just me?

How can we possibly get up when pussy cats are so comfy?

Lovely Cheltenham today. This is the Municipal Building in the centre

The Neptune Fountain, apparently its inspiration was the Trevi Fountain in Rome

The beautifully kept Imperial Gardens and Town Hall beyond

A good old but vanishing British sight, red post boxes and telephone boxes. There's actually no phones in any of them now, but they still seem well kept. They are now protected as grade II listed buildings, one has a defibrillator in it, the others may be used for temporary art exhibitions