Some musings...

They say "time flies when you're having fun" & indeed I can concur after an eleven day break over the Easter/Royal Wedding period that seems to be over in a flash.
We enjoyed a visit to Wenlock Priory and Daniel's Mill - both worth their own blog entries outside of this.
Congratulations to Prince William & Catherine (good name that!). Many people have commented on how nice the wedding was: simple but elegant. Simple bar a little pomp & ceremony.
Enjoying modern technology I am sat inputting this by phone in the garden. The remnants of the warm sun are keeping me warm for the moment, though I expect this ever-increasing cold wind will win over shortly. I can't complain though; what fabulous weather we have had!

Railway, River, Woods and Water

Arley, Pound Green, Buttonoak & Trimpley Walk
Crossing the footbridge from Upper Arley we followed a steep incline through a field to the northern side of Arley Severn Valley Railway Station. Carefully crossing the railway line we continued on through a small gate and wandered uphill past Skeets Farm where across the farm track we meandered through a field a sheep. Skirting a small woodland the trail continued uphill before arriving at Nib Green at the edge of Forestry Commission Coniferous Woodland.
Following quiet roads and then tracks we walked through Pound Green Common to Pound Green Wood which eventually bought us out on the B4194 at Buttonoak on the edge of the Wyre Forest.
Passing "The Buttonoak", the local pub, we looped back to Pound Green following tracks and roads back to the river.
Re-crossing the footbridge, there was the option to finish the walk at that point. However, most of us opted to continue and followed the riverside path, part of the Severn Way, to Trimpley Reservoir.
Circumnavigating the reservoir we followed the trails through Eymore Wood rejoining the Severn Way again at Worrall's Grove before ending the walk at a small shop in the village selling icecream.

Planting Spuds

With British Summer Time and lighter nights comes gardening. On the first day of daylight savings, we set about to plant potatos, onion sets and to relocate tayberries. With regards to the potatoes, we planted 8 x 18m long rows. Since the garden was larger than average, we used a 2-Row 1960's David Brown Potato Planter pulled behind a Ferguson 35, 3-cylinder diesel tractor. Two of us sat on the back feeding a potato down the shute everytime the bell tinged as the tractor moved slowly forward. Many moons ago, my father used one of these for planting fields of potatoes - he advised me that they would be able to do "20 acres in a day".

Homebuilding & Renovating Show

Entering a packed NEC at opening time, the show offered a large variety of information about home building and renovating. With over 500 exhibitors we gathered inspirational ideas on SIPs houses and timber frames; finance; renewable energy solutions (solar photovoltaic, heat pumps, rainwater harvesting, heat recovery, biomass); landscaping & garden (luxury bamboo gazebos, carbon capture turf, decking, garden rooms); architects and stuff for the house (TV fireplaces, showers, kichens and central vacuum systems). We enjoyed a couple of interesting seminars on sustainable self-build (building a low impact, low energy home) and budgeting (how to build a 4-bedroom detached house for under £150,000) and strolled round the "Cutting-Edge Home" by Border Oak and Oakwrights' "Low Energy Home" - partially built traditional-like oak frame houses within the hall, demonstrating energy efficient building materials, prefabrication and craftmanship! Such a busy day, we wandered out as they were closing!

Hobsons Brewery

Our trip began with a sample of the beer (choice included Twisted Spire, Mild, Bitter) before proceeding on the actual tour. Emphasis was placed on the renewable technologies the micro brewery is using to make the brewing process more efficient as well as ways where they are reusing or recycling products to reduce waste.

A wind turbine supplies some of the energy required by the plant, while ground source heat obtained from 4 boreholes with looped flow/return pipes running to 55m deep provides some of the heating requirements. Underfloor heating is used in the offices while the 2nd fermentation room for bottles is heated to 25'c.

Using a heat exchanger, chilled water used to cool boiled malting barley is recycled to be used itself in the boiling process. Yeast is reused where possible, cleaned with a mild acid bath to kill the weakest and keep the population healthy.

Waste products are recycled or reused, as much as possible, with cardboard being sent to the local school, hop waste being used for horticulture and waste barley used as feed for animals - the feed is of a high enough quality to be used by animals in their last 45 days of life. The brewery are also trialling use of a waste cardboard/hop mix to produce their own beer mats.

Erasmus Darwin House

Situated with the frontage on Beacon St and the rear with access to Cathedral Close in Lichfield, Erasmus Darwin House was the home of the said Mr Darwin from 1758 to 1781.
A distinguished physician by trade (he was invited to become the royal physician but declined), Erasmus had ideas well ahead of his time including evolutionary biology, feminism and the notion of modern cars and aeroplanes. Although they never met, his books hugely influenced his more famous grandson Charles, who published "On the Origin of the Species by means of Natural Selection" in 1859.
He came up with an improved design for steering carriages and, it seems, may have been the source of a number of ideas upon which fellow members of The Lunar Society progressed patents and inventions. A founder member of the Society that was described as "a dining club and informal learned society of prominent industrialists, natural philosophers and intellectuals", it also included Josiah Wedgwood (whose eldest daughter Suzannah married Erasmus's son Robert - their grandson through this marriage was Charles), Matthew Bolton, James Watt and Joseph Priestley to name a few.

Why did the toad cross the road?

To migrate to its ancestral breeding pond to mate.

I narrowly missed one as I saw it hop across the quiet country lane down which we were driving. Emerging from their winter hibernation sites, several were attempting to simultaneously cross the lane to reach, we assumed, a pond on the other side. It was like a "Krypton Factor" obstacle course avoiding them all. We decided to gently assist and encourage them to get quickly to the other side. In the end at least some were safe from the grisly end of being squished by cars. This is the first time I have ever witnessed a migratory toad crossing and indeed mating - one male was so keen, he was already hitched to the back of a female!

The charity Froglife are running a campaign called "Tuppence a Toad" to raise awareness and funds for their Toads on Roads project. Please go to their website to find out more: http://www.froglife.org/tuppence/index.htm

Bentley Bridge - Cosmos & cinema

Cosmos at Bentley Bridge is a gastronomic experience. Chinese, Indian, deep fried selection, steak & seafood grill and loads of desserts - all you can eat! The table has a restricted 2 hour window in which you indulge in whatever whets your appetite (literally) from the huge selection of food on offer. When you've finished your umpteenth plate of main courses you move onto the dessert selection which included a chocolate fountain, icecream, jelly, gateaux and a large selection of little cups with mousse and the like in it.
We followed with a visit to Cineworld where we enjoyed the very funny sci-fi spoof movie "Paul" about an alien that needs to meet with his rescue spaceship before he is captured and his brain is extracted. In this mission he is helped by 2 geeky sci-fi Brits. Hilarious! British humour at its best!

Destinations Holiday & Travel Show

Our annual visit to the Destinations Show at the NEC was a very informative day out. We met Prue from Explore! who inspired us about India and Hannah from Dragoman who got us excited about Africa. Sri Lanka is touting for a top position amongst our To Do list also. In addition, we met Dan & Jim, the editors for the Wanderlust and Outdoors Travel magazines respectively, who kindly gave us useful hints & tips for writing articles. A very enjoyable and fulfilling day.

Barrow Hill: The Dudley Volcano

During a cold & damp Sunday morning we joined a geological-ecological walk around a local nature reserve in Dudley. Near Russells Hall Hospital is a little-known patch of green with a dome shaped hill and a large cross on its summit. Barrow Hill is part of a former volcano where molten magma has penetrated the surrounding coal measures. Starting from St. Marks Church, we followed a trail first to the summit then round quarries, passing fields slowly being restored to their former wildlife friendly meadow status. The route of the Pensnett Railway once ran through the area, now known as the Barrow Hill Incline. Quarrying was undertaken to provide stone for local (turnpike) roads. Adjacent to Barrow Hill is the Tansey Green Claypit where the stems of fossil conifers have been discovered buried in ash deposits. Controlled grazing is helping to develop the wild meadows and we have been advised to return in the summer to see the flowering wildflowers and the bees & butterflies that are attracted to them.

Dining at The Down

The Down Inn, Bridgnorth, on Sat night. We had a lovely meal; mine was lasagne with chips and peas followed by a chocolate extravaganza sundae. Didn't really need the dessert, the main was very filling but we all decided we would anyway. I felt like a barrel after though :-)