The Beasts of Bolsover

Bolsover Castle, picturesque . Shame about the owners. English Heritage are possibly the worst organised bunch of Ancient Property Lords. Don't really know where to start....

Last year we tried to see the Cavendish horses, but were told we couldn't book unless we turned up at 9 am on the day and took pot luck on seat availability at the 11am, 1pm or 3pm shows. Seriously? A tad difficult with someone in a wheelchair. So we left it and tried again this year when pre-booking was available. Eventually paid for tickets on the phone, with some difficulty as the website was hard to decipher. Got sent two tickets not three. So, 12 months later than originally planned, we arrive to be told we had to pay a further entry fee for the castle. So that was £2 each for the horses, £9.50 each for the castle. This cost had not been explained when booking. If we like we can pay an extra £4 for a guidebook. We didn't like. The girl at the entrance did a fine line in apology, at least twenty 'sorries' later we managed to find the unsignposted wheelchair-unfriendly door. (Five sorries.)

Riding School sans Riders

The weather was glorious, and off we trotted towards the riding school, full of hope for a stunning display of horsemanship.

Best Beloved tried to restrain his excitement, puzzling over which lens to attach to his camera, changing his mind, and lens, three times en route. Bless.

In the indoor riding school we were told there would be no photography allowed. None. What? Not even video, silent, no flashing? There was no mention on the website about this. Horse photography had been our main interest in coming. It was all too much for one visitor, he stood up in a rage, voiced his fury for a good two minutes and pushing his wheelchaired wife in front of him, stormed out. We didn't hear her point of view, but I'm sure she was fully supportive of hubby's decision. He didn't look the sort of chap that would have been happy with anything less. An English Heritage lass bravely announced that photos might frighten the horses, distract the riders. 'Not my fault, I just work here!' she pleaded. Maybe she thought we should complain to people who didn't work there? Oh well, mustn't frighten the horses. We sat back to enjoy the show, (not too far back, or we'd have fallen off the benches.)
It started with an actor's voiceover from somewhere behind us, for a good five minutes - surprising how hard it was to actually digest what he was saying with no visual aid in the empty arena in front of us. It is strangely disorientating to be seated in a theatre with nothing happening on stage. I tried to imagine it was like listening to the radio. Failed. At last the horses (three of them in total) came and went, mostly one at a time, and displayed their skills at turning, passaging, not crushing legs against the walls, rearing, all the things a war horse must learn in order to keep its rider and itself intact. The riders gave an intermittent running commentary which got muffled as they rode off to the far end. Our disabled friend lost most of the info in transit.

The best I can do

Fifteen minutes into the display the Voiceover said these horses wouldn't mind at all if we make a noise and applaud as loud as we want because they are used to cannon-fire and muskets. Umm? Thought they objected to silent video... Neither horses nor riders minded an incessantly screaming child. What is it about parents, and Heritage Ushers come to that, that find it acceptable to stamp on a bit of silent filming but not remove a parent with a distraught child spoiling the show for all? Afterwards we learned,  from the horses' human mouths, that the photo prohibition was more to do with image rights, tight control over us, the paying public. Control is the name of this game. Tight control over the horses too, largely done by tight buttocks. (True.)

One rider, an older man, said, 'If you want photos, look online!' He sounded bitter, a tribesman whose soul had been stolen by the voodoo of film. Possibly a Cavalier, still sulking after losing the good fight in 1649.
'It was the online photos that brought us here in the first place,' we said,  'So now the show's over, please could we take a shot of you and the horse ourselves?'
'No you can't.' Very pompous.
This was not the sort of Cavalier Attitude we had hoped for. Something more accommodating, genteel, friendly, would have been nice. Especially after paying over £30 for the privilege of seeing the three Cavaliers at all..
The horse, bless it, was better mannered and stood like a statue for forty strangers patting his nose, doubt he'd have blinked at a few photos. The Cavendish Rider's attitude was really quite bizarre, and to be honest a bit unpleasant. Left a nasty taste in the mouth. Perhaps it is a generation thing, hating YouTube, the unregulated internet, people having freedom to make pictures themselves without employing a Stubbs or Gainsborough.

Cavendish Cavalier on parade

 Manners aside, we did not doubt the skill of both human and equine participants when it came to dressage. However, showmanship - the human performance was a bit wooden - and generosity, were a little lacking. For the horse-mad non-photographers, no doubt a good show, for anyone else and people with small kids, not recommended.

There are no photos here, sorry about that, but you know who to blame. Just one sneaky shot of a marching Cavalier from the rear. No horse. Good thing he didn't spot us or we'd be in stocks by now.(Not socks, keep up.)

From the battlements over Chesterfield

Now for the castle itself: It's a good building to walk round, wonderful vistas over the Chesterfield plain from ruins, turrets, battlements.

Plenty of steps to scamper or plod up, but very few helpful signs telling you where to go, what room you are in, what is on show. Most of the grounds can be reached by wheelchair, as long as you know which path to take, although the castle itself is not accessible. We felt it very mean-spirited to only give a £1 discount for a wheelchair when you can only access half of the place, and no concession for carers except when booking to see the horses. Three cheers for English Heritage? Maybe not.

Long way down, or up

Everyone else seemed to be guided by a gizmo on their phones, and strode around knowledgeably whilst we blundered from one dead end to another.

 We asked another visitor, head buried in his phone if they had an app for the castle. Ah! Not a phone app, a free electronic guide available from the Visitors' Centre. Great! BB trudged off in search. The smiley, apologetic girl in Reception ran through her repertoire of meaningless apologies. Sorry she hadn't offered us one originally, sorry there was no advance notice of a camera ban. She probably had a degree in Apologitis. Or is that a catching disease?Either way it makes the apology vacuous since no outcome resulted.

Bright sun, electronic guide - sun wins.

The electronic guide was a nice idea, but invisible in sunlight, and ran out of battery in half an hour, so some bog-standard non-electronic signs would have been appreciated.

We asked if there was a feedback form as we handed back the dead gizmo. We had one or two small suggestions to make. Apparently not, but the lady at Reception was happy for us to provide feedback online. Let's hope she's a fan of this blog then, or she might miss it, but we've added a review to Trip Advisor as well, just in case. Be warned there is very little content in the castle, and as with the outside areas, very little info about what is there or where to find it. For the under tens it is a delightful place to romp, for those less flexible of knee, a bit frustrating to find yourself going up dead ends, into empty rooms and having to guess how to find the exit.

sunken fountain

No size zero wenches here

The best feature of all was the fountain in the castle courtyard, a curious design with a range of peeing (not peeping) cherubs and spouting (not sprouting) heads all facing into a hexagonal trough topped with a slightly chubby naked lady. You could bring a picnic and enjoy the view. Either kind.

BB took lots of photos of her, he said it made a change from all the size zero models you see these days. Memo to self: enquire exactly where he is going to photograph all these size zero models. Thought the Camera Club was more about old churches and steam engines...

Good pisser, great pot

We left feeling a little fed up with English Heritage, deciding not to pay £80 for full membership as half the pleasure of going to visit old buildings is influenced by the organisational courtesy of the owners. National Trust volunteers, for example, are always knowledgable, friendly and even know how to make signs. (No, not for the deaf, just Blue Peter card and sticky paper useful stuff.) Perhaps other English Heritage sites are better run, but we are not betting people.

The Lurgy and the Ghosts

Sunday Sept 26th - Destination Chirk.

Woken by the sound of a pig passing by - oh me, oh my! - but all we can see is a retreating bicycle. We giggle. Pig on wheels? We pop our own pig into the frying pan and then it is time to find Chirk Castle, a fine National Trust affair with a lot to see. So at £10 a ticket it is in fact good value for once, not that we have to pay, but just in case you find yourself wanting to visit, go for it. Spend an entire day here, bring a picnic. Post pig I was feeling like nothing more tasty than a pair of Paracetamols, and BB is coming down in sympathy, sneezing for Wales.  But with such beautiful weather it was hard to find fault. If you had to live in a castle, this would be a good one. Nice and squat, a bit like Tamworth, complete with dungeons and because this is Wales, also dragons. Whilst BB nips up the Medieval tower I look around the ground floor leading to the dungeons.   I wish I wasn't feeling as if the world was going dizzy, and then see something that gives me a start.
'Good grief! Was that a sword knocking the table?' The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.

Chastity hat, titillating tights

'A sword? Hardly likely in this day and age, Madam,' says a sturdy young yeoman in a rather fetching tunic. (Am I really that unwell?)
He is leaning on something that does look remarkably like a sword, long, pointy, metal, hands clasped on the hilt, perfectly serious. My brain is having trouble catching up, one does not expect a sense of humour in a dungeon.
'Then you must be a ghost!' I reply, 'Would you mind if I passed my hand right through you, just to check?'
He bows.
'If you can manage that madam, you may wear one of my hats.'
I look at the table where a selection of metalware is waiting for unsuspecting visitors. With a head currently as thick as mine, I have no need of anything thicker to protect it.
'You wear the hat,' I suggest, ' I'll take the photo. And, by the way, there is another ghost, I heard a peacock whilst in the ladies, but I understand there are no peacocks at Chirk any more.'
'Damn! Outghosted!'
What a splendid peasant.
 And see those brown leather leggings? They were in fact loose chaps, tied with thongs, so when the back is turned and the green mini-skirt  hitches over the bum, you get a saucy flash of white long-john. Far too sexy for his hat this ghost.

The interior of the house is split into different historical ages: Medieval, 17th Century Long Gallery, 18th C state rooms all with ancient holly leaves on every seat so you have to keep going. Then there is the more modern East Wing where you can sit on all the very comfy chairs and chat to old ladies who remember the de Waldon family who didn't own the castle, but leased it from the Myddletons (Not Kate) from 1911- 46. There is a black and white film of this family growing up in perfect happiness, acting pantomimes, sledging - very Downton Abbey - and it turns out Tommy 8th Lord Howard de Walden was a true philanthropist and patron of just about everyone artistic, musical, and dramatic, in the first four decades of the 20th Century. His life reads like a tale of Boys' Own derring-do as he encompassed a huge variety of projects, a lot of them funded from his enormous inherited wealth.  In fact we can blame him for virtually single handedly restoring the Welsh language to its current position, although he died in 1946 before that happened. You come away enchanted by the black and white 1930 idyll,  and then visit the dismal Refectory which has tiny high windows and a  list of rules to curdle your blood. One rule for the Myddletons and a lexicon for the others, although to be fair to Tommy, that wasn't under his watch.

Model armour.

Dean Castle, gifted by Tommy's
son in 1975 to Scotland - now free entry.

Seaford House now UK  Defence Academy

Now let's visit the Laundry; an annexe of substantial proportions.. State of the art c. 1912. The very best washboards, huge copper, trundle baskets. Dirty laundry was brought in not only from Chirk castle, but  by train from Dean Castle, in Scotland and Seaford House, Belgravia, London, - two of the other three De Waldon homes -  met at the station by the chauffeur, washed in Wales, and dispatched back clean and pressed to the rest of the UK. My mind cannot really take in the scale of this operation, and it isn't just brain-fuzziness either. Was it showing off, or the most efficient way to launder three castles? Perhaps it was a very cunning plan and saved a mint. I really ought to go back and ask the old lady who knew them.
She doesn't know their laundry thoughts, but tells us,
'Lord Howard de Walden had his own suit of armour made, and used to do cartwheels on the lawn in it. He stomped about inside the castle too.'
 I look at the impossibly pointy stiletto toes of the suit standing in the bay window.
'Didn't his wife have something to say about the holes in the carpet?'

I get the impression the de Waldens had enough money and probably a carpet factory in the Punjab with an annual order on their books, so we doubt if the holes were of any real significance. Tommy not only had a life-size suit of armour made, which was captured by Augustus John as he read The Times at breakfast suited and spurred, he also commissioned a tiny and very delicate replica.
You will be relieved to know that apart from these possibly slightly mad projects, he spent a good deal of his wealth on others, even instituting 999 year leases in Marylebone, (which he owned, lock, stock and single glazing.) The man was a glorious mix of eccentricity, philanthropy and  so eclectic he has to be worth a salute of some kind. He fought in the Boer War, the First World War, supplied some rare new-fangled radios for the army, and whilst he fought in Egypt his wife accompanied him, set up and ran a wartime hospital in the heat and dust. He then went on to the Western Front.  Twenty years later, too old to fight in Hitler's war, he organised the local Dad's Army at the castle, trained housemaids to shoot and throw methylated spirits at enemy tanks. No doubt he was a bit upset by then that when he ran Hitler over in the 1930's, he had later aplogized to him, rather than finishing the job.
Yes, that is true.
We bought a raffle ticket to help renovate a roof,  from a 90 year old custodian lady from Finland who has lived here for 65 years. (Not in the castle, in the UK)  That is one of the more interesting things about the National Trust, not just the buildings, but their living fossils. I shall make a point of chatting to them in more detail in future, but I'm afraid my usual levels of curiosity were a bit dimmed by the presence of the lurgy, so I cannot tell you her life-story. From her accent, I would say she was a Jewish Refugee. My DOM's friends were all Jewish Refugees, and it didn't seem to make any difference if they hailed from Germany, Poland or Italy, the accent and sense of humour was identical. We won't win the raffle, but she won our hearts.

Hawk House

Hawk eye view

A slice through time

Both of us feeling like a pair of podgy suet puddings by now having absorbed so much detail we could write a book, sorry a blog. As a result we nearly leave the castle without seeing the gardens. That would have been a mistake. They are worth the walk. Magnificent yew hedges.... A performance of Alice and playing croquet with flamingoes would be perfect on these lawns. A brilliant architectural use of the yew. But in case you are thinking of copying this technique in your own garden be aware it probably took about two hundred years to achieve the look.
No hawks in Tommy's hawk house, sadly, but autumn colour, crocuses, vistas over a haha into Wales - or possibly out of it, since we are looking east. A pair of deck chairs are provided for those who wish to sit. We dearly wish to sit, but have you sat in a deck chair since !965? It is an awful long way down. And even as a child they were virtually impossible to rise out of without tipping yourself onto the floor, so reluctantly we bypass this nice touch and choose a bench instead.

Salt & Pepper Exit

The whole place has a feeling of still being much cherished as if the ghost of Tommy is overseeing. He chose this place as his favourite home, although ironically it was not one of his own properties; he kick-started a Welsh revolution towards homnegrown art and drama and heritage, gave Dylan Thomas a house to live in whilst penniless. Somehow all that enthusiasm for detail and tlc still shows. Even down to sheet of paper in the ladies which lists all the resident cats; the ones that have died, and the ones you might still find...

If you look in the disabled loo
you will find his name

What with light and health fading, we have to make tracks. We ask Molly to take us back home, it is less effort, theoretically. Perhaps she'd been at my Kindle again, she takes us into the Heart of Darkness. One day we will buy her an upgrade that works out the most intelligent route home, not the most popular. It seems the entire nation went on one last summer holiday this weekend, the motorways are packed, the side roads have stalled, so we limp, creep and chunter home up the M6, and don't really care because our final Travel with our Duchess this year has been a winner. We have heard ghosts of peacocks, seen ghosts in dungeons, at windows. What more can we want?

Goodbye

Alien Abduction sept 25

Welsh Bavaria - Langollen or Llangollen, depending on your nationality. If you are English read with two Lls. 

Statistically, what are the chances? I mean this is England, Nigel Farage country. Not even Johnny Foreigner is allowed in, let alone visitors from outer space.  Nige's gob would have been permanently smacked by the events last night. In fact a tweet asking him if he's ever been abducted by aliens might throw some light on his rather twisted tunnel.

I'd like to start by saying, 'it was a dark and stormy night...' but that would be lying. The sunset was perfect, the layby commodious, no hint of Things to Come in the heart of Staffs. We were on our way to Chirk Castle and I'm willing to bet that the Border Folk would never have put up with invasions of any kind, let alone an alien one. But I am jumping ahead. Let us go back to the finding of a spacious layby on a narrow side road, somewhere near Little Madely - no relation to Richard as far as we know.

Darkness had done its usual trick of clobbering the sun as we left home a mere forty minutes after Best Beloved returned to the nest. The sky was a peachy pink, no time to stop and film it. We had tanks to fill and obstructive women using the wrong pumps at the garage to circumnavigate. BB was not impressed. By7.15 even the look-at-me-no-lights-Immortals had put on their headlights and we were only at Derby 

Therefore, 40 miles from Chirk when we found a place to pull over in the pitch dark, it was a Good Sign. Within five minutes, with the  bed already made up before departure, curtains and blinds closed, a car pulls up behind us. If we lift the blinds it looks nosy, so we don't, but why is it that when you park miles from anyone else, even when there are forty other spaces to choose from in a massive public car park, total strangers cant resist lining up in rows, right next to you? No wonder that as a nation we excel at line dancing. And Scotland is no exception either, think Strip the Willow, what is that if not a Close Encounter?  Here we are, minding our own business, and the obligatory strangers cozy up, only this pair aren't here for a quiet clog dance. There was loud talking, shouting, slamming of doors, and then they stayed put. It wasn't the sort of layby that might encourage tourists, nowhere pretty, so why were they here? Puzzled, and a little apprehensive we turned in.

Don't ask.....

 No sooner were we abed when there was an almighty whizzing from in front of the Duchess. She rocked, rolled even. We had unwittingly parked just next to a bridge, the mainline to Manchester. Who needs HS2 when you've got racket and speed like this?  Behind, was the arguing pair, in front, Richard Branson and his forty Virgins fighting it out with goods trains, all night,  alongside, a country lane that forbade heavy goods vehicles to enter it, but was doing a fine trade in illicit lorries. We were nearly asleep when there was a thumping clatter on the front of the Duchess.
 Had our neighbours decided it would be more comfortable to spend the night in our van instead of their car? Or had they come to pick a fight? Now nakedness inside a small tin Tonka toy makes you feel vulnerable. Imagination ran wild. Investigations were made. After twenty minutes of peeping and peering, BB found Molly Satnav had parted company with the window and fallen onto the dashboard. Suddenly our neighbours seemed quite a benign pair after all.

Closeup Encounter

 Relaxed now, we slept, and awoke to a huge rumbling and shaking of a more intimidating kind than the mere rumble and rock of the trains. The inside of the Duchess was flashing orange, voices were giving instructions, the van throbbed. Our 1975 edition of the Reader's Digest guide, had forgotten to mention that Little Madely was twinned with Roswell. Thus, totally unprepared  we were now, in the middle of the most spectacular alien abduction, and all we could think was, 

'Bugger, where did we put our trousers?'

Morning reveals all

  We even forgot to film the event, probably owing to the fact that we couldn't even find our toenails, let alone a camera. So I'm very much afraid there are no grainy photo of the Duchess being born aloft into the belly of the Mother Ship, and we only just caught the abduction of the other vehicle as it was whisked up out of sight.
An almost eerie silence fell.
All we had to contend with now was the chirping of crickets, a strange acapella chorus, and the thunder of forty high speed Virgins. Piece of proverbial really. But the question is, did those aliens wipe our memory of this far too close encounter? We can't remember what they actually did to us - which goes to prove the abduction must have been genuine. 

Strange Acapella chorus

Morning broke, well it sort of bent really, it was a bit on the dull side for breaking anything, and we set off for Langollen, vowing never to park up on a landing strip again. 

Wales, ah Wales! We know we have crossed the border by the double talk. Every single sign is translated, even the ones where the word is identical in both languages. Why, we wonder? All Welsh people read English so why do they need special signs? It makes them look a bit thick to be honest, but we will do our best to make allowances. 

We are off to a good start with four hours of carparking for £1 and a Klondike hippy with huskies.He is followed by an intense man absorbed in a rollie and another one who is so engrossed in his library book we barely avoid collisions. These people have absorbing lives, we like it already.

 Then it is up those steps behind our reader to the taxidermist. 

Only in Wales. No beautiful little riverside town is complete without a taxidermist is it? And oh joy, in front of it is a rash of scooters. (That is their true collective name because they descend like an ancient pestilence, disfigure the place with their annoying buzz and depart before you have time to swat them with a handy Druid.)

 So we cross the bridge and  buy fruit. That is the cure. Why? No idea, but it works. Best Beloved will sigh about my fruit habit. He knows it is no use thinking we can pass a greengrocer's without a purchase, any more than he can think of passing a gents without a piss.( I confess that is totally untrue, but it sounded so much better than being unable to pass a bookshop without a browse- which is true, and we didn't.) A wonderful, huge secondhand bookshop above an Internet cafe is just the place to spend a morning, but we didn't have a morning, just half an hour to find a newer Guide to Britain. I know you will be relieved to hear this; we can't have an Alien Repeat, although I am bound to say in fairness that the 1992 Guide throws no more light on the Little Madeley connection  to Roswell than its Readers' Digest Motherbook. Obviously the Digest is owned by the CIA which might explain the culling of relevant information.

It seems that since the Digest went into Administration ( I had a very nice email to confirm this)  encyclopaedic guides of this sort are no longer published. It can't be because there are more villages to describe, because the last modern town to hit our shores was Milton Keynes in 1967. It's a travesty, not only Milton Keynes, but the lack of Guides, and this is why:

 If you are a travelling Duchess - with retinue, which we are,  you need a village-by-village elucidator arranged in convenient small areas, not an enormous, alphabetic glossy coffee-table tome. You need a neat little map full of interesting stop-off points, perfect for the retinue to be able to plan suitable refreshments for her Maj. So we are grateful for this mere 20 year-old guide to Our Island. (Yes, you know who you are, who remember Our original  Island Story, but if you choose to look puzzled, deny any knowledge of such a volume, be my guest.) This relatively new tome should last us until we are all antiques, but for old times sake we purchase a 1970's book on wine-making because it's an idiot's guide -  so we qualify, and there is a half price sale. £6 of Satisfaction.

Which butcher would you ask?

Time to eat, BB has the job of locating a nosherie and asks a friendly butcher, whilst I am busy with the fruttivendolo lady, driven to distraction by her Saturday lad. 

'Bloody Houdini' she remarks to me as the boy wriggles out of her fruit shop and disappears down the street. 'And if you don't come back, I'll be.....'
She's angry enough to melt a melon.

'Bad day?' I ask, not in Welsh. She's London B and B.

'He's like this all the time. I know where he's gone. The bookies. I'll go and fetch him myself if he don't come back.'

'Would you like me to mind the shop?' My words are drowned out as a Pestilence of Mods bleat by in a cloud of fumes.

'I bloody 'ate them scooters,' she confides. 

I know what she means.

'I'd have thrown banana skins in the street by now to watch them skid!' 

'Well, It's not as if they stop off for a bunch of grapes is it?' She grins and scoots off herself to bring the errant lad back from the bookies.

BB has selected the fish and chippery, " Seajays," we suspect it might be a nifty Welsh play on words, never mind if the sea is beyond the mountains, fish is definitely involved - but we forgot to ask about the name because we are distracted by our waiter. Well, stunned would be more accurate. He (or she) stands before us, a vision of neatness, uniform, pinny, tousers, shaved head with a fifty-strand pony tail, and a chin-strap painted, yes actually painted,  around a delightfully rounded chin. I later summon the courage to ask,

Special Comendation

1st prize  

'Could  I take a photo?' I know it's a bit cheeky, but to the young this is flattery, not intrusion. He, (we think it must be an adolescent he) asks
'Why?' A good question. I like him.

'I think you look very interesting.' I say, I am not lying either, apart from the Mexican Indian in full head-dress playing a reed pipe outside, he is far the most interesting dresser in town. ' Is it a religious thing?' 

'No! I made it up myself!' He is very proud of his design, and why not? It is unique, well worth the visit to the cafe.

'Fantastic!' I reply and applaud. Well, what else could I do? BB keeps a low profile. I get a snap, but am debating if it is ethical to include another family whose faces are just as startled as ours were when we first placed our order. I will omit these people as I don't have their permission, but please take the time to imagine an eight year old, mouth dropping, and two equally bemused parents probably praying their son won't utter those immortal words, 

'Are you the only gay in the village?'

I will add a disclaimer here, there was no evidence of any particular sexual preference on show, and to be honest we couldn't give a Fruttivendolo fuck.

Having said that, the Mods have turned out with hardly a woman in tow, so perhaps there is more to Llangollen than meets the eye.

Their scooters whine back and forth through the otherwise delightful town as we eat a perfectly good meal, and to be honest I am surprised CJ herself  (shaved head, very skinny, totaltatoo body art)  hasn't teamed up with our Fruttivendolo lady and strung a wire across the road. Maybe she is a Mod.

BB has been busy observing some interesting things about these 20th Century throwbacks.. First of all they haven't changed since the 1950s (Although how he would know, I have no idea, being either a twinkle in his daddy's eye or still in nappies.)
 Where the  Rockers have mellowed, spread outwards and sideways, lost their lengthy locks through wear and tear rather than the barber's blade, the Mods are still thin-lipped, close-cropped, mean-looking, unfriendly, and notably skinny. BB thinks they look like they are on a prison outing, sallow complexions and not at all friendly to curious outsiders like us. They have cobras on their machines and on the back of their uniforms - a very Labour Red. Perhaps they could escort our Prime Minister in Waiting to No. 10, or Wormwood Scrubs.

This is in stark contrast to the Hoard of Rockers we later found at the top of the Horeshoe Pass in a sprawling eyesore of a pub, the Ponderosa. They were happy to chat.

'If you guys are called Bikers, what do you call the guys on scooters - Scootists?' I ask, by way of an opener.

You can see several rather colourful alternative descriptions flitting through their heads before one of them says,

'Mods!'

'So you still fight then?'

They roar with laughter. We get the impression if one of them sat on one of those scooters it would condense into a small flat rectangle, along with its rider.

'No need to fight now pet, we passed them on the motorway, flat out at 40 mph.' 

Point taken. We also note that this herd doesn't just have its own pub on tap, it has its own Injury Lawyer.

We hope this is just a social visit

Llangollen village is a delightful little town, full of buzz, no one Welsh made us feel unwelcome, in fact I'm not sure anyone Welsh was actually there. Accents from all over lilted, belted, and even skipped across the busy street. We think we might return. We wander over the bridge, admire the steam train that takes you two miles up the valley for £12. Then it is time to visit the famous canal and its even more famous horse, owing to Country File declaring it the winner in last year's TV photographic competition. £6 for a short ride. It is a nice horse, but I remember even as a small child being completely underwhelmed by the experience of being towed along the canal by this horse's great great great grandmother. I was horse-obsessed, so this should have been the highlight of my (mega wet) holiday. It wasn't. The boat moved at a plod, with the horse about fifty yards ahead, not even a whiff of horsey elixir, and that was it. I suppose I should be

 grateful the man leading the horse back in the day, did not have a luminous yellow jacket. That is guaranteed to ruin any shot, including the Country File Winner's. That is why you are seeing the horse without the boat. I refuse to use my camera on a luminescent horse-walker.
But I do like the canal. I learned to row on it.
 Should have brought a little blue plaque.

Having reached the point of saturation which comes shortly before the parking ticket expires we drive over the Horseshoe Pass, spectacular views, large layby, but after last night? We'd have to be mad to stay in a place with enough room to land a whole Starfleet. so on we trot - for about 2 hours. The only kind of stopping place in this part of Wales is a galactic carpark. The minor roads have no pull-overs because a sporadic rash of houses is built in just about every nook and cranny of every hill and dale. Town Planning in Wales is  more like Ireland, where if you can buy a field you can build in it. We eventually find a place and vow that next time, if we have to drive for more than half an hour, we will book into a Caravan site. It would cost the same as the petrol used. But night falls peacefully, we ate at lunch time, so now it is a picnic, and no night time visitations.

Shropshire Lads and Lasses sept 14th 2013

Tamworth Castle

There is much barking downstairs. Best Beloved has decided if we are going to go at all, then we'd better have gone already. So to keep the old dog happy we went halfway through packing - and left quite a few things behind, like clothes and food.

'But we're only going for a night, and we'll find a pub for a meal,' I was told. So why did I have a nagging recollection that when you are searching for a place to pull over for the night in September, with days getting shorter by the second, the very last thing you are looking for is a pub. Your eyes are attuned to grass verges, hidden laybys, not places thick with cars and traffic. In July you can find a pub, eat a leisurely meal, still have time to do a crossword, file your nails, read War and Peace and then locate a bolt hole. Not so in September. 

But this morning is fresh (ie not actually tipping.) and we are heading south. Why? The weather forecast assures us that the approaching weekend gales will arrive from Iceland at pace, do some running jumps over Scotland at 60 mph and arrive in the North barely out of breath. With luck they might have run out of puff by the time they reach Kent. So we head for Shropshire - Kent is just a dream in the eye of a Duchess,  

and besides we want to see Tamworth Castle.

Thank Your Lucky Stars - you weren't there

We are drawn along the river towards the sound of Country music and find a long lawn below the castle walls full of middle aged people shuffling, spinning, harmonising to the melodious sound of Lucky Stars. (Yes, he really is called that.) I can reliably tell you that no effort whatsoever has been made to enhance his performance. The truck that doubles as his stage probably sells wholesale meat at a local market during the week, and he isn't even sporting a half-pint, let alone a ten gallon hat. We find this rather disappointing. If you are going to sound like Johnny Cash the least you can do is ham it up a bit. But no, this is England, mid-shires, and not a single line dancer cares that he rolled out of bed, forgot to comb his hair and stepped straight into yesterday's T shirt and jeans. Tamworth residents apparently either have neither a sense of occasion nor a yen for flamboyance, but they do like a line dance.  We video it, and notice something strange, if you omit the soundtrack, there is something intrinsically Midwich Cuckoo about 200 sombre adults all marching together twisting, turning, forwards and backwardsing with such robotic precision, in standard issue trousers.  Now I love a Line Dance as much as the next person, ( providing that next person isn't BB ) and was very impressed that the entire town of Tamworth knew all the steps. Have Tamworth  Council cutbacks been so radical that there are no other evening classes! or is there something more sinister afoot? We will never know until the zombie hordes invade a county near you.

Flee! Flee for your lives!

When in doubt eat chips, bacon butties and  beige Nescafé, regulation fodder for a gathering of 1000 Tamworth souls,  provided by a single burger van with 3 aluminium tables.

With luck you might find yourself sitting next to a thirty-something mum. The command comes, 

'Sarah! Don't do that! ' and you turn, expecting a small long-haired child in a pink frock to be picking her nose with a grubby finger, Instead you find a small long-haired dog in a pink  coat, picking a fight with a squirrel.

When Zombies Attack
the only safe place is up a tree

Have you noticed how people are calling their dogs by human names these days? The surrogate baby boom is upon us. In this one park there was a Ruby, a Ben and a Dan - all Man's Best Friend. Modern parents seem to prefer calling their children after buildings, cities and card shops: Gerkin, Paris and Clinton. Sounds like a firm of solicitors to me, but perhaps solid Heathen names are more apt for modern aspiring sprogs, whilst pets have evidently been baptised and brought into the Christian faith.

Why did we come to Tamworth at all? Wouldn't Ludlow with a huge food festival have been a more rewarding destination? Ah, well it depends on what you mean by rewarding. Foodwise, undoubtedly we are the losers here, but Tamworth has appeared in several worthy documentaries in the past few months and was of obvious strategic importance to Aethelflaed, daughter of Alfred the Great  protector of Mercia in the 10th century - since she built the first castle here. It is more recently important  to us, because we like Aethelflaed. Singlehanded she kept the Vikings out of Mercia until she died and then the  buggers got it after all. She died in Tamworth as it happens - in 918 AD. (not BC -  there was very little going on worth writing down in our woad-and-war-torn land back in that particular day. In fact it was so dire Tripadvisor hadn't a single Island reviewer wiling to give feedback, even by ballad. Social Commentators had a nasty habit of turning up on a hog-roasting spit, feedback had a totally different meaning. They therefore sensibly glossed over that millennium with a very useful term - The Insatiable Dark Ages. This description hid just about everything except lots of fighting and very short lives, and was it was indeed a much Darker Age than the ones that followed - largely because they had neither windows, nor daylight saving.

Now, I have a confession to make:

Somehow we missed the statue of Aethelflaed in Tamworth. Well, to be more precise, we did see her from a great height, and even took photos of her back, but owing to the fact she was being precariously pressure-washed by Postman Pat with his little red van, on a wibbly wobbly ladder, she was unrecognisable, and to be honest we were far more interested in this bloke's acrobatics, trying to reach her head on top of an exceptionally tall pedestal. (Hers, not his.) 

This is a picture of how she used to look, and this is our photo. I think you'll agree, she did look more believably ancient in fetching grey and green, but Postman Pat was only doing what he was paid for, and it was mesmerising watching him get drenched without any help at all from Icelandic gales. However, none of this can disguise the fact that we didn't actually recognise Aethflaed  from the back, until seeking the Wisdom of Wikipedia on our return - for which we donated a princely £3 for their efforts. Apparently if every user donates £3 they will still be in business without adverts, so that has to be worth it chaps. But I digress.

'We went all that way and missed her most famous statue!' I groaned, having consulted the £3 Oracle. Then happily remembered Postman Pat and his black and white washer, checked the photos, and there she was! 

 There is some comfort in one thing however: we are just as incompetent, flying by the seat of our britches, as everyone else on this ancient grey and green, uncarved old rock.

Having gagged on some food it is doubtful Sarah, Ben or Dan would have devoured, we climbed the mound to a rather compact little castle atop it - currently being invaded by a wedding party. It makes a change from Vikings so we wait patiently, along with the Great Green warrior and were rewarded by an unusual wedding carriage, complete with roof rack. If the weather had been better would the bride have been strapped aloft?

Move along, plenty of room on top

The castle itself is run by the council and costs £7 each to enter - a 40% hike from the website price, but it's free tomorrow, and will be packed with visitors we are told. 'You won't be able to move!' The woman tells us. We aren't sure if she is warning us or excited by the thought of some living visitors.  We decide to wait for this event, at the same time knowing we would be long gone by morning. We didn't want  to upset the no doubt very long-suffering Council staff on the gate, but isn't it better to keep the price at a fiver and attract more punters throughout the year, rather than overprice it and keep them out until the one day when they swarm the castle walls and threaten to rupture the foundations with their combined weights? Shades of certain greedy cathedrals here, but perhaps there is reason to discourage visitors we have not yet discovered.  All we know is there is a chip butty difference between £14 and a £10, and we ain't either playin' or payin'.

What we need is dinner and a place to pull over for the night, so we head off towards Ludlow, or maybe Ironbridge or Bridgnorth, somewhere else anyway, and end up driving round and round the Wrekin. What is a Wrekin? You may well ask. In Shropshire it is a hill, in other parts of the world it is a company that makes manhole covers, a Trust that longs to inspire Non-sectarian spiritual enlightenment, a Co-educational boarding school, and a sort of nursery rhyme activity without spiders, tuffets or whey.

 We searched for a route to the top of the hill, (since we were in Shropshire, and there is nothing comparede to going round and round the Wrekin like a teddy bear to make you feel familiar with your landscape ) but the only way up it is on foot, so that was that. We lodged below it, neither up nor down so the Grand Old Duke of York wouldn't find us, away from trees that might fall in the predicted gales, and out of puddles that might expand into lakes. Needless to say we did not find a pub on this circuit, and being too exhausted from all that line dancing to drive further, we opened ancient tins and even considered consuming the caviar we have been keeping for an emergency. For some reason neither of us ever feel in the slightest bit like consuming caviar in emergencies - don't know what's the matter with us. Why do egg, bacon and beans always have more appeal? So the caviar has escaped to tell the tale for the third year running.

The Sun sets over another Wrekin day

Sunday Sept 15th

There were no gales overnight, but it's grey as seagulls outside, the sort that swoop and lurch in the wind. Now I'm old-fashioned, I think holidays need sunshine. BB is made of sterner stuff. He says photography doesn't mind - ergo he doesn't either. Lucky he. I like photographs that show contrast, shadows, proof of sunshine being present.

 Isn't September supposed to be  that month full of mellow fruitfulness? It's full of fruits this year, short on mellows, and since it is only three months since the thermals came off in June, I am in an autumnal strop way before it's autumn. But I don't let on. Well, not much, I've just bought a new waterproof and am quite interested to know if it is. (Waterproof)

We head for Bridgnorth which sounds charming. It has two levels of town and a connecting funicular - definitely waterproof.

The War Memorial is Over There!

Going down

The town is pretty, although windows could be shinier, and on close inspection the shops look on the verge of being run down. It is too chilly to linger long, we need lunch. Should we go for an all day breakfast in the 1940's style Wheelhouse cafe, Or find a pub for a roast dinner? There is something a little discouraging about a cafe that boasts it's menu is  rooted in the most impoverished British cuisine of the last war. We opt for a roast dinner. And live to regret it. There are a lot of pubs in the town, but most of them not only look very basic, they are also empty. This is not encouraging. We find the one pub that actually has customers, the Old Castle, and order our roast dinners. They arrive with wizened roasties and a grey heap of expired broccoli. We should have sent it back, but you know how it is when your mouth is salivating and rain has just set in for the afternoon. We ate what we could and felt diddled by the £16 charge for 2 half meals. We think of friends in Ludlow, enjoying a culinary feast and wonder if we are mad not to be there.

Perhaps the funicular cafe could provide pudding.

If a steep spiral staircase is a problem, don't go. The cafe is downstairs with great views of the Severn Valley, and a great view of the funicular mechanisms through an open hatch. Now that is a genuine 1940's touch. In this day and age a sheet of glass shielding the egg and  bacon from grease and dust would almost certainly be installed. That is probably where the great bits end, although the Gluten free chocolate brownie was good, but tiny. Our cake and drinks set us back £10, so not 1940's prices then. In fact apart from the music and pinnies there wasn't a lot to differentiate between then and now. Mo
caccino? But don't be put off, the service was good as we were the sole occupants, although our table wasn't cleared when we came in, and it would have been much enhanced by some sunshine on another day.

Would you park your car here?

The walk around the remains of the castle, leaning further over than the tower of Pisa, was worth doing. Great views of the Severn Valley.  And the ride in the funicular, the shortest railway of its kind in the UK ( £1.20 return,) likewise. We reckon the food would have been better by the river and should we return, we will eat down below.

Wet weather seeps into the bit of you that is catlike, requiring warmth, comfort, it makes you feel like retreating, not advancing. It's a miracle how our hardy ancestors spent most of their lives outdoors in the foul and temperamental English weather. As for the Scots without even britches, now that is just showing off. Let's face it, we have all become nesh in recent centuries. But that is the reality, so we retreated to the Duchess and persuaded her to take us to Lichfield on the way home. 

What a pleasant, spacious town it is. BB thought it might be famous for some notorious modern politician having lived there. I was under the Impression it was a city with significant historical sons to its name. Turns out Samuel Johnson lived there and ran an unsuccessful boarding  school before he took off for London and wowed the English Speaking world with the first ever Dictionary. He also wrote the book I'd take to that over-inhabited desert island. These opening lines are surely the most elegant and comprehensive ever written.

"Ye who liften with credulity to the whifpers of fancy and purfue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect age will perform the promifes of youth and the deficiencies of the present day will be fupplied by the morrow, attend to the history of Raffelas, Prince of Abyffinia'"

Beats me why I actually listened to those whifpers of fancy and purfued the phantoms of hope, having read this cautionary tale and taken to it with such enthusiasm. Swine, pearls and a fair bit of casting went on in my youth in spite of Mr Johnson's best efforts.

There was also Erasmus Darwin grandfather of Charles Darwin who lived in Lichfield, and David Garrick, the actor and playwright, so it is steeped in historical characters and also has a very impressive cathedral and a university. No trace of a modern politician though, although there presumably must be one, somewhere. A Mr Michael Fabricant in fact.such a wonderful name for a person in his line of work, but it seems he is as clean and pleasant as his seat, being one of the cheapest MP's to run, in spite of being a Tory. You couldn't Fabricant it.

Lichfield Cathedral is a splendid building in a fetching pink and black effect. There is no mandatory charge, just a suggestion of a £5 donation, and £2 for taking photos.  It has an unusual arrangement for Maundy Thursday, a unique corridor with stone seats either side, a  Pedilavium, constructed for the washing of the feet of the poor, a medieval custom. It was terminated by Queen Elizabeth I who thought it would be less trouble to just give the poor a few pennies instead. No doubt they thought that was an improvement on getting their feet washed by the nobs, and it is almost a given that she and the nobs preferred not to give alms rather than wash feets.

Zulu Wars Memorial -
No mention of Michael Caine

We missed the Staffordshire Hoard and the Lichfield Angel as it was getting late, but we did see an advertisement in a contemporary journal from Samuel Johnson, offering to give lads tuition at his boarding school.  You have to give it to him, he was a true entrepreneur, though it's doubtful Dragon's Den would have given him two minutes for his new-fangled dictionary. You can hear the dripping scorn of an 18th Century Duncan Bannentyne. 

'Come Fir, why would we want to look up words we already know?' Laughter echoes round the dungeon. Samuel, fresh from his boarding school failure, shifts from one foot to the other, trying to think of a suitable hook for these snotty fish.

'The ingenious idea, my dear firs,  is you can look up the  words you don't already know!'

Duncan is in there like a piranha.

'But if I don't know them, how can I endeavour to look them up, man?'

'Ah, that is the genius! They are arranged in alphabetical in order to affist the feeker.'

'But if I don't know how the word is fpelled how would that help? This is the most ridiculous idea ever conceived!  I'm out!' 

Exeunt the whole den of dragons.

Lots of interest in this building, definitely worth a vifit, and there's a ftatue of King Charles II outside,  looking juft like the dog of his namefake as his face has fuffered a bit of weathering and his ears, forry hair, is flopping very charmingly around his muzzle - I mean face. Quite a neat trick since they are carved out of foft fandstone.

It was Charles who helped restore the cathedral after some religious terrorists blew parts of it up with the first ever explosive mine. Those were the Good Old Days when you could chop up your neighbours because you didn't like the cut of their holy jib. We have a lot to answer for in setting such A Very Bad Example. 

Now it is time to go home past Muckley Corner, Weeford Hints,  and Wigwig. You couldn't make them up, and we didn't need to, someone else had got there first.