Finally back from our Christmas travels during the course of which djeli mislaid his beanie, so I’m starting the hat I promised to knit him and hoping I can finish it nice and quickly.
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through train windows on our way to Lancaster – first leg of the journey to the Isle of Man.
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After a productive morning’s work and my friend’s physiotherapy appointment, we drove out to Abroath where we had a spectacular afternoon tea at Sugar and Spice – a teapot full of tea, little sandwiches (I had chicken, my friend had ham), simply enormous and amazing scones with superb raspberry jam and cream, plus a small strawberry tart, a raspberry/white chocolate/caramel slice and two shortbread biscuits. We finished our scones and then declared ourselves stuffed to puss’s bow so we had to ask for a doggy bag for the cakes – they looked too good to waste!
And of course a walk was in order to deal with the aftermath, so after buying a few small treats from the sweetshop section for djelibeybi, we wandered along the seafront and up into Arbroath before buying some Arbroath smokies (smoked fish – mackeral maybe? very tasty) for tea and heading home. Lovely!
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I went down to the Firth of Tay to see the Discovery, Scott of the Antarctic’s ship, which was amazingly awesome and interesting. They had an harmonium on board! I was most impressed. Freakin’ freezing outside though so I didn’t linger in inspecting the ship itself.
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At long last. I’ve been trying to visit my friend up here for a couple of years and at last I’ve done it. Yay! Now for a week of working on our mobile web art/music project. More yay!
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Went to the Shakespeare pub in Coalport with a couple of djeli’s work friends. AMAZING goat’s cheese & tomato tartlet for entree, followed by a very nice chicken in plum sauce. Afterwards, we staggered over the Severn for a little taste of the Irish music night at the Boat and a drink.
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Went to the Shropshire Hills Discovery Centre to see their mammoth, then to the Museum of the Gorge. Both pretty good. I think the Shropshire Hills one was probably a bit more interesting. It had a fair bit on the geology and earlier history of the area. And, of course, a mammoth!
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We didn’t actually intend to go to the top – we sort of expected that at some point the track would do a sharp turn straight up the hill at which point we’d say in unison “bugger that, I’m not a mountain goat!” and turn around, but it didn’t, it just kept winding and climbing, but a good track and while tiring and not many moments of relenting, it wasn’t a hard path to follow, so by the time we’d got halfway it seemed downright wussy to turn around, so to the top we went… where we found an absolute gale blowing, plus two work friends of djelibeybi’s who we promptly invited to dine with us at the Shakespeare pub tomorrow night. The view would have been spectacular… if the entire country hadn’t been covered in mist. The wind truly was spectacular. At one point I had to cling to the trig marker while djeli told me all about how it worked.
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Today we visited Boscobel House and the Royal Oak (yes, the one Charles II hid in from the Parliamentarian troops, although what’s there now is actually a descendent of the original tree. You can even buy your own Royal Oak sapling! Ah, the initiative of English Heritage 
) and then went on to Moseley Old Hall in Staffordshire, which is where he went after leaving Boscobel. Both were totally fascinating. And wonderful to see proper priest’s holes!
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We’d been meaning to go to Wales but couldn’t work out where we wanted to go, so in the end we went to Stokesay Castle, an impressive early fortified manor in fabulous condition, and then sort of made things up as we went along – Clun Castle, Dolforwyn Castle, and then to Powis Castle which unfortunately was closed, but we’ve made a note that we definitely want to go back there. At Powis, a large herd of red deer watched us drive slowly up the driveway, and then a herd of smaller (possibly fallow) deer were on the hillside as we walked back to the car. I stalked them gently with my camera, and when djeli got bored and started to drive down towards me, the sound of the car evidently startled a great red stag. Absolutely stunningly gorgeous. So beautiful. We almost ran over a pheasant leaving the grounds, but fortunately he flopped out of the way in time. Came home and played Carcassonne The Castle in the evening, just to continue the theme. I thrashed djeli soundly, both times 
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