This year has been a beautiful spring, with lots of sun and blue skies, even if there’s also been quite a cold wind some days.  It’s apparently perfect conditions for blossom, and the flowers and birds also seem to be doing really well.

The bleating herd winds slowly o'er the lea.

Chee Dale stepping stones

We’ve had a couple of lovely walks in Derbyshire, once with the grandsons and another set of grandparents and grandchildren, in Chee Dale, where there is a lot of boy appeal – rocks, stepping stones, caves and such.  Luckily for us the children are much of an age and go to the same school, so know each other well, and enjoy the walks better for the company. We also had to take Atlas, and I’m afraid that although the children behaved perfectly, he rather let us down by running off. He was ahead with the children but kept coming back to check on us, and lulled us into a false sense of security. As a path junction came up as we climbed out of the valley, we realised that he had vanished. Panic ensued; but in the field crossed by one path, sheep and lambs were peacefully grazing, so we could be quite sure he hadn’t gone that way, thank God. We each set off on one of the the two remaining path directions and eventually found him. He was quite pleased to see us – we were hot and bothered and had to pretend to be pleased to see him. Then he rolled in fox pee and stank the car out on the way home. 

We also had a long weekend with the family in Shropshire. I love Shropshire; without having anything spectacular, it’s just perfect English countryside – or Welsh countryside, as this time we were near Llangollen. We’ve usually been a bit further east.

On the way there we visited Wightwick Manor, which is an Arts and Crafts house with a collection of Pre-Raphaelite works. The things I liked best were the William De Morgan tiles and lustre plates. I chose a red lustre ware plate with a design of a deer as my thing to take home. But the rooms were lovely, and big enough to carry the William Morris wallpapers and furnishings.

Wightwick Manor

Then we met the children and grandchildren in Shrewsbury and had a stroll round and along the river. On the Friday we went to Hawkestone Park Follies, which was completely brilliant. The park was laid out in romantic style in the late eighteenth century, and made use of natural outcrops of rocks, and what is believed to have been a prehistoric copper mine. It was quite a walk round it with many steps and climbs, views, an “Awful Precipice” (sic), and pitch dark twisty tunnels. We all just loved it. I’m afraid granddad made a habit of leaping out on people in the dark tunnels and succeeded in scaring the adults, but not the children. They seemed to expect nothing else from him. 

The "Awful Precipice", with tunnels beneath.

The next day, Saturday, was another glorious day and we all did a walk which involved walking across Pontcyssylte. Number three son and Phil are not good on heights, but obviously didn’t want to miss the experience,  and so we sent them on ahead to walk steadily across and they were fine. The footpath is only on one side and there is a precipitous drop with no rail on the other, and the trough is only perhaps a foot higher than the water, so on a barge, there’s really nothing between you and the drop. But on the footpath side, there’s a good high railing, and the main worry is stepping off it into the canal as there is not much passing space – especially if you meet anyone pushing a bike. But it was well worth it – the views are spectacular.

Ponycyssylte from the river Dee

Barge crossing

The view

Safely across 

On the Sunday, we walked up to the Rodney Memorial, which was 900 feet of ascent and was put up by the gentlemen of Shropshire and Monmouthshire to honour Admiral Rodney, who had made them all well off by getting the government to buy their oaks for warships. He originated the line ahead method of naval battle, but was heavily criticised for being more concerned with prize money than serving his country. As all the crew shared in prize money according to their rank, it may explain why there seems

to be a lot of pubs called The Admiral Rodney.

The Rodney Memorial

Anyway, it was a lovely walk through woodland, with streams, bird song and flowers, and a nice feeling of achievement when we all made the top.

On the way home we stopped at Moseley Old Hall, where Charles II hid in a priests’ hole after the battle of Worcester. It’s run by the National Trust and they did a really excellent tour. We thoroughly enjoyed it.