Fun and games

We all admired Mrs Pig! 

Saul 

Abe

Saul

Abe

Saul

Getting tired

Abe feeding a calf

Abe's first drawing of a person

Close up: long fingers on each hand...

Family invasion

Seeded brown (right) and chilli with parmesan (left)

Gearing up for visits from the family.  Yesterday we shopped with two trolleys.  Today is cooking day, if I can find the food in the overcrowded refrigerator.   So far...two loaves of bread and chicken curry for tonight.  Next up, chicken liver pate and chopped herring.

Chopped herring

And the very next day...

A 5 mile walk with my walking friends.  Beautiful day, wide paths, golden fields and cool woods.  Got home, had a cold drink, went upstairs and fell asleep!  Cool bath and then out to dinner.  I'm exhausted!

I'll be able to squeeze just one more walk in with this group before we return to Texas - where there are no rural footpaths and countryside access unless you drive for miles to a national forest.  Boo!  Black mark Texas!

Hidden Norfolk treasure

Looking down the canal

Just off the Norfolk Broads is a long narrow canal, now only used by canoes.  My intrepid friend and I hired a Canadian canoe for three hours today and ventured forth.  I've been three times before, but this was Miriam's first time in a canoe and there was the usual muddle - going round in a circle and careering from one reed bank to another - but eventually we got the hang of it and could enjoy our surroundings.  Perfect day...sunny and warm.  We paddled past families of swans and Highland cattle with their orange shaggy coats and magnificent horns.  Dragon and damsel flies zoomed back and forth and there was even a brief sighting of a kingfisher dashing down the surface of the water.  Flowers and other vegetation dip down to the canal edge and every now and again we had a glimpse of the bank.  We chose our spot and pulled the canoe out of the water and ate our lunch.  Idyllic!    We have promised ourselves to make it an annual event!

Oops! 

The picnic spot

Safely navigated...

Happy to be back at the boat yard in one piece

Ludlow, Leominster and Stokesay Castle

We put the seats down in the car in preparation for collecting the bureau later in the day and set off for Ludlow.  We've been before, probably several times, but it is still an interesting town with streets still to explore.  But first a cup of tea/coffee and a toasted tea cake!  The waitresses wore black with little white caps and pinafores. Nothing like it!

One of the old gates leading into Ludlow

Ruth at Ludlow

Then on to Stokesay Castle a fortified manor house which has a dramatic exterior and a very interesting interior...remarkably it had been left to decay for several hundred years and finally purchased and conserved (rather than restored) in the 1800s.   There's an excellent audio guide.  The lunch wasn't much to write home about but we sat within the walls and admired the castle, the towers and the gatehouse.

North tower

South tower

View from churchyard

Stokesay Castle

The gatehouse

The gatehouse

Waiting for our crumbs

 And then to Leominster to collect the bureau and back to Wellbrook Manor Studio for a cup of tea.  Ah!  And then a saunter round the vegetable plots to collect tomatoes, French beans, courgettes, and into the netted enclosure for raspberries and red currants.  Holiday over!  We leave tomorrow...

Another walk

Red currants

Started the day with red currants from the manor garden.  Delicious.

Today we did about 6 miles in a circle south west of Wellbrook Manor.  There's such an amazing selection of footpaths criss crossing this area that we just put a walk together from the map and hoped for the best! We had studied the contours closely, but we still ended up doing some strenuous uphill work.  At one point we forded a stream, then we ran into a bog trying to avoid heifers and disappeared into a dark green tunnel and now and again we went off course slightly, but in the end we completed the planned circuit.

The views from the tops of the rises were lovely.  Just rolling soft hills, farms and villages.

View over the valley to Wellbrook Manor

Ruth at start of green tunnel footpath

An extraordinary day

Two extraordinary things happened to us today.

We arrived in Leominster bent on a second go at the antique shops of which there are many.  At the Pay and Display machine we realised we had no change between us.  I fussed about a bit with my phone in order to pay by credit card....but gave up when I was sent on a journey round the keyboard in order to choose options and set up an account.  We made way for a young woman who was waiting to pay:

She: Do you need some change?
Peter: Yes, do you have change for £5?
She:  How much do you need?
Peter: Well, we're going to park for £3 hours so that's £1.20 (Ed. it was ridiculously cheap!)
She: Oh, is that all...here you are...it's only just over a £1...

And with a smile, she gives us the money!  What kindness from a stranger!  I wish I had taken a photo of here to put here.

Oak desk in back bedroom

Liss Bros oak bureau

Off we go to a nearby coffee shop where Peter has a toasted tea-cake and I have carrot cake...then into several antique shops.  These are vast emporia on several floors so it takes a while to rummage.  I was looking for some interesting coat hooks for one of the bedrooms that doesn't have a wardrobe but none of them appealed.   Just as we were running out of steam we came face to face with an oak bureau.  We both looked hard at it and remarked on its similarity to the furniture in our newly refurbished back bedroom.  We both bent down and looked at the label..."Made in 1959 by Ellis Bros". Well!  We thought there was a good chance that this was in fact by Liss Bros - Peter's father's factory (he was a cabinet maker who also making contract furniture for the Ministry of Defence).  We asked one of the sales people why they though it was by Ellis Bros and she referred us to the stamp on the back.  The bureau was divested of the knick knacks on it and we turned it round.  Sure enough Liss Bros! They hadn't looked hard enough.   We got quite emotional, but not soft enough not to bargain.  They took quite a bit off the asking price and we will collect it at the end of our holiday and reunite it with other pieces from the factory.

Then off to nearby Croft Castle where we toured the house, the cellars and the walled garden.

6 and a half miles

Today we did an excellent circular walk which started on our doorstep and set off up a steep and muddy hill!   We covered about 6.5 miles and went along some very overgrown footpaths, along sunken paths, over fields, around fields and up hill and down dale!  Stiles galore, some of them extremely well hidden in the hedges so there were a few panics (me) that we had gone the wrong way! One stile in particular was out of the ordinary - a vertical stone slab.

An ancient climbing a stile....sorry, climbing an ancient stile!

We encountered a large bull...fortunately not in the field we were trying to cross...some frisky looking heifers that fortunately decided to move out of our way, a 'petrol station' that said it was open, but looked decidedly closed and an old well with water dripping from the mouth of a carved statue.

The bull 

The old gas station

St Peter's Well

In the evening the Director of the Vivat Trust who was in the office next door, gave us a tour of the Manor house, which will be a very interesting place to stay when it is finished.  Too big for us - it sleeps 12.

We took her up on her offer of helping ourselves to the produce in the vegetable garden and had delicious runner beans with our supper and red currants and raspberries for dessert.

More pictures of Wellbrook Manor gardens

Hostas

Peter admires the topiary

A corner of the pottage

The front porch

Holiday in Herefordshire...where hurricanes hardly happen...but it pours with rain!

The door of the studio

Yesterday we arrived at our rented 'studio' in Peterchurch, near Hereford.  The studio is half an old barn in the grounds of Wellbrook Manor, fitted out to be a very comfortable holiday rental for two.  The Manor itself is a much altered medieval hall house (traces of which can still be seen inside) and is at the moment under renovation.  The offices of the trust that owns these properties is in the other half of the barn and we hope, during the week, to get a tour of the manor house.  We have free reign of the garden (it was the gardener who met and directed us yesterday) and what a garden!  Great hedges of topiary, herbaceous borders, an orchard and vegetable plots and chickens.  We have had a good wander round before settling down with a cup of tea in our very own, tiny garden facing the setting sun.

Our own seat in the sun

Exploring the garden

Front garden of Wellbrook Manor

View from our front door

Today we had planned a walk, but the weather forecast was right and it has rained all day.  Instead we drove to Leominster where we had coffee and toasted tea cakes, spent ages in a vast antique supermarket and spied several others, before going on to Berrington Hall, a Georgian mansion with a garden laid out by Capability Brown.  We had a light lunch (!) in the old servants' hall and had a tour of the house before managing to get round the walled garden when is was only slightly raining.  A quick dash to Tesco for basic supplies and then home to read and relax.

Tomorrow's forecast is also bad...our walk may have to wait until Tuesday.  More shops and museums tomorrow!