Walking

We have been enjoying the outdoors today.  We had plans to meet up with friends and hoped that the weather forecast was going to prove right and we could spend some time outside.  It has rained pretty much every day since the beginning of December with very rare moments of clear skies.  It was cloudy today but, as the recent rain has also meant thick grey low cloud, it felt really bright despite the fact that the sky was all cloud.

We met at a wood and had fun on a play trail.

 
There were big long slides, stilts to climb on, a big truck climbing frame, a climbing wall, a stand on rope swing, a very large climbing frame, water play with Archimedes screws and channels, gravel play with buckets made from old tyres, small play houses and a fairy kingdom complete with carvings.  It was a great place for the children to play with a short distance to walk between each activity.  I would imagine in the summer it will be very busy but on a cool winter day it was, thankfully, quiet.

After our play we had a picnic lunch before heading off for a walk with words trail. Every now and again we found a marker post with a quote relating to woods and nature on it.

 Diversity is Nature's Way Vandana Shiva

We also found a great place half way round to rest little legs, drink hot chocolate and eat cake.

It was a lovely day out.

Weekending

Most of this week I have spent with my parents.  I have not been able to visit for some time as they have been in the throes of building a new house.  I was apprehensive about the trip.  My brother has moved into their old house, the family home, the one a grew up in and I had been told they had already started decorating.  The house my parents are now living in is brand new.  I was unsure if I would feel a loss of connection with such major changes.  It was very peculiar, I have yet to absorb all the changes, there is still much to be done in the new house and garden.  As a visitor I felt very transient as if I would return again and all would be returned to how it was.  Maybe over time I will feel more of a loss or, as I hope, I will feel more comfortable with it all.

The journey to my parents is long and mostly on motorways, it makes for a dull drive, put this together with my apprehension it is hardly surprising that I set off well into the afternoon.  I spent the morning doing everything but actually packing.  The house was very clean and tidy when I left!

The time we were there was spent resting, knitting, talking, playing, visiting museums, going for walks, shopping, putting up shelves, unpacking boxes.  I didn't have to cook a meal for six nights it was a wonderful rest for me.  It gave my children a chance to catch up with their cousin.

We returned home on Friday, I would not have chosen to travel on that day but my husband, who did not travel to my parents with us, was off to the Middle East for a week on Saturday so we returned home to see him.  The roads were very busy and the journey took nearly twice as long as travelling down.

So my husband set off very early on Saturday morning and we spent the day at home playing, reading and in my case unpacking and decluttering.  I also spent some time thinking about what I am going to plant in the garden next year.  Sunday was more of the same I also fitted in some sewing and a visit to the garden centre for garlic cloves to plant out for next year.

Projects

Continuing the World War II theme which is engaging my eldest we have been on a visit to one of the RAF Museums.  I had to drive south from my parents to get there into the northern edge of London.  I don't think I have driven that way since I lived at home.  I am not a fan of driving in cities, I find the push and shove really daunting these days, but I managed to come out of it unscathed thank goodness for sat nav!

I took a camera out with me but completely failed to get it out of the bag, so no pictures.  The Musuem was busy as it was half term but it is so big there was room for everyone.  We visited a hanger of planes from World War II, a hanger charting the milestones in flight, a hanger of bombers from both World Wars and a brilliant interactive gallery with loads of hands on exhibits all to do with flight and flying, we spent over an hour in there at the end of our visit.

If you ever find yourself in that part of the world give the place a visit the museum is free but you pay a small amount for parking.  It is great for all ages!

Llanymynech

After a morning spent shopping in Oswestry we headed out the town in search of somewhere suitable to eat a picnic.  We ended up in Llanymynech a village which straddles the border between England and Wales, it runs down the high street.  In fact there was, it is now closed, a pub which straddled the border and it had two bars in England and one in Wales!

We found a car park next to the Montgomery Canal and headed off and found a picnic bench a few yards up right alongside the canal.  It was a lovely spot out of the wind and in the sun that had come out for us.  After we had eaten we headed off to explore a Heritage Area nearby.  What we found was a collection of wonderfully preserved buildings and much evidence of industry.  We only explored a small section of the area bit we did walk around in a huge Hoffman Kiln which was used to produce lime for industry.  The article I have linked to is old now as it talks about the kiln being overgrown, this is no longer the case, it has been restored and recovered with a large metal structure similar to what it would have looked like in its heyday.  There were many interesting interpretation boards which explained what the buildings were for and many signposts to help you walk round the site.  We only managed to look round a small part of it, I would love to returned and look round it some more in the future.  My eldest was intrigued and fascinated by all of it, after reluctantly joining us!  What better way to introduced children to industrial archaeology and history?

Montgomery

We have visited the delightful town of Montgomery today.  This small town is in Wales, close to the border with England.  It has a number of interesting buildings including a old gaol, an market square surrounded by imposing and very old houses and the remains of a castle high up on a hill next to the town.

We climbed the hill up to the castle the remains of which are interesting to explore.  It was destroyed over 400 years ago at the end of the civil war, but nonetheless there is still enough to see.  The views from the top were amazing as it was a bright sunny day.  We worked out we could see a nearby town Welshpool, which is about 7 miles away in one direction.  One the way down we picked blackberries there were still a few to be found, they made a fine crumble with apples for tea.

On returning to the town we visited one of the most amazing shops I have ever been into to, I have visited before but no visit to Montgomery is complete without looking round Bunners.  It describes itself as a hardware store which it essentially is but it is also an absolute warren of a shop and one which it would be easy to enter and difficult to find your way out, if you are not careful! They sell a massive range of so many things and if you ask if they have anything in stock they will take you too it.  I have no idea how they keep track of everything but it is a wonderful place to explore and difficult to leave empty handed.  I found some great biscuit cutters, a cup for my dad and a small present for my youngest today.

We had lunch in the delightful Castle Kitchen.  I ordered my children a sandwich each.  They were absolutely huge and came with a large salad and crisps.  They kindly gave us a bag for each to take home the uneaten half!  My beetroot and feta salad was also a generous portion and very tasty.

So if you ever find yourself in this part of the world, do go and visit this very interesting little town you will not be dissappointed.

Projects

We have had a busy enjoyable day out today, which had been a great end to a very very long week.  My eldest has rekindled his interest in World War II over the last few weeks.  This was his project of learning in the spring and early summer and we had many visits out during those months.  Most of the books he is borrowing from the library are now about this, his own books about this are being reread, all his daily drawings depict scenes he has been reading about, his made up Lego models are of vehicles from this time.  So I am back to looking for interesting places for us to visit to support his interest and learning.

So today we made a long journey to this place.  I had to be organised and make a picnic the night before, as we needed to set off early, at a time when we are usually just waking up!  It was a very cold morning at home so I packed for every type of weather, the boot was full of clothes.  I am glad I did as when we arrived it was a beautiful hot sunny day, so the first thing we did on arriving was to find the toilets and get changed.

The museum itself is on the site of a prisoner of war camp.  Each of the old huts has a theme, the Blitz, U Boats, Women's role during the war, etc.  Each hut is like a small museum.  There is a lot of written word in most of the huts, little of which got read by any of us today.  The snippets that I did manage to read I did share.  If you read all the information in every hut I think you would be overloaded.

Like all information from this period some of it makes for difficult reading and viewing.  It always leaves me feeling, why?  How can humans do this to each other?  In particular anything to do with the concentration camps.  I visited Auschwitz and Birkenau some years ago, even with all the reading I had done and pictures I had seen nothing can prepare you for seeing it for real.  At the end of the hut which contained pictures, very sensitively put into a small side room, of the concentration camps there was a chapel.  As I walked through I felt compelled to sit down and pause.  I needed to sit quietly and gather my thoughts, to make sense of what I had been reading in all of the huts.

In an ideal world we would have no wars, but I am realistic this world is not for idealists.  What I can do is help my children to understand why war is not the way to resolve conflict and that peaceful solutions can and should be sort.  I hope I can do this, one small step at a time.

Buddhism

We have been on a wonderful day out with friends today.  We meet up with them every week and this  week we were organised enough to plan a dry and wet day out.  The weather forecast was looking good for today so we planned on meeting up for our dry day plan.  We met in local village and travelled together in our car.  We were heading for a Buddhist Temple which had grounds to explore and a beach.

The temple is built next to a building which has an interesting history dating back hundreds of years.  There was a priory on the site of which there are no remains.  The building there now is a romantic gothic mansion which has been restored by the buddhist community after being neglected and unused for four years.  This building is used as a retreat centre and also a cafe and shop.

The temple itself is modern, built in a walled garden.  We spent some time inside, the children thought it was beautiful and spent some time just sitting and looking at the Buddhist statues and the beautiful artwork.

We fetched our picnic from the car and walked through woodland down to the beach where we spent much time eating and playing.

We returned home happy and tired, the weather was really hot all day a much welcome change from the cloud covered sky we have had for weeks. We have not seen so much blue sky for weeks.

I just loved this gargoyle over the main entrance to the building!

Steam

We have been to a steam gathering today. I had intended to leave the house fairly early as the weather was forecast to rain mid afternoon. Needless to say that did not happen. I think I should stop trying to leave the house by a certain time and just be happy with leaving whenever we are all ready.

We got to the site and the rain poured down, we sat in a queue for forty minutes and I started to wonder what on earth I was doing. The delay was caused by the field that they were using for parking. It has rained nearly every day for the last ten weeks or more. They were using tractors to pull cars off certain parts of the field, their usual very well organised traffic system had descended into chaos, no one had any idea where there were any spaces. We did find one eventually, on solid ground. The sun shone as we got out the car and stayed that way for the rest of the afternoon. We had a great time.

We saw Traction Engines.

Showman's Engines

Steam Lorries and Rollers. As well as the steam vehicles we saw vintage bicycles, motorbikes, wagons, tractors, military vehicles and cars like these Model T Fords.

We also watched lawn mower racing, my eldest watched this for ages.  They were very fast and very noisy, but fun!  It turned out to be a great day out.

We have been mainly........

out and about this week.  After a quiet week at home last week, we have gone to the other extreme this week, out every day of the week!

We started the week with our usual trip into town, this time without a break in shopping to visit the library.  It felt strange not to arrive home and spend time looking at new books.  The library was closed for refurbishment we will wait to see next week what has changed.

We had three play dates arranged for the week.  The first our long standing arrangement on Tuesday, the weather was really warm and much fun was had outside on the trampoline and wading in a local river.  On Wednesday we met a family for a picnic in the sunshine followed by a short walk along an old railway line nearby.  The flowers are now starting to emerge making the edges of the line a colourful tableau.

On Thursday we had a long day out.  We had to get up early which was not as hard as I was expecting.  Sometimes trying to get out of the house at a particular time is like swimming against the tide.  We had a train to catch, so could not be late.  After the train we caught a bus and arrived at our destination, a science museum.  For the next four hours we immersed ourselves in the world of science and industry.  Looking at and interacting with exhibits on gas, electricity, water, sewerage, recycling, aeroplanes, cars, working engines and locomotives.   We then did the same journey in reverse, a bus journey to the train station, a long walk across the station to our platform.  We were a bit early so sat in the waiting room and had a bite to eat, we had our backs to the platform I was rather shocked when we left the room to get on our train to find that the platform was chock full of people!  Luckily for us the train was going to two places and we needed to be on the fairly empty back part.  We arrived home very tired but all agreed it was a good day out.

On Friday we visited new friends at their house in a nearby city.  The children had fun playing inside and out, although the weather is starting to cool now and coats had to put on!

Over the weekend we went to a birthday party and