Is Ironbridge the best museum in the UK?

You may remember that I am a lifetime National Trust member. Whether we are tootling around the UK in Narrowboat Thuis, staying in a cottage on one of our long autumn holidays, or just being at home, there is nothing better for me than a day out to a stately home, or fascinating museum.

My NT card gives me free access to any of their properties which is great but the downside is that I resent paying to go to non-NT sites. One of those places I would have liked to visit but haven’t is Ironbridge, a small town near Telford, with about six museums celebrating their incredible industrial history. So you can imagine my delight last year when the Trust took over these museums. And on a very wet Saturday this week I went to see them.

I visited Jackfield Tile Museum, which was fascinating. I did not realise how complex tile making can be. I visited Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron, with many displays showing how this area became the centre of iron making. My favourite museum however was Blists Hill Victorian town. It is a village of Victorian buildings staffed by volunteer actors. I got to chat to the blacksmith, chemist, post master, policeman, draper, publican, baker and others about what it was like in Victorian times. The baker sells their own bread, the pub sells local beer, and best of all there is a reproduction fish and chip shop, with everything fried in beef dripping. I felt I had to sample the goods for my history education. Yummy.

It was a great day out. We are back travelling on the boat now, and moored in a village called Alrewas. It grew up around the canal, so much of it is Victorian. It also has a chip shop but fish and chips twice in a week is possibly too much. Possibly.

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Back on the boat but is there any water?

We have been back on Narrowboat Thuis for over a week now and as always it has been very relaxing. There is something about this boat that makes us say “aaaaah” when we get back here. This time, after six weeks of weddings, anniversaries, doctors, dentists, visitors, visits and people, people, people, it has been especially special to be back in our tin can. Mandy has been watching Midsomer Murders and doing her craft. I have been finding jobs to do and walking the dog. The big question we knew we would face was whether there would be enough water in the canals to travel.

It has been a summer of drought, and we have seen more and more canals and rivers closing to boat traffic. From where we are in Stone the Northern routes are largely blocked. The Caldon is closed. Heartbreak hill on the Trent & Mersey is closed. Bosley locks on the Macclesfield are closed (yet again). We can go South, but the Atherstone lock flight on the Coventry is closed, and the Trent looks challenging beyond Alrewas.

We decided to go out for a recce trip just down to one of our favourite moorings near Weston. It was lovely, very peaceful with few boats on the canal. On the return journey we needed to wind (turn around) just below Weston lock and that is where the reality of low water became obvious. The levels were really low and boat after boat was getting stuck leaving the lock. We made it out and Mandy did a great job of winding without getting caught in the mud. But it was tricky.

The irony now is that we have come back to the marina because there is too much rain. As I write this, the skies are completely dark, the rain is rattling across the roof, and there are huge crashes of thunder and lightning. It is certainly more exciting being in a boat in a storm than in a house, but it is not great for travelling.

Will it fill up the canals? Probably not. We need weeks of weather like this to recover properly. But maybe it will top us up enough to allow us to go on a slightly longer trip next week. I hope so.

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How do you keep friends through your whole life?

If you read this blog regularly you will know that my wife Mandy is a remarkable woman. She certainly knows how to look after me, with all my foibles. One thing I have always been impressed by is that she has stayed close to nine friends from school. At least once a year they go away together on a girls’ weekend and still get on after fifty years.

For the past few years one friend has been missing from the events. Mel and Iain went to live in Australia, which is a long way to come for a weekend. But this week they were visiting the UK, so all the girls and their partners caught up.

I can be a bit antisocial at parties, preferring to hide in a corner, or find an excuse for not coming, but it was genuinely lovely to get back together, The last time “us men” were together must have been over twenty years ago, when most of us had young children and we all went off to centerparcs.

How do the friends stay so close after all this time? I am terrible at staying in touch. There were several of my friends at our Ruby Wedding celebration that I had not seen or spoken to for many many years. I expect the answer is making the effort. Mandy says it is not hard to send a note on a birthday, or pick up the phone. I’d love to make a commitment to change and do better, but realistically I probably won’t.

So I will just admire Mandy and her friends instead. Remarkable.

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What makes a great party?

When I was six, I knew what a great party required – icecream and balloons. When I was sixteen I knew what a great party required – girls and beer. When I was twenty six most parties included dancing although with my uncoordinated body I tendered to avoid.. I am sixty two now, my world has moved on, but on Saturday night we had one of the best parties of my life – for Mandy and my Ruby Wedding Anniversary.

What made this one such a great party? Well we did have balloons and icecream – with my home made brownies. And we did have beer. There was dancing, albeit a Ceilidh, which suited me, rather than a sweaty boogie. But what made it so special was the people. We had nearly a hundred friends and family from the past forty years, many of whom we had not seen for a very long time.

Everyone joined in and everyone enjoyed themselves. Our sons and their families organised the decoration and sorted the food (pie and peas because we are in Lancashire). The boys even made a beautiful speech. I got to spend at least a little time with pretty much everyone, and overall it was simply a magical occasion.

Thank you to everyone that came and helped us celebrate our very special day. It was quite a party.

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Are twelve trains too many for a day trip?

Warning: train geek blog this week. Strap in.

You may know that I like trains. I am not a train spotter because I don’t collect numbers and don’t recognise locomotives. Instead I am very happy sitting on a train by a window just watching the world go by. For my 60th birthday I spent a month interrailing all around Europe on trains and I absolutely loved it. But until this week I had never been on 12 trains in a day.

On Tuesday I set off at 6am with my brother in law Stephen and my elder son, Robbie. Stephen and I had discovered some bargain train tickets called “Ffestiniog Round Robins” which allowed a circular trip all around North Wales, including the famous Ffestiniog narrow gauge steam railway.

First we had to get to the area, so we took a local train from Kirkham & Wesham to Preston, and then the big Avanti West Coast Inter City down to Warrington. Here we caught our first Welsh trains to Chester and then along the coast to Llandudno Junction. Llandudno itself is a pretty seaside town but the junction is a more grim, rundown area that used to house a big railway works and a Hotpoint washing machine factory. Here we found the best value cooked breakfast I have had in a very long time. For £7.99 we got goood quality sausages, bacon, egg, beans, buttered toast and a cup of coffee. Yum.

Feeling sated we hopped onto the next train, back inland through beautiful Welsh hills to Blaenau Ffestiniog. Blaenau was once home to many slate mines, and you can see the big tips of slate as you pass. These days it is much more of a tourist destination and as we arrived at the steam train we were not surprised to see many tourist coaches offloading trippers for the journey to Porthmadog. I love the smell and nostalgia of steam locomotives and knew I would enjoy this stretch, but had not expected the spectacular views. The train clings to the side of a mountain and you can see for miles across the valley floor as it winds around the contours.

Porthmadog was heaving with holidaymakers, filling the streets, the tat shops and amusement arcades. I had hoped to get fish and chips from a shop that is famous for multiple kinds of curry sauce. I am not normally allowed to eat curry at home because Mandy hates the smell, but I thought I could get away with a little chip sauce at lunchtime. But Steve and Robbie preferred the idea of a picnic, so we picked up french bread, ham, brie and salami for lunch on the next train.

The line from Porthmadog to Machynlleth is a beautiful stretch of coastline. It is peppered with static caravan parks, and the train was packed with their occupants, enjoying a traditional British holiday. The air conditioning was not working so it was a bit of a sauna, but I still loved looking out to sea. From Machynlleth the trains to Shrewsbury and then Chester were not much better, so by the time we got to Chester we really fancied a cold beer. Robbie googled a proper craft beer pub sitting amongst the victorian station architecture, but our train was late, so we grabbed some IPA cans from the pub and caught our trains to Warrington and then back to Preston.

By the time we had enjoyed the final train back to Kirkham, it was getting late, and we were peckish again, so picked up the biggest kebabs I have ever seen, from Jononi Balti. It was a wonderful end to a wonderful day. But maybe twelve trains was just too many.

What do you think?

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How do I get back my walking fitness?

For the past year, while Ziggy Dog has been unwell, the lengths of my walks have reduced. Now that I just have Lulu I thought I would get back to it. So on Thursday I took her out to do a chunk of he Ribble Way in Preston.

It was a lovely day. The weather was mild. The countryside was beautiful. I got to pretended I was a train on the old tram route into the city. But after 3 miles Lulu had had enough, and got back in the car with Mandy. And after 6 miles I too was knackered.

This is a far cry from the days when I did many long distance walks including the Pennine Way and Wainwright’s Coast to Coast. In those days, 6 miles would be the first fast stretch before breakfast.

So what is the problem? I suppose that at 12 (Lulu) and 62 (me) we are not quite the young pups we once were. I think I need to learn not to push Lulu too hard. We went on a longish walk together when we were in Scotland and it took her three days to recover.

But that is no excuse for me. I may be older and more rotund, but I can definitely regain some of my walking legs. So rather like runners do with Couch to 5k (I hate running) I think I need to build up to longer walks step by step. They will mostly be flat walks when we are out on the boat because canals tend to avoid hills, but when the boating season ends I can try a bit more up and down. Time to see if my new blood pressure tablets are working.

All fine words, but as my Dad used to say “Good intentions butter no parsnips”. Let’s see if there is any action.

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RIP Ziggy

Our dog Ziggy passed away this week. I thought long and hard about whether to write about her in this blog. It is not really the cheery vibe I am used to. Some people will question why it is such a big deal. She was only a dog. Other people will object to having their own sad memories triggered. But I have decided that writing about something else would be disrespectful to Ziggy. She deserves a few words.

We chose Ziggy and her sister Lulu from a litter of Cairn Terriers born in Doncaster in August 2014. Actually, she chose us, walking over to ask to be picked up and cuddled. She was never the most elegant of dogs. She had a broken leg as a puppy because her bones grew too fast, and always walked with a strange gait, rather like muffin the mule. She had big brown eyes that frankly could get her anything she wanted. And what she usually wanted was sausages.

Lulu was our mad dog – chasing squirrels and snarling at the world. Ziggy on the other hand was quiet and loyal. There was nothing she enjoyed more than a “Ziggy cuddle”, where she lay on her back in my arms, with her head dangling to one side.

I would take the dogs on long walks. They particularly enjoyed the West Highland Way and the Southern Upland Way. Lulu would charge ahead till she got tired, and Ziggy would stay close to heel, hoping for treats. We went on long holidays to Scottish islands – Skye, Orkney, Islay and Uist. They loved beaches where they could run a round like mad things.

And both dogs have always liked being on Narrowboat Thuis, their home from home. Ziggy would sit on the back deck of the boat, watching the world go by, while Lulu scanned the towpath for something to bark at. In the evening Ziggy would try to push her luck, asking for an early tea because she was sooooo hungry.

Two years ago she was diagnosed with multiple cancers and given three months to live. The vets have been amazed how our miracle dog in fact survived nearly two years, and had such a happy time. The last few months were more difficult. She was dosed up with pain killers and couldn’t come on those long walks with her sister anymore. But until a couple of weeks ago she was still clearly a contented and happy dog. In the end I think she had finally had enough but obviously it has been very sad to let her go.

But I refuse to leave Ziggy with sad thoughts. My phone screen saver provides random photographs of the dogs and I was worried seeing Ziggy would upset me. But as I see her again, I am reminded of so very many happy memories. She was the best.

Rest in peace my wonderful, loyal, cuddly dog Ziggy.

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Ten reasons I am so happy to be back in Scotland

We are having a week’s holiday in a cottage in Linlithgow this week. The cottage is sadly quite run down, which is disappointing, but despite that we are having a really wonderful time. Here are ten reasons I am so happy to be back in Scotland.

  1. It feels like home. As soon as we crossed the border there was an intangible feeling of relaxation. And as we got closer to where we used to live in West Lothian, we kept seeing memories that reminded us what a great place this is.
  2. The countryside is stunning. Our bricks and mortar house is on the Fylde and these are many pretty areas, including the beach and the Trough of Bowland. But Scotland is simply more dramatic, with hills and lochs. We love it.
  3. We like the Scots. While many of them may have incorrectly supported Argentina in the recent football game, we find Scottish people friendly and helpful. I am not surprised the Americans loved them so much in that same football competition.
  4. Our son and family live here. The main reason to spend a week here this time, was to spend time with Martin, Cheryl, Leah and Nathan. We have the challenge that one of our sons lives near Brighton, and the other in Scotland. We live half way between them, but the trouble is that means we are too far from both of them. It has been lovely to share time with M, C, L, N this week, and we hope to have proper time with Robbie and Alessa in a few week’s time.
  5. Leah and Nathan are the closest thing to grandchildren we are likely to find. Unfortunately Robbie and Tin (Martin) are unlikely to have their own children, but Cheryl’s kids are wonderful to send time with. Leah (16) is turning into a proper artist, with every type of craft, from yarn to paint. Nathan (12) is passionate about football. We have loved spending time with them.
  6. We lived in Uphall for nearly ten years, and made some good friends. This week we also went up to the farm in Fife, to have fish and chips with our niece Rachel, her husband Rob and children Fred and Thomas. We always love their company.
  7. It is cooler than England. The UK is in the middle of yet another heat wave, but Scotland is further north and has been pleasant rather than oppressive. Still warm enough for shorts and t shirts but not so hot we have to seek out shops with air con.
  8. It has the infrastructure of a large country, but the population of a small one. That means you can find anything here that you want to see or do, but the roads are quiet, the footpaths are quiet and no-one seems to be in a hurry.
  9. I love the history. Whether it is remembering the English defeat in the interactive museum at Banockburn. Or trying to visualise what it would have been like in a mining village in Lothian. Or admiring the fine streets of Edinburgh or Glasgow. There is always something to engage the brain cells.
  10. It is a nation of many identities. Every town or area of Scotland seems to have its own accent and own culture. Edinburgh is quite different from Glasgow, despite being a few miles apart. The islands are different from the mainland. The Hebrides are different from the Northern Isles. The Outer Hebrides are different than the Inner Hebrides. Lewis & Harris are quite different from Uist and Eriksay. Round every corner there are new people to meet and new things to learn.

I am not saying the Scotland is perfect. The diet for instance is not the most healthy, but once in a while a battered mac ‘n’ cheese pie roll is just what you want. And why not?

We are back down to England next week, but will return to Scotland in the Autumn for a month near Pitlochry. I think one day, when we no longer use Narrowboat Thuis, we may move back for good. What a lovely place.

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What do you do when your “to do” list is empty?

We came back to the house from the boat on Monday, and as always there was a long list of jobs for me to do. I love a “to do” list. There is something very satisfying about ticking them off one by one.

The car has been washed, the shopping done, the garden has been pruned and tidied. I have been on some lovely walks, digitised my great uncle’s military records, paid my outstanding tax from last year (£1.80!) . I have spent too much money on things I needed from Amazon, drilled some holes with my new drill, deleted old clips from my dashcam. I knew I was scraping the barrel on my list when I even tidied the freezer.

As of today, there are just three things left – book a boiler service for the central heating, book a skiing holiday for January, and learn to fly my drone. The first of these can’t be done for a couple of weeks because I set up a service contract (it was on my list) and it does not start till 21st. The second is a problem because I think Mandy is not keen on going, and I am nervous of poor snow. Learning to fly my drone has been on the list since I was gifted it three years ago but the one time I tried I crashed it, so am not sure what to do.

The best solution is to add more to the list. I can even cheat by including things that require no work. For instance I am going to an outdoor play this evening at Lytham Hall. That can go on the list. We are going to Scotland next week, to spend time with our son Tiny and his family. That should generate multiple list entries.

I do love being retired. When I was working, my home “to do” list had too be squeezed into evenings and weekends. Now I have so much flexibility I can choose pretty much anything I want to do. My work “to do” list used to make me feel important. “Find half a million pounds of cost savings” sounds better than “tidy freezer” but in a strange way is not really more satisfying.

But I do still love my list. I think today I will start with “write my blog”.

What about you? Do you like to live by a list or is that just for weird people like me?

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Is finishing a Narrowboat trip an end, a beginning, or just a pause?

I am writing this while eating a wonderful cooked breakfast at the Saracens Head in Weston, Staffordshire. As we have travelled the UK navigations over the past five years we have found certain places where we always moor for favourites. Weston for breakfast or a pub quiz. High Offley for beer. Rugeley for Tescos. Tixall Wide for the birds and Shugborough Hall. Middlewich for Fish and Chips. It has become less about exploring the new and more about reprising what we love.

The latest trip over the past two months has been a good example of this. We have done the Four Counties Ring many times, and the Caldon canal a couple of years ago. It has been lovely to go back and see so many old haunts. I discovered new places such as the Flint Mill Museum in Cheddleton, and Congleton Town hall. And of course no day is ever the same on a boat. But it has still been a comfort blanket of a trip this time.

And now we re heading back to the Marina and then onwards to bricks and mortar for a month. The end of a trip always gives us mixed feelings. Should we feel sad because this is the end of our latest adventure? Or should we be excited because we are going back to a holiday in Scotland, dentist and doctor appointments, neighbourhood barbecue, car service, three visits to the cricket and our Ruby Wedding party? Or is this just a pause on our Narrowboat life? In just a few weeks we will be back and probably heading down to Gloucester.

I think all three are valid emotions. We are just so very lucky to be able to have such a retirement. The breakfast is pretty good too.

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