52 Weeks of Happy - Week 38

Where has the time gone?  This week has passed by so quickly!  We've had one or two outings including a walk around Shugborough (see my last post) a visit to Stoke Minster (post to follow) and a walk at Greenways Country Park (perhaps a post to follow)  Here are four happy things from the week.

 

 1.  Friendly Robin - the robin came and perched near us whilst we were sitting drinking our coffee in a seating area on the boardwalk at the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust's Wolesley Centre on Wednesday (see my last post).  I quickly took a photo.  It wasn't until I looked at the photo on the computer that I could read the dedication on the seat - happy Threlfall family!

 2.  Straight from the tree -damsons and apples freshly picked from their trees at the Shugborough Estate.  A volunteer gardener had just brought them in baskets to the produce sales area and was putting them into bags for people to take away - we gave a donation for a bag of damsons which made four pots of jam and an apple and damson crumble.  The apples were so delicious - they brought back childhood memories of freshly picked apples from Auntie Ruth's orchard.  Tart and sweet at the same time, thin skins and crunchy flesh.  So unlike the thick skinned, tasteless and woolly fleshed apples that come from the supermarket.  I haven't enjoyed eating an apple so much in ages.

3.  Moss and Lichen - I have a thing about old stone walls covered in moss and lichen and we saw plenty on our walk on Saturday which was around the Greenways country park at Knypersley.  We were there for nearly three hours and it was a wonderful morning walking under the trees, climbing up to the folly, discovering the memory tree and spotting grebes on the lake and cormorants roosting in the trees. 

4.  Longevity?  - This memorial stone in the Minster churchyard made me smile because there amongst the Wedgwoods and Spodes were Sibil and Henry Clarke who both, according to the stonemason, lived to 112.  The stone is dated 1684 - which is a date I remember from my school history books as the year the Bank of England was founded and the year before Charles II shuffled of his mortal coil. I can never remember if his last words were  'gentlemen,pardon me for being such a long time a-dying' or 'let not poor Nelly starve' but I digress.  Who were Henry and Sibil Clarke?  Husband and wife?  Brother and sister?  Father and daughter?  Mother and son?  Did they really both live to be 112? Did they both die in 1684?  Did the stonemason make a mistake with the ages?  Wouldn't it be nice to know.

Linking up with  Little Birdie  where  '52 weeks of Happy' started. Each week you find just four things that have made you happy to share.