All Aboard for Christmas Shopping

Yesterday we set off towards Lichfield in the hopes of finally completing the shopping for presents. I really like Lichfield; although it is a city it is small and compact and easy to walk around. It was looking particularly festive as we walked around especially the market place.

Here the shouts of 'two bags of bananas for £1' competed with the music from a children's carousel and carols from the nearby church and heritage centre. The house you can see just at the top of the photo behind the Christmas Tree is Dr Samuel Johnson's birthplace museum.

We found three presents almost immediately and so decided it was time for coffee and carrot cake at the nearby Garrick Theatre, named after the 18th century actor David Garrick who, like Samuel Johnson, spent his childhood in Lichfield.

Then it was time to hunt out some more Christmas purchases. We wandered back towards the car park via the Cathedral - I thought it looked lovely through the branches of the tree. As we walked across The Close towards the building a lady in 18th century costume stopped us and asked would we like to visit Erasmus Darwin's house where there were carol singers, mulled wine and mince pies. We popped inside for a few minutes just to listen to the choir and have a quick look around the ground floor - we had visited a couple of times before and would have liked to stay a while longer but we were due back at the car park and had one other place to visit before we returned home.

I took this photo of the Cathedral from the herb garden at Darwin's house and the one below from the entrance passage to the back of the house.

We drove out of Lichfield towards Burton-on-Trent and found our next destination - the Marina at Barton-under-Needwood.

We parked near a lake where these two young swans were waiting, along with lots of other waters birds, in the hope that we had food for them. Unfortunately we hadn't but many people had come prepared.

As we walked up towards the Marina and the shops we passed this lovely fountain or water feature.

We had great fun looking around the 'Toys of Yesteryear' and a wonderful food shop called 'The Butcher, The Baker and The Ice-Cream Maker' but my favourite shop was the one below...

The Book Barge was open for business and what lovely books they had on board. It was very strange browsing the shelves whilst the boat moved gently on the water.

I'm pleased to say we came home with all the items ticked off our list. Now they all have to be wrapped and delivered!

Thoughts on a Journey

I think the greatest impression I have of the journey along the Manchester Ship Canal is that of the contrast of the old and the new, the commerce and leisure and the urban and rural landscapes along its 35 miles. The journey itself took almost 6 hours during which time we passed from the glossy, modern buildings at the start of the journey to the impressive older buildings at the end. The first bridge lifted to let us pass from the quay into the canal and we moved sedately by the Lowry. the Imperial War Museum, the Hovis grain silo and the huge building site which is to be the new BBC studios and on to our first lock. There were five locks in all, three in fairly quick succession at the beginning of the journey. The last took us from the canal into the tidal River Mersey and we had to wait here a while for the tide to be at the exact level to make that move.

Although I had my camera with me, and I took the photograph of the ferry in the last post, once on board I decided to let Paul take the photos as the boat was very busy and seats were at a premium so he dotted about whilst I remained seated using my trusty binoculars to take in some of the views. We cruised steadily past scrap metal heaps and new canal side apartments with little balconies where people waved from open windows. I think most of all I remember the open countryside, the place where the River Mersey joined and then left the canal, the soaring railway and road bridges, especially the beautiful road bridge at Runcorn and the cantilever bridge near Warrington, the wildlife - a heron flying alongside the ferry, a buzzard on a post giving us a lugubrious stare, plovers, geese and kingfishers.

Here are just some of the sights we captured along the way:-









I have one special photograph which I am going to put in a separate post because I think it is outstanding enough to warrant it and it was one of my favourite sights on the whole journey.

The last few days

On Sunday we decided to drive to Leek over the Roaches past the 'winking man' and on to Buxton. There was still a lot of snow around on the hills but Buxton itself was wet and slushy.

We had a wander around the town, a mug of coffee and a muffin in the shopping centre and then walked up to the Pavilion. There were some beautiful orchids in the glass house.

Then we drove back over the hills via Earl Sterndale, into Hartington and back towards home. The views were spectacular.

Today we decided to drive over to the Air Museum at RAF Cosford to see the new displays but when we got there we were diverted by the police because there was a security alert at the air base and museum. We ended up for lunch at Norbury Junction and looked at the canal boats instead.

Oh well, boats instead of planes. The lunch was very tasty but the weather was very cold.

Off to Nottingham tomorrow to visit some friends one of whom is just starting up a blog - so watch this space for a link.