Spring break

There were still lots of snowdrops in flower in Shropshire last week; these are in the moat of Stokesay Castle, one of the few "visitor attractions" open before the end of March.

While we were in the area, we went to find some of the places where earlier generations of the family lived. This is All Saints church at Wribbenhall, where my grandmother's grandmother was buried in 1891, and my grandmother's great grandparents were buried in 1879 and 1873. We did not find any memorials with their names on, but there were a lot of illegible headstones. The church was locked, but further along the road we found the Great Western Inn, which my great great grandmother inherited from her sister in 1881 - it was this inn which enabled my great great grandfather to become a "gentleman", rather than the policeman, coal dealer, and cab owner he had previously been.

The Wyre Forest was a magic place to walk in. The only time we'd been there before was for an orienteering event in the 1980s. A wonderful place to spend 2 or 3 hours exploring, even using only a 1:25000 OS map.
We did our usual holiday thing, pottering about, visiting some interesting museums, castles, and gardens, walking, and stopping for coffee and cake rather too often. When planned, the week was likely to be early spring, flowers opening, bit of sunshine - in the event it was perishing cold, and it even snowed the day we walked along the river from Ironbridge. I managed to leave my walking shoes at home as well as my family history notes, took too many clothes I never wore, and lived in my thickest jumper, Rohan fleece and my thick cream fleece hat. Do you ever go away with exactly what you use, nothing more or less?
Super break - now sadly back to work again on Monday.