Helen Keller

This year is the 40th anniversary of Snugburys. To celebrate, in addition to the main willow sculpture there some smaller sculptures featuring artworks from previous.

It would have been rude not to make the effort to visit so we met with a friend of Mr C and made a day of it, stopping for lunch at Chestnut Meats farm shop and café. I chose a brie and cranberry toasty whilst Mr C and his friend both chose a steak sandwich. Two steaks were selected from the meat counter and the sandwiches when they arrived were enormous!

On arrival at Snugburys we followed the wild flower walk where the smaller sculptures are dotted along the pathway leading to the main sculpture which is currently Paddington Bear. After the walk it was time for ice cream. I chose lavender and honey which was delicious.

Last week when I was volunteering at Attingham Park Mr C visited Shrewsbury and whilst he was there he noticed the ‘Knife Angel’ in the square. This reminded me that I had been meaning to visit the Angel in Shrewsbury, but with other things going on I had forgotten about it.

The following day Mr C suggested that after lunch we visited Shrewsbury so that I could see it. We drove through the town to get to our car park of choice. As we passed the square we saw that the ‘Angel’ had flown and was no longer there. I later found out that earlier in the day it had returned home to the British Ironwork Centre.

We quickly formulated ‘Plan B’, a visit to Shrewsbury Abbey. We had been in the Abbey on two previous occasions, one for the inauguration of the Cadfael window and then a few years later for the Easter Sunday service.

We enjoyed our visit, learning about the current architecture and the original extent of the abbey before parts of it were destroyed. There are several interesting tombs including one for Richard Onslow, former speaker of the house of commons who died in 1571.

When we had finished exploring the Abbey it was too early to go home so we dropped by the Riverside Inn at Cound where we enjoyed a glass of something cool and refreshing sitting on the terrace overlooking the river and the Wrekin beyond.

Paddington Bear (Michael Bond)

After lunch on our first visit to Wappenshall Wharf we drove to Birmingham to get another stamp in my Cathedral passport. Parking in Birmingham became a challenge. Many roads are closed due to work on the HS2 and neither the diversion signs or the in-car SatNav were able to help navigate the mess. We ended up going round in circles. Eventually we found a way to our usual car park but our afternoon challenges did not end there.

We arrived at the Cathedral to find a service was about to start. This wasn’t obvious before entering the Cathedral. We decided to leave and come back later when the service had finished. This was our third attempt at getting my passport stamped. On the first occasion the Cathedral was locked due to children practicing for  a concert. We were advised by a teacher waiting outside that the practice session had overrun. On our second attempt we were able to enter the Cathedral but there was no-one around that could help with a passport stamp or the purchase of a guidebook.

On this, our third attempt the only church official available after the service was in deep conversation with a member of the congregation. As we waited we noticed some (passport?) stickers and a guidebook on the the ‘Welcome Desk’. I applied a sticker to my passport, paid some money and took the guidebook.

All was not lost, I enjoyed seeing the artwork ‘The New Nativity 2025′. The New Nativity Set was commissioned by Birmingham Cathedral to weave together the stories of the Birth of Jesus at Christmas, the heritage of Birmingham, the stories of the cathedral community, and the needs of the world.

I left the Cathedral feeling unfulfilled with the uncomfortable feeling that (after three attempts) the Cathedral Church of St Philip was not welcoming me…

Since it opened in December we have been meaning to visit the Welldeck café at the newly restored Wappenshall Wharf. We finally got round to visiting in July. We enjoyed it so much that we have been back a couple of times since our first visit.

After the canals were abandoned by an Act of Parliament in 1944, they were left to fall into disrepair. In 1968, the wharf was sold by British Waterways to a coal merchant, who used the site for a decade before selling it to a truck repair business.

Telford & Wrekin Council bought it in 2008 and later leased it to our Trust on a 125-year peppercorn rent. Since then, our volunteers have worked tirelessly to bring the East Basin back into water, restore the smaller warehouse, and transform it into a café and meeting place.

I am still in the land of the living, it has just been too hot to sit inside and work through my holiday photos.

We have been out for lunches and found a new nearby ‘Happy Place’ for lunch. I have also taken the opportunity of the morning and late afternoon light outside on the patio to get back into colouring. This work in progress is now complete, I just need to get the right lighting to photograph it.

Edith Pattou