Tolkien’s inspiration for Durin’s Door was a little too far away for a Saturday afternoon excursion so I looked for inspiration in ‘The Churches of Shropshire & Their Treasures’ to find inspiration for suitable doorways that were fitting for the presentation of my medals for completing  ‘The Fellowship’ and ‘Mines of Moria’ challenges.

Within the books pages I found St Mary’s Church, Edstaston which has Norman doorways that could quite easily have inspired the doorways to and within the Mines of Moria. The doors shown here are original and feature fine Norman iron-work.

Unfortunately the church was not open so I was unable to go inside and share the treasures within.

I entered the Mines of Moria through Durin’s door. I then navigated my way through the mines meeting hazards along the way, to face one last hurdle where to my dismay a wizard went over the edge at Durin’s Bridge. Once on the other side of the bridge I was able to claim my medal.

Then after a brief rest I started on the next part of my journey, ‘The Eye of Sauron’…

My medal for the second stage of my Lord of the Rings challenge has arrived.

I travelled from Bree  to Rivendell where I accepted the challenge to carry the One Ring to Mordor, At Rivendell a Fellowship, the Fellowship of the Ring was forged to help me on my quest.

The Fellowship has now arrived at Durin’s door. The doorway leads into the mines of Moria. Gandalf is figuring out what magic is needed to open the keyless elven door.

We set off later than we intended, stopping at Warwick services for lunch. The place was heaving, so we picked up some sandwiches and drinks for an in-car picnic before continuing on our journey, which took us to a small village called Brill. Brill was Tolkien’s inspiration for the village of Bree in Lord of the Rings.

Much to the bemusement of the locals I had my photograph taken with my Shire medal from my recently completed walking challenge. Afterward, as we we were driving along the motorway a Red Kite swooped down, swooping back up only just in time to miss hitting our car. Phew!

On arrival in Windsor we found the Hotel’s offsite car park then made our way to the hotel, Sir Christopher Wren to check in. We took our suitcases to the room before setting off for a cuppa and a walk around Windsor.

Back at the hotel we freshened up before dinner at The Boatman, a place we had dined on a previous visit to Windsor. We had a pre-dinner Prosecco whilst waiting for our food to arrive. Unfortunately the waiter got Mr C’s order wrong and the Roast Beef he ordered arrived as a Roast Chicken portion which he particularly did not want. There were no more roast meals left so he settled for fish and chips instead. There was no real apology, discount or sweetener for the error.

We returned to the hotel bar in order to use the free drinks vouchers we had received for making our hotel reservation direct with the hotel. The bar staff said the bar would be shutting early because it wasn’t very busy that night. This was to the dismay of at least 10 people who turned up just before the bar shut at 10 o’clock.

My medal for completing the first stage of my Lord of the Rings challenge has arrived. I promise to try to keep the ring secret and safe until I can throw it into the fires of Mount Doom. I am making good progress on the next stage of my journey which takes me to the Doors of Durin.

In other news I have completed  my walking challenge of 100 miles for May’s National Walking month. My June challenge is step based and to achieve this challenge goal I will have to increase my average daily mileage by 0.75 miles.

Wish my luck