After a weekend of  “Error establishing a database connection” my blog for now seems to be behaving itself and the engineers are looking into why the problem keeps recurring.  So what have I been doing whilst I have been away?  Taking advantage of the lovely sunny weather of course

On Saturday I had lunch, sitting in the shade watching the world go by at Attingham Park.  I then made the short journey to Wroxeter Roman City.  I particularly wanted to see the Roman Town House.  This was built for Chanel 4’s “Rome wasn’t built in a day”.  A team of 6 builders had the task of building the town house using traditional building methods.

The builders were aided in their quest by a manual on Roman building written by engineer Vitruvius 2000 years ago, and supervised by Professor Dai Morgan Evans, the project’s planner. The builders had just six months to master the skills and complete the town house.

The sun was so hot (85F) I took a bit of time out to sit in the shade with a cooling drink.  I was chilling out reading the guidebook only to be interupted by a couple joining me at the picnic table without so  much as a word of hello!  They immediately started bickering and I thought it was boyfriend and girlfriend until I looked up and realised it was mother and son…  Eventually they left and peace returned.

Afterwards I decided to make the short walk to St Andrew’s church in the nearby village.  It has an interesting history and it is a long time since I visited.  At one stage I was in danger of getting knocked over by an oncoming vehicle whose driver only slowed the vehicle down and came to a halt when the driver of another vehicle coming in the other direction slammed his brakes on and pulled to one side.  The first driver clearly hadn’t noticed me until then!  I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and retreated back to the ruins.  I will visit the church another day by car.

On Sunday the weather was still nice but not quite so hot, which was the perfect excuse for another little excursion.  This time to Stokesay Castle via Much Wenlock for lunch.  At Stokesay it was lovely to sit drinking tea outside enjoying the countryside and watching the birds picking up crumbs from underneath the tables.

The photos however will have to wait until I have finished showing my Malham excursion.