Rocking Your World - 29th of 2020

Good Morning lovely people tis Friday time for 

so this time last week me and hubby were heading off to our old home town of Stafford for what should have been a weekend of culture with a Shakespeare play, alas like many other things it has been postponed until next year but I had no option to cancel the hotel, so we decided to venture anyway.

We headed off at 10am and went straight to Shugborough which is a national trust property on the outskirts of Stafford (somewhere back in the depths of time we had membership to the farm which we used to take said 19 year old when he was younger than 4). 

This is the tower of the winds in the grounds themselves, closed up due to Covid at the moment

We had a wander around the gardens and grabbed a selfie

There are also some strange carvings in the grounds

and some lovely structures

I've always loved the oriental building and the red bridge

It was the first time we'd ever been in the walled garden (we didn't even know that it existed), the house that you can see was the old head gardeners house).

Blue skies eventually as it was rather dark when we first got there, this is the back of the house which is mighty grey in my honest opinion but still pretty against the sky.  It was the ancestral home of Lord Lichfield who I believe was the Queen's cousin, very famous photographer, we've been in the house before and there is still lots of his camera equipment in the house to see.

another shot of the head gardeners house, the triangular shape is where there was an original glass house leant against the house.

The druid statue on the ruins overlooking the river, I assume the ruins were a Victorian folly although I'm sure I read that the stones used came from the original manor house that sat on the site. 

Then around 3pm we headed off to our hotel, we got there fine but were amazed at the quantity of house building that was happening in and around Stafford, we think it has become something of a commuter town for Birmingham in all honesty as the major employers have all gone. 

We had a lovely meal on the Friday night in the restaurant.  Saturday dawned and we headed to Blist Hill for a wander; if you've not been it is a Victorian town that operates as it would in its heyday, a living museum, they'd gone to extra lengths to keep us safe and some of the shops that didn't have an 'in and out' were still closed up but with genius signs on the doors to explain away the closure. 

These are all out of order so apologies if you do know the site

This was the view from the table where we grabbed our early morning coffee (much needed). 

Hubby as we started the walk up the hay incine plane (a method of transporting goods - usually coal) up and down steep hillsides to the river below, this one linked with the Canal at Blist Hill, the weight of the heavy load going down one side raised the empty one on the other side to be filled with coal before being lowered to the bottom to the boats on the River Severn

I've always loved the squatters cottage

This was the sign outside the haberdashery

Me and hubby before we ascended the incline plane

 I bought some of these genius signs for our black and white wall at home

The boat on the left was designed for breaking up the ice on the River Severn, up to 20 horses would pull the boat from the side of the river and the middle platform men would stand and rock the boat back and forth to break up the ice

Blist hill on our canal walk back along 

The locksmiths actually had a volunteer to chat to (which is the first time ever), he was really chatty and informative and told us that locksmiths were incredibly poor, making and selling their locks to big locksmith companies that made the profit, they often had 2 apprentices that they took on from poor houses, but as such that meant the market was flooded with locksmiths (think about the doubling issue with Covid, if 2 apprentices take on 2 apprentices once they were qualified the 2 becomes 4 becomes 16 etc etc quite quickly).  They often had to have a side hustle to make ends meet as the money made selling locks this week was often used to buy supplies for next week. 

I loved the accidentally adjacent statement on this one, apparently the manager at Blist Hill is a trained graphic designer and he put the posters together in the correct style and dotted them around the site, they definitely raised a chuckle. 

This is Jack Sampson, the blacksmith at Ironbridge (he has an instagram feed under the same name if you want to follow his work), we had a lengthy chat with him, qualified to degree level from Hereford University, he was making barley corn in metalwork, mesmerising to watch. 

Me and hubby

Hubby had a beer from pub early in the day, look at that happy mischievous look

We had a fabulous day and have to thank Ironbirdge and Blist Hill for making us feel very safe in these difficult times and allowing us to have a brill time. 

We had a wander around Stafford before our evening meal 

The main church is so pretty

and the walk along one of the back streets

We split our journey home up on the way back and stopped off at Chatsworth having pre-booked the week before, we were treated to blue skies and managed to stay off the beaten path

The house looked splendid with is shiny gold windows

Grabbed a selfie after our epic weekend away

An up close view of the house

Oh and a shot of the church at Stafford, I said it was putting them in a random order - sorry

The rest of the week has tripped along, Monday we had a day off just to recover from the weekend and return to normal (if that makes sense). 

I hit two years of not drinking alcohol this week which I'm mighty proud of if I'm honest (although hubby's wine last weekend did smell mighty fine). 

Said 19 year old and his girlfriend have returned for a few weeks (they are now able to split their time between the two houses, but do it for several weeks at a time to minimise risk). 

Our locality has seen an increase in cases recently, so they've advised everyone to get tested whether you have symptoms or not as they try and suppress the spread, so grateful to receiving the postal tests via Amazon (which did make me giggle) and getting them sent off yesterday, not that any of us feel poorly just because we've been asked to do it. 

and that my lovely people was the week that was, hope you've had a grand week, if you fancy joining in pop back and link up so we can come and visit, I think we have got comments flowing through again, although not sure if Lisca sent one last week, I can't remember lol.