Blogs from West Midlands, England, United Kingdom, Europe - page 3

Sandy and I arrived in the UK last Saturday and made our way to Twickenham in time to catch the afternoon games of the London Rugby 7s. On Sunday, Canada finished in the top 8 and England finished 4th, losing to Ireland In the final game. We spent a hectic week visiting family and old school friends and are now sitting in Birmingham airport waiting for our flight to Paris for the final stop in the Rugby 7s World tour.... read more

Last night’s next door party finished at 5:30 am. It is another gloomy start but there are some promising breaks. Jane has offered to take us to Birmingham so we sit back, relax and enjoy the drive. It is Sunday and all is relatively quiet on the roads. Perhaps everyone is still recovering from last night’s party. Everything is straight forward until we get to Junction 5. Closed! Deviation! Oh help. We drive on to the next exit and leave the motorway. We notice Jane wants us to return to Junction 5. We can see ourselves spending the day circulating between Junction 4 and 6. We just have to defy Jane’s instructions and follow the deviation signs. Perhaps we’ll have an understanding navigator who will soon pick up on what is happening and guide us to ... read more

Hi Travel Lovers. We have now moved on from Shrewsbury to our 4th house sit at Cradley near Worcester (Worcestershire) and what a lovely couple the owners are. Their home is absolutely beautiful (see photo's) and was originally built in the 1750's with a few additions over the next 260 years. Other than that, we also paid a quick visit on the way to Ludlow where we have yet another house sit in October. It doesn't get any better!!! nce settled in at Cradley, we took the opportunity to do a mornings touring of a couple of the local heritage sites to the north. All within 15 miles. First it was Edvin Loach Old Church, Witley Court & Gardens plus the attached church ( with its beautiful interior) and then Leigh Court Barn. All spectacular in ... read more

Under 8 weeks until we fly out of Heathrow to Auckland to start our big New Zealand adventure. Busy planning our 9 days on North Island and 14 days on South Island so we don't waste a minute of our time. Excited to say the least!... read more

Geo: 52.4058, -1.51266The evening meal at Tally Ho inn last night was, as predicted, a hearty home cooked feast with a local beer to go with it. This morning was very foggy - nothing to do with the aforementioned ale - and we set off slowly along the lanes.Today's adventure was at Ironbridge and Jackfield in the Midlands. The Iron Bridge was built in 1779 and is very impressive. We didn't pay the toll of 1/2d as stated on the original toll charges. We walked from there to the tile museum, everything from roofing tiles through to highly decorative, modern styles. Lots of things that look like quilt patterns, and an amazing variety to be seen, including ones that are in tube stations and butcher shops.We then changed GPS mode from 'country lane' to 'motorway' and ... read more