Blogs from Cheshire, England, United Kingdom, Europe

After the long walk back from the Museum it was time to have a well-deserved coffee. We arrived at the Cathedral. A low squat building surrounded in parts with scaffolding. It was so cold and there was so little to see we did not bother to take photographs . Perhaps next time. The cathedral began its life as a Benedictine monastery dedicated to Saint Werburgh. The is the name I know it by rather than the mouthful of Christ and the Blessed Virgin. Mind you perhaps St Werburgh is a mouthful too. That Mercian saint with a massive name . We struggled to find the entrance which was tucked in at the front of the building. Normally we would stand outside and admire the doorway into the cathedral in the same way as we have done ... read more

We had a plan to day but it was thwarted by the weather . For July it is dreadful . It threatens rain every day . The skies are overcast . That complete covering of grey with little to relieve it . The plan had been to do something most days . Hodnet Hall - only opens in the summer months on a Wednesday . Each week something else got in the way . Looked it the same would happen today . Cholmondeley Castle Gardens - again summer opening only . This time Thursdays only. By the time mid morning had come around we just had to go out somewhere . In the end we got in the car and just drove . Across the border into England . To a small hamlet called Bruera . ... read more

"They are building a church over there " I could imagine the conversations going on in Farndon and Holt just across the river in the 14th century. The villagers would have looked across the River Dee and perhaps envy crept in . The two villages are just a stones throw from each other separated by the river Dee and the medieval bridge that crossed between two worlds . England on one side and Wales on the other. Two different cultures . Two different languages and just a few hundreds yards between them . There was a church in Saxon England at Farndon and a church was mentioned in the Domesday Book . Holts church was built around the 1200's. I imagined the conversations " If they can afford a church then we need to build one ... read more

Just for once we were trying to forget Covid . We were out for the morning . We found ourselves sitting outside a pavement cafe in the tiny village of Malpas in Cheshire . The cafe seemed almost continental and reminded us of many holidays abroad . We had sat under umberellas like this one in Madrid, in St Jean de Luz , many an Italian village , in Geneva - the list went on and on. The sun was shining and we could almost be abroad . I thought about all the blogs I had written about sunny squares in Florence, in Siena , in the Tuscan countryside . Wine drunk in gites in Annecy and Dinan . It seemed odd to be thinking about those blogs from years ago sitting on the High Street ... read more

I’ve been saying that Chester Zoo is a great day out for the last twenty years without, actually… you know… going. So, a couple of weeks ago we woke up and said; ‘What a nice day. Let’s go to Chester Zoo!’. I went as a schoolboy and had a marvellous time, although all I can remember is laughing at a monkey masturbating. As a thirteen-year-old it was a profound moment that impacted on so many levels. It certainly confirmed Darwin’s theory of evolution, as I and my classmates felt an instant connection to our simian relative. We also figured that the caged onanist was rebelling against his captors, if in a peculiar way. Twenty-five years later, I visited with an extended family group and a tiny primate urinated gleefully on my niece. Well… ‘it could have ... read more