Wrexham County Borough 115 - Chirk Castle /Snowdrops in June/Mullin wins the Golden Ball and Wrexham Dragon go out of the American Tournament

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"What are those over there ?" We heard the couple who had just alighted from the buggy that had brought them from the lower car park to the castle asking the driver . He explained " Well locally there is Nightingale House " "It is a hospice and the snowdrops are part of the Sunshine Meadow created as a fundraiser " It was exactly a year ago to the day that we had found ourselves at Erddig Hall just a mile or so up the road from us standing in front of another Sunshine Meadow. Last year hundreds of bright blue Forget me Nots had been produced and "planted " for these were metal not the real thing in the meadow outside the house . A year on we were standing in front of this years display . £30 would buy you one Snowdrop which would house a tea light . Another inventive way to raise money for a hospice that gets so little to run the facilities from the government .

Snowdrops in June I guess you would have said before reading the last paragraph . Snowdrops are such lovely flowers . The herald the coming of Spring and end of Winter . They are a hopeful flower pushing their way through the frozen soil . How the leaves don't break is a mystery . But every year graveyards fill with them , Gardens are white over as the delicate white and green flowers bloom for weeks and bring a smile to your face as you watch them blowing in the wind . These snowdrops were pushed into the ground and were staying there for a whole month until they would be picked up and sent on to those who had bought one . Metal flowers used for fundraising seems the norm these days . Forget me Nots last year , the poppies that began life at the Tower of London in 2014 and travelled the UK over a period of four years to commemorate the start and the end of the Great War . We missed those in London , the waterfall of poppies at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park , poppies falling down the walls of the Derby Silk Mill and the display put up at the balcony of Caernarfon Castle where Edward produced his son and announced to the Welsh people that he had given them a Prince of Wales who spoke no English . The irony of that one still lives on . We did manage to see the poppies before they were taken away forever when they were displayed at the bottle kilns of the Potteries.

We had parked up down on the car park which was a lot fuller than we expected . The children were back at school in Wales today so we were shocked to see so many people visiting . Many with their grandchildren who clearly were going to be running wild and enjoying the fact that they were still on holiday . The walk up to the castle is quite long . The grass on either side had been left to grow wild . Last time we visited it was winter so nothing was growing . The time before that the lawns were clipped neatly. Now signs had gone up that all the meadows and grass areas had been left to rewild . Yellow Rattle had been planted and the idea was that in the future these meadows would be rich in native flowers . They certainly were heading that way .

As we walked we talked about the FA cup final yesterday and the fact that our local hero Paul Mullin had won the Golden Ball award for the most goals scored in the competition . No mean feat for a non league footballer . We discussed too the recent performance of the veterans team the Wrexham Red Dragons who had been playing in Carolina in the USA. They had won their group stages and progressed to the elimination rounds only to be knocked out by an American team of ex college football players who were much younger than them . They had clothed themselves in glory and the city of Wrexham was again on the map which is no mean thing .

We called in to the small cafe for lunch before going into the castle and around the gardens . There was the usual selection of hot and cold beverages , sandwiches , jacket potatoes , a mint and pea soup and a three bean chilli pot meal . I would have chosen the chilli but instead bought the ploughmans platter . This was for two people and consisted of two small sausage rolls , bread , butter, lumps of cheese , a fantastic chutney, red onions pickled , celery and cucumber , Ham cut off the bone as well plus a rocket salad . Was it worth the money ? Yes it was . There was enough on the slate platter for two of us. Washed down with a cappucino for Glenn and a refreshing lemon and orange fizzy drink it was the sort of lunch you look forward to.

After lunch we went into the castle . Having been so many times it was one of those whistle stop tours . A quick visit to the dungeons and then into the main castle rooms. Downstairs it seemed that only one room was open. Full of guns on the walls , paintings of members of the family it was welcoming . The huge hallway opened out . Last visit it was decked with a huge Christmas tree decorated in an Alice in Wonderland theme . Huge chess pieces had been placed around the upper hallway . A massive light hung from the ceiling . Upstairs the rooms were decorated with wonderful ceilings . Beautiful furniture as always, a piano for entertainment . A long hall had glass cases with a William Morgan welsh Bible , treasure chests made in Japan and ivory cases full of wonderful things .

The one thing that made us curious was the part where we walked across what was a minstrals gallery with a staircase down to a welcoming room . I would swear this was a chapel the last time we came. But the private chapel was either somewhere else or this was a completely different room . A large piano stood in one corner . Comfortable chairs were placed in front of what would be a warm fire in winter . Music played in the background . A comfortable room by anyones standards . Where the altar once stood were two large mirrors . They looked odd as if they had just been placed there as an afterthought to cover a bare wall . The windows round them resembled a chapel . The mirrors were designed by Pugin . We read the blurb on the board by the side of them . They had been purchased in the late 19th century and had been housed in another part of the castle . They required some renovation and had been removed , place on wooden blocks with white material creating a barrier between the wooden frames of the mirror and the blocks . The reason for this was the fact that the mirrors were made from mercury . Mercury produced the best mirrors and the reflections of ourselves looking at them was spun back at us perfectly . However the down side of moving the mirrors meant that there was a danger the mercury would leak . The white cloth was to protect the mirrors from damage and to show any leak quickly . At that point the conservators could rush and repair the problem .

We left that room and were a bit surprised that we had reached the last room and headed out into the sunny courtyard .

Our next stop was the garden. A typical English cottage garden with climbing roses on the castle walls and standard roses in the middle borders. Mauve Catmint, red Valerian and geraniums filled the small garden areas . Big blousy pink and crimson Paeony , blue Delphinium . Statues of Eve and of Samson were dotted here and there around the clipped lawns . What seemed like mile after mile of Yew hedgeing had been clipped to perfection . We had some of the small garden rooms all to ourselves . We then decided to head off towards a viewpoint from where we could see Rawhead in Cheshire in the distance . Wynnstay Hall appeared between the trees and the village of Chirk in the valley . There is always one problem with a view like this and it turned out to be Kronospan . The factory in the village which is extremely large and intrusive makes chipboard . The white smoky plumes puthered up to the sky. We walked amongst the Rhodedendrum . Reds and mauves , a thatched wooden building once used to house birds , paths through wooded areas before we walked back to the castle .

It was a lovely day out again . Having been before we did not need to think much . We could just look at everything and just enjoy it for what it was . It was a day that sort of fitted in with the eastern thought of the day . "You can look only when the mind is completely quiet " Perhaps when you return visiting a place you an just look with a quiet mind .

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