The English countryside

 The weather has changed for the better this last week and it tempted me to do a couple of outings.  On Wednesday I took a drive to Shrewsbury.  Shrewsbury is a Tudor town with some lovely buildings, a great range of shops and a lovely indoor market too.  I did look in a couple of shops as the town itself wasn't too busy but my intention was to grab some lunch and visit the park.

The Quarry Park is 29 acres and has been a place of recreation in Shrewsbury since the 16th century and is still well used today.  This is just a small section but In the distance you have the town, and behind me is the river Severn, to the left is a large children's playground and a splash pool, which was full of children enjoying this sunny day.

At the heart of the park is The Dingle which was cultivated by the famous Percy Thrower who was also Superintendent of the park for 28 years.  It is the most peaceful place and although at the moment there is a one way system in place was not it the least busy.  There is a section that is still closed off and the benches have been removed due to Covid but the space is still amazing.

My other trip out today was to Bourton-on-the-Water, probably one of the best known and more popular Cotswold villages.  As Saturday was another scorcher it was busy, but again I didn't go to look in shops.

The river Windrush  runs through the middle of the village and it has a number of tiny bridges, the water is really shallow and so people congregate on the grass banks and use the river to paddle in.

As you can see, it was very very busy so I didn't hang around where the crowds were.

There are houses running right along the river bank, very pretty houses, but I'm not sure I would like crowds of people right outside my garden taking photos of my house all the time.  

(ok, I'm one of those people 😅)

I walked further back from the main village which was much quieter.  

All the houses are built from the same Cotswold stone, it really is such a pretty place and I think when you imagine an English village this is what you think of.

Every house seems to have a beautiful cottage garden and I just loved this one with all the alliums

And then as if all those house's weren't pretty enough, walk another hundred yards or so and you have all this wonderful countryside!

I did another blog post about Bourton-on-the-Water in October 2011, when we had a heatwave. You can find that HERE

-X-

October 1st - Really???

My blog posts seem to be few and far between of late, a bit like my stitching.  I've picked up this and that but don't really have anything to show for my efforts.  I have almost finished stitching a couple of Christmas ornaments for dd's #1 & 2, maybe this week I will surprise both you and me by getting them finished finished :-).


The first stitch group meeting went well on Wednesday.  There were 20 people interested, 4 of which couldn't come this time because of other commitments, and a few changed their minds, but in the end there was 9 of us on the night, which wasn't bad because to be honest if all 20 had turned up we would have been pretty pushed for space in that room!  There was a good mix of people and I'm pretty sure all the ones that showed this time will show again - so that's good.

No stitching for me today the weather has been so glorious that it was really a crying shame to stay indoors, so took myself off for a drive to Bourton-on-the- Water, in the Cotswold's.  It's only just over an hours drive from us and such a pretty place.
I'll leave you with some photos of Bourton and people enjoying this very un-seasonal weather.
(It's been like this all week, with temps of 28 and 29 degrees!  I've never had the air-con on in the car in October before :-))

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Finally, some lovely English contryside 

Thank you for visiting me today and leaving a comment, have a wonderful week. x