Day tripping to Chirk

Part of the 'lets do as much as possible with Mhairi' ethos that is going around at the moment led to me, Mhairi and Nicola do a day trip to Chirk (in Wales...)

I had read quite a lot about the Wrexham & Shropshire railway, and was keen to try it. And as Mhairi likes going on trains we thought it would be a fine thing to do. And it was! The day started off well as we decided we would go for the full cooked brekkie. Delivered to our table (unheard of on other trains!), we had a fantastic breakfast of juice, hot drink, bacon, two sausages (very good ones as Nicola pointed out), tomato, black pudding (which I donated to Nicola), mushrooms, scrambled eggs and hash brown. All cooked to order as well!

It took about four hours to get to Chirk - odd for me as I went through several stations close to Wem, including Shrewsbury. Back in very familiar territory! Once we got to Chirk we headed straight for Chirk Castle. Which was a wee hike - about a mile up a road covered in sheep dung... But the colours were lovely - although we were getting a bit fed up by the time we finally got to the entrance. Nicola was in dire need of a reviving cup of tea... As it was Halloween it was crawling with kids in fancy dress (and as kids were allowed in free it really was crawling with them!). So after a pick-me-up drink we checked out the castle and its grounds. Quite imposing from the outside, but the inside wasn't so great. Definitely not one of the better ones I've been to. But the grounds were lovely - great topiary, and views out over the Wrekin. We finished that part of the day with a lovely National Trust tea and cake.

After that we went and checked out the Chirk Aqueduct. Very cool! It sits half in England and half in Wales, and it really is quite imposing. The rail bridge was built higher than the aqueduct to reinforce the superiority of the rail network... We also walked through the Darkie Tunnel - which must be named as it is pitch black inside! Mhairi lit the way with her mobile while Nicola and I followed somewhat nervously behind - it was great! 1200ft so it took a wee while!

Then it was back onto the train for the trip back to London. Dinner with wine was an indian curry with pate as a starter - again delivered to our table, and really nice food. Twas a great day out - check out the photos on Flickr!

Emerging from the darkness

Emerging from the darkness
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Chirk castle with topiary

Chirk castle with topiary
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Ball, canal and rail bridge

Ball, canal and rail bridge
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Lovely autumnal Kew

Sunday was a lovely afternoon of strolling around Kew catching up with Chris and James and admiring the gorgeous autumn colours - so lovely!

I think peak time would have been a couple of weeks ago though - a few trees had obviously just passed their best, but there were still enough to look lovely.

More photos on Flickr...

Autumnal colours

Autumnal colours
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Autumn colours with the fountain

Autumn colours with the fountain
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Great blog

I discovered this blog the other day - a great one for all my librarian readers!!

http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/

Definitely worth checking out :-)

Movie magic...

Been to two movies in the last week - pretty good effort for me! First up was District 9 which I thought was great. Although very hard to watch - the documentary style of it made it seem much more real. And the subject matter was pretty disturbing as well. Particularly given that it was set in South Africa...

Second up was (500) Days of Summer - which was ok. Bits of it I loved - some very clever ideas. For anyone who has seen it, I particularly enjoyed the 'Expectation' vs 'Reality' party scene. Been there done that many times! But the chemistry between the two leads wasn't great which let it down a bit.

Looping along...

So Saturday we did section 17 of the London Loop - rapidly heading towards the end of it! Only three more walks to finish the rest of the sections - all before Mhairi leaves.

Lovely walk - the colours at the moment are gorgeous. Very autumnal, and this one was really quite rural. Small group tho - Nicola missed her first walk due to flu (but I know she'll make it up!), and Sarah had to walk. But we had a nice stroll and a nice pub lunch - not quite as nice as the lunch at Chris's pub, but still pretty good!

Walkers on an autumnal path

Walkers on an autumnal path
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Autumnal colours

Autumnal colours
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Tripping around Turkey - complete

So my updates are complete - now I need to start getting my photos up on Flickr... that might take a while too!

Well I am now back from the most wonderful trip to Turkey... Updates below (but I might not get it all updated tonight). Once I've done my blog I'll upload my many photos to Flickr. But any people out in the ether who are also on Facebook can see some of them already from my profile there.

I really liked Turkey - will definitely be taking a trip back there...

Overall highlights:

• The helpfulness and friendliness of the Turkish people. It really was so lovely - and made travelling around so much easier
• The food - I loved the food...
• Swimming - beautiful coast line and beautiful sea (although not terribly interesting snorkelling it has to be said)