29th July Egypt v New Zealand

 

Our Olympic event was a football match at Old Trafford. We arrived at Manchester the night before finding the Travelodge with comparative ease followed by a trip to Pizza hut for tea. There was an Aldi on the same site as the Pizza Hut so we stocked up on drinks and sausage rolls for the match. After studying the leaflet that came with the tickets we discovered that we couldn’t bring liquids into the venue and bags would be searched and then sealed into clear plastic bags.

After sitting in the bar for the free Wi fi we concluded the best way to get there was to park at the Trafford centre and catch the park and ride bus in. Once again we travelled around and back tracked before we found the right place and got on the bus. It was around 9:30am when we got to the stadium and the match was at 12 noon so we hung around, bought a match programme, an Egypt/New Zealand scarf and an Egyptian flag before we went in at 10:20. Buying drinks as we passed through to our seats was a shock £2.30 for coke and £1.60 for water – they take the lids off for you so they can’t be used as weapons.

We watched the warm-up and then the first match, (Brazil v Belarus was the second match with 66,000 in attendance). Behind us sat a group of young boys determined to start a Mexican wave, eventually they succeeded and it went round 3 or 4 times. The football was ok and we had ideal seats behind one of the goals.

		Match of our day VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We didn’t stop for the Brazil match choosing instead to make our way back to the Trafford Centre, which is huge, for a ‘quick’ walk round and then the drive back to Hatfield for a couple of quiet days before the next big thing.

28th on the Olympic road

 

We didn’t take the direct route to get to our Olympic event in Manchester, but went via Southampton to pick up Maddison, so totally the wrong direction. Then back to Hatfield to see if the new laptop had arrived, which it had, so we plugged that in to make sure it worked. There was a small problem here in that half the power lead was missing (the half you plug in the wall), but Geoff found a substitute and the part has now arrived. Once it reached 4pm we headed to the Travelodge at Oswestry, the far side of Birmingham (M25, M1, M6 and toll road).

There has been a lot of driving for Geoff this week and it has started to take it’s toll on his ankle where they had to sew his Achilles tendon together so he is walking with a bit of a limp at the moment. Hopefully he will have time to recover next week as there will be no driving involved.

For somewhere I’d never heard of there are lots of things to explore around Oswestry, as well as the English Heritage sites, unfortunately we only had time seven different site seeing experiences on our way to ‘sunny’ Manchester. and the Travelodge at the airport.

Stokesay Castle – the finest and best preserved fortified medieval manor house in England, with a great hall unaltered since it was built in 1291.

Wenlock Priory – situated in Much Wenlock we saw an unusual washing fountain with 12th century carvings, an extravagantly decorated chapter house and a topiary-filled cloister garden. What surprised  us was the adjoining building was still lived in !

Iron Bridge Gorge – a World Heritage site. The world’s first iron bridge was erected over the River Severn here in 1779 by Abraham Darby III and on the wall outside the toll house were displayed the old toll charges, slightly faded where the weather had had it’s way.

Buildwas Abbey – a Cistercian Abbey in an idyllic setting near the river Severn. This  is an unaltered 12th century church beautifully vaulted with a tile-floored chapter house and crypt chapel.

White Ladies Priory – Ruins of a late 12th century church of a small nunnery of ‘whiteladies’ of Augustinian canonesses. Charles II hid nearby in 1651, before moving to Boscobel house.

Boscobel House and the Royal Oak – became famous as a hiding places of Charles II after his defeat at the battle of Worcester in 1651. We saw some of the house before a tour started and we were asked to leave, so we looked around the dairy, smithy and gardens. We also saw what was claimed to be a descendant of the original ‘royal oak’ tree in the garden. There were also certified saplings for sale!

RAF Cosford – contains the worlds oldest spitfire (a mark I) and the one made on James May’s tv show about toys. We also got to see prototype planes that never made it into production.

		RAF Cosford VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

25th July Cardiff

 

Ivy’s sister lives just outside Cardiff, in Dinas Powys, so we pop across when we can. This time, however, we insisted Ivy came with us as it turned out they hadn’t seen each other for several years. To fit in with Ivy’s job at Asda we left after her shift on Wednesday, about 2pm and came back Thursday evening leaving at 7pm so Ivy could go to work Friday morning.

We had a long drawn-out journey on the way there as the M25 was slow and there was an accident on the M4 so we arrived at 6pm. dinner was a BBQ with home grown courgettes, potatoes and rosemary to place on the coals, yes the weather had picked up so sitting out was a viable option, only the mosquitoes drove us indoors to continue chatting about St. Helena and people we know. Connie phoned while we were there so it was great to hear from her again.

Next day we set off to explore Cardiff bay and see the locations used in Torchwood as Ivy hadn’t seen them. First we visited wetlands and the we wandered into the bay. Saints take lots of photos wherever they go. There were an amazing number of fish in the bay!

We wandered the bay from one end to the other passing the shrine to Ianto Jones and the secret entrance to Torchwood. Further along we passed the Norwegian church, now an art gallery and coffee shop, then round to the new Dr . Who exhibition.Maddison had given us strict instructions not to go inside to look round so we only slipped into the shop to pick her up a poster of Matt Smith and a sonic screwdriver. The prices for the exhibition are quite steep £15 for adults and £11 for under 16’s so it is something we will do only once!

		Cardiff Bay VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

On the way back to the car it was time for an ice-cream (a 99 with flake), it has been such a long time since I have had one. Then back to Joyce’s for traditional Saint fare – plo and fish cakes. Joyce packed the extra fish cakes into sandwiches and added some marble cake for us to eat on the way back but due to the lack of traffic it only took 3 hours so we ate when we made it back to Ivy’s.