Dunstabelle: May 2012

Well I did go away for a few days to Bridgnorth in Shropshire, and on occasion I did get wet. We went on the train to Birmingham, when a young woman got on dressed up, with her veil and other adornments, she and her 'hens', then proceeded to entertain us for the next hour or so. The bride-to-be was Laura, they drank a lot, shouted a lot, and played a confessions game, where they take it in turns to say what they haven't done, and if one of the others have done it, they have a drink. All I can say with some of the comments being made, Laura does not know her friends as much as she thought she did! They got off in Birmingham, and I hope by now they have all recovered, and Laura is safely married, and the rest are back at work.

We then got a train to Wolverhampton, which was fairly quiet, took some pics before getting a bus to Bridgnorth. Well worth the journey, it is a really beautiful place. It is an old market town that dates back to the 12th century, it has an old castle ruin, is home to the Severn Valley Railway, and straddles the River Severn. We stayed in a wonderful little guest house which also dated back to the 17th century. It was right next door to The Cliff Railway, which separates High Town and Low Town. Unfortunately it rained for most of the weekend, but never mind. Met up with the family on Saturday, went shopping and visited the Bridgnorth museum. All good stuff, Kev and I explored in the evening, and on the Sunday, as we were expecting more rain, we decided to spend the day getting on and off the trains.

I have always loved steam trains there is something majestic about them especially at full steam. Some of the carriages that we rode on, if you are into railway's, are from the LNER Teak Set and I have put internal photo's of the carriages up on Flickr. At Highley The Severn Valley Railway have a museum, with the old engines and carriages, that they have used in the past, and that they have saved from becoming scrap. One of their exhibits, is The Kings Carriage, built for George V1. A humble affair we were told, due to the fact that with a war on it wouldn't be done for the king to be travelling around, in a fancy carriage. ( I would of thought the safety of the King would be a bigger reason.) however it is armoured, so he was perfectly safe. He traveled around Britain on it meeting important people, the rail staff being told only half an hour before he was due through a station, as secrecy was paramount. After the death of King George V1, it became the Duke of Edinburgh's official carriage. It stayed in use until 1977. The Queens Carriage is in York. Loving history as I do, I was listening to every word, while Kev took a few pics for me. We then went on to Kidderminister, while I sat and had afternoon tea, Kevin went off into town to take more pictures in the rain, and came back with some wall art for me. He is good to me!!

On the way home we spent a couple of hours in Wolverhampton, taking pics. Unfortunately, on the last leg of the journey I lost my camera and was gutted, however I have a spare camera, I carry for emergencies, so I did have a few photo's on that, and of course a lot of what I had taken, Kevin had also.