21st June 2005 – Hereford, Worcester and Ludlow
It was to be the longest day of the year today, meaning that the day-time would get shorter by about six minutes day by day – not that it really matters too much. We left the campsite and headed north-west towards Hereford. Now this was a nice town indeed, with what seemed like a couple of main streets with small shops leading towards the local church (or civic centre, I forget). We walked around in a circle once before we managed to find the cathedral (thanks to the lady in the corner shop for directions). Another cathedral, another photograph – I don’t think that there was anything outstanding to tell:
We also managed to find some unsecure wireless which gave us internet access. At this point, we found that someone neither of us knew was reading our blog!! Wow, it felt good to be recognised. She (name was Jane) shared the same view on trailer park holiday campsites (regarding the Camp from Hell, dated 14th June 2005) and wished us good luck, now wasn’t that sweet. Nav reckons she is blonde (“name’s Jane, so that blonde right?”), whilst I think brunette.
Next cathedral stop was that of Worcester and on the way there came the thunderous noise of a low flying aircraft and in the distance a Chinook – I remembered my sister telling me that near to Hereford was the SAS (or some military division) training camp.
Once we arrive and parked up, we came across something quite odd. As we headed towards town, we found ourselves going up a dead-end. We were about to turn around when I spotted a door at the end of a corridor that was letting light through between the door and its frame. And it was as if we were like in a cartoon, for when we reached and opened the door, we found ourselves at the beginning of a shopping parade! They had built a door at the end of the tunnel/corridor for no reason at all. Turning around and looking at where we just exited, it didn’t seem out of place at all as the building looked like the front of a set of terraced houses.
Anyway, we decided to look quickly around the cathedral and then head off to look around town. In fact, we also wanted to see the Mappi Mundi (sp?) which is a 13th century map of the world. Unfortunately, what really was made for people to see, Worcester Cathedral saw fit to make it into another tourist attraction. Plus no photography was allowed. However, this disappointment was made up with finding a homeless tramp sleeping on the benches in the cathedral – I took on Nav’s dare and got a photo. He seemed quite well attired although the unkempt beard gave him away:
Underneath the building, they had found a crypt which had been recently refurbished. It felt kind of strange and eerie:
Worcester is another nice, unspoilt and classic English town. Streets of small shopping parades mixed with housing estates, a new local shopping centre to keep up the town up-to-date (yet not detracting from the town), and the first dedicated BB-gun shop I’ve ever seen in England (which we quickly visited). Nav wanted to get a crossbow, but thought that travelling around England with it in the car might not be a good idea. We also saw a lot of posh school kids who, I think, should have been in school at that time.
Oh and it was Chav day for Nav too and he really couldn’t dress any whiter either. We passed a bunch of school kids on the way to the cathedral all in their white P.E. kit which Nav would not have looked out of place (although the beard he was sporting may have given him away).
Out of Worcester and onto Ludlow, where apparently my Dad used to live but doesn’t anymore. We were to visit the Ludlow Castle soon after we had a rest. We sat around the car park for 30mins or so, me typing up some blogs (never seemed to have enough time to do them daily so did a whole load of them) and Nav snacking and reading (we found a bookshop selling ridiculously reduced price books, some popular and recent publications at £2 or so – Nav bought four books, and along with all the others that he has bought and brought along, has increased his already extensive reading list further – he’ll never finish them all).
As an aside, I went to a really strange public toilet. It had a touch-sensitive stone panel to flush to toilet (unless the black picture hid away some motion detection device), and one of those 3-in-1 soap, wash and dry sinks. However, the strange thing was that all of a sudden, a female voice said that these public toilets were protected by the local council and that I would be fined or told (something) after a certain amount of time – I think it meant I couldn’t stay in here forever. I got really confused about it and I want you people to go and find out what I’m on about and tell me what the hell just happened.
After that weird experience, I met up with Nav in the small market area to be told that the castle was closed for the day. I did manage to sneak a photograph through a hole in the gates, and after we decided to go around and lounge around by the bank of the river.
I continued to type up the blog as people wander in and out of the green by the river bank. Teenagers were playing around in the river, swearing at each other to not get them wet, elderly were about listening to the swear seemingly unphased by it, and after a while a local man with his wife (I think, although Nav heard the man refer to the woman as his ‘bitch’ but could be mistaken) came up to us and asked whether my laptop had one of those data card things – which I think he meant wireless internet – to which I replied “No, it’s an old laptop”. Then he said something about being able to work outside and use the internet, and I said “Yes, that would be nice.” And bearing had I finished my sentence he began to walk off – I took a photo of them so that you guys can avoid them when you visit Ludlow.
We left shortly after, and were supposed to head towards Wroxeter, but decided that the diversion probably wasn’t worth it as all Morton did was meet a bunch of archaeologists at a Roman dig site. Along the way to Shrewsbury (where Nav’s aunt has a ‘drop-in’ house for friends and family) we got stuck behind a higher-than-usual two-carriage articulated lorry. It looked like it would topple on every corner, but managed to stay straight. We approach a petrol station and the driver decided to park up, probably to let those behind pass. When we did so, I noticed that the lorry was higher than the petrol station roof so there would be no chance of it passing underneath. Nav wanted to stay and watch, but instead insisted I watch the road whilst he looked in the rear-view mirror to see what was happening.
We arrived into Shrewsbury and I found it to be difficult to navigate as it was ‘One-way’ world. To get to the house, we ended up taking a scenic route around Shrewsbury and coming in from the north side. We finally reached it and Nav said that it was a dodgy area and comments that we might lose the car by tomorrow morning – the local prison is nearby too…
-- steven
We also managed to find some unsecure wireless which gave us internet access. At this point, we found that someone neither of us knew was reading our blog!! Wow, it felt good to be recognised. She (name was Jane) shared the same view on trailer park holiday campsites (regarding the Camp from Hell, dated 14th June 2005) and wished us good luck, now wasn’t that sweet. Nav reckons she is blonde (“name’s Jane, so that blonde right?”), whilst I think brunette.
Next cathedral stop was that of Worcester and on the way there came the thunderous noise of a low flying aircraft and in the distance a Chinook – I remembered my sister telling me that near to Hereford was the SAS (or some military division) training camp.
Once we arrive and parked up, we came across something quite odd. As we headed towards town, we found ourselves going up a dead-end. We were about to turn around when I spotted a door at the end of a corridor that was letting light through between the door and its frame. And it was as if we were like in a cartoon, for when we reached and opened the door, we found ourselves at the beginning of a shopping parade! They had built a door at the end of the tunnel/corridor for no reason at all. Turning around and looking at where we just exited, it didn’t seem out of place at all as the building looked like the front of a set of terraced houses.
Anyway, we decided to look quickly around the cathedral and then head off to look around town. In fact, we also wanted to see the Mappi Mundi (sp?) which is a 13th century map of the world. Unfortunately, what really was made for people to see, Worcester Cathedral saw fit to make it into another tourist attraction. Plus no photography was allowed. However, this disappointment was made up with finding a homeless tramp sleeping on the benches in the cathedral – I took on Nav’s dare and got a photo. He seemed quite well attired although the unkempt beard gave him away:
Underneath the building, they had found a crypt which had been recently refurbished. It felt kind of strange and eerie:
Worcester is another nice, unspoilt and classic English town. Streets of small shopping parades mixed with housing estates, a new local shopping centre to keep up the town up-to-date (yet not detracting from the town), and the first dedicated BB-gun shop I’ve ever seen in England (which we quickly visited). Nav wanted to get a crossbow, but thought that travelling around England with it in the car might not be a good idea. We also saw a lot of posh school kids who, I think, should have been in school at that time.
Oh and it was Chav day for Nav too and he really couldn’t dress any whiter either. We passed a bunch of school kids on the way to the cathedral all in their white P.E. kit which Nav would not have looked out of place (although the beard he was sporting may have given him away).
Out of Worcester and onto Ludlow, where apparently my Dad used to live but doesn’t anymore. We were to visit the Ludlow Castle soon after we had a rest. We sat around the car park for 30mins or so, me typing up some blogs (never seemed to have enough time to do them daily so did a whole load of them) and Nav snacking and reading (we found a bookshop selling ridiculously reduced price books, some popular and recent publications at £2 or so – Nav bought four books, and along with all the others that he has bought and brought along, has increased his already extensive reading list further – he’ll never finish them all).
As an aside, I went to a really strange public toilet. It had a touch-sensitive stone panel to flush to toilet (unless the black picture hid away some motion detection device), and one of those 3-in-1 soap, wash and dry sinks. However, the strange thing was that all of a sudden, a female voice said that these public toilets were protected by the local council and that I would be fined or told (something) after a certain amount of time – I think it meant I couldn’t stay in here forever. I got really confused about it and I want you people to go and find out what I’m on about and tell me what the hell just happened.
After that weird experience, I met up with Nav in the small market area to be told that the castle was closed for the day. I did manage to sneak a photograph through a hole in the gates, and after we decided to go around and lounge around by the bank of the river.
I continued to type up the blog as people wander in and out of the green by the river bank. Teenagers were playing around in the river, swearing at each other to not get them wet, elderly were about listening to the swear seemingly unphased by it, and after a while a local man with his wife (I think, although Nav heard the man refer to the woman as his ‘bitch’ but could be mistaken) came up to us and asked whether my laptop had one of those data card things – which I think he meant wireless internet – to which I replied “No, it’s an old laptop”. Then he said something about being able to work outside and use the internet, and I said “Yes, that would be nice.” And bearing had I finished my sentence he began to walk off – I took a photo of them so that you guys can avoid them when you visit Ludlow.
We left shortly after, and were supposed to head towards Wroxeter, but decided that the diversion probably wasn’t worth it as all Morton did was meet a bunch of archaeologists at a Roman dig site. Along the way to Shrewsbury (where Nav’s aunt has a ‘drop-in’ house for friends and family) we got stuck behind a higher-than-usual two-carriage articulated lorry. It looked like it would topple on every corner, but managed to stay straight. We approach a petrol station and the driver decided to park up, probably to let those behind pass. When we did so, I noticed that the lorry was higher than the petrol station roof so there would be no chance of it passing underneath. Nav wanted to stay and watch, but instead insisted I watch the road whilst he looked in the rear-view mirror to see what was happening.
We arrived into Shrewsbury and I found it to be difficult to navigate as it was ‘One-way’ world. To get to the house, we ended up taking a scenic route around Shrewsbury and coming in from the north side. We finally reached it and Nav said that it was a dodgy area and comments that we might lose the car by tomorrow morning – the local prison is nearby too…
-- steven
posted by Steven | 12:45 pm
1 Comments:
Hello, Just thought i would post a comment so that you don't feel you are wasting your time with all your effort on the website. But to my horror i found that you had gone to Bristol and deliberatly avoided Bath (or worse just came and left it off your report). It is possibly the most amzing town in the South West, and that was before I moved here! ANyhow just joking, i will let you off. Have fun. Jules
Post a Comment
<< Home