22nd June 2005 – Shrewsbury

In the morning, I found the car in the same place that we left it yesterday – a good sign, I feel. After getting up, I decided that a stint of blogging was in order – truth be told, I haven’t been doing it everyday as I should which would probably have saved me more time (especially as Wimbledon was on television) – however, it wouldn’t have made too much of a difference to you readers as I don’t have daily internet access.

At around about 3pm, I finally finished and we headed off into Shrewsbury town. We did a bit of shopping first: Nav needed a new wallet and also bought a baseball cap, essentially to add to his Chav-rating (see photo); a Thermos(tm) flask (at £2 for 1 litre, it was a bargain to be had) and a cheap webcam (which we didn’t find).

Although trying to boost his Chav-rating, we reckon the beard counteracts the effects of the newly purchased Nike apparel and wallet

Mainly the time in Shrewsbury town was spent wandering and looking. Many Tudor style houses were about (those with wooden slats placed diagonally on the front of the house, I think that’s Tudor). Shrewsbury town seemed quite odd – it looks big on the map but in fact is quite small with only a couple of streets connected together. Furthermore, one street seems to have the old Tudor style houses and the other new style buildings. There were a couple of shopping centres as well (one of them names Darwin Shopping Centre – maybe if we come back in a generation’s time, we’ll find that the crap shops have gone leaving only the best…)

We found the local castle-cum-museum. The place was open for its last 20mins of the day, so we had a quick look around. The lower floor that they advised us to view was all to do with the local infantry and the places that they battled in. There was a lot of memorabilia and such like things you’d find in a museum, dating back from before WWI to the 1950s. Also within the castle walls was an official civil registry so you could get yourself married in a castle, if you so wish.

A nice big stone building ‘To Let’, just outside the castle walls

We also found the Darwin statue which placed outside the local library. There wasn’t much else to it, really.

Darwin having a rest from all his evolutionary thinking, probably…

Finally, before we left Shrewsbury, we passed the town’s prison – still in active use – which, according to Nav, is a ‘low-security’ prison. That’s probably because the inmates have killed most of the security guards and wardens. It wasn’t exactly hard to find either, as I didn’t realise that when Nav said the prison was close to the house we were staying in, that it was in fact on the other side of the road. I was wondering what all that shouting was about.

The local joint, not 10metres from the house – I weren’t scared, I’m well ‘ard me

We left Shrewsbury around about 7pm – quite late, although we didn’t really set much of a time today. I figured that we were comfortable for time in getting to the Scottish border by Sunday. And this brings us up to time, as I’m sitting on the tent porch in a camp 3-4 miles south-east of Chester. We had parked up and about to put the tent up when the farm owner’s dog came out and ran around playfully. She then got one of her toys (the classic squeaky ball) with which we played with. Owning a dog seemed like it would be worthwhile, so long as you get the nice playful ones.

Aaah!!! Isn’t she lovely… [not to be sung]

Just before she ran into me


-- steven