Gingerjo’s Blog

We were lazy this morning so didn’t get up till late. We figured we’d have another National Trust day – always a good stand-by. We headed out in search of Chedworth Roman Villa.

On the way in a little town called Northleach we spotted the Museum of Mechanical Music so stopped off for a visit. It wasn’t cheap (£8 each) but it was fabulous. The museum is only one room, full of mechanical instruments from the past 300 years, but the one hour talk about their history was great and we saw all of them in action. The 1940’s gramophone that used a sharpened matchstick as a needle was quite surprising and the 18th Century music boxes were fabulous (and horrifically expensive). But the best bits were the pianos with rolls in that play themselves – they were spectacular. The really expensive ones had rolls recorded from the live performances of great pianists – we saw them play what was effectively a live performance by Rachmaninov, keys going and everything, just as the pianist stuck them. It was a bit spooky really – it was like his ghost was there. It was only afterwards that it occurred to me that I should have made a little video of it – it probably wouldn’t have captured it though.

Afterwards we moved on to Chedworth Roman Villa which required a drive down some very narrow country lanes through some glorious countryside. The villa itself has some large sections of the original mosaics in place but for my part I found it a bit dull, and so did Mark. Perhaps we’re just not into Romans. It was only 3.30pm so we felt a bit stuck for something more to do – we’d expected Chedworth to occupy a couple of hours, but we weren’t there very long. Tucked away in the corner of the roadmap was an attraction called Birdworld just up the road. We figured we’d have a nosey.

Birdworld is in a small town called Bourton-on-the-Water which is extremely pretty and very popular with tourists. The town centres around a shallow river that’s great for kids to play in banked by a green on one side and a series of pubs and restaurants on the other. Parking in the town isn’t cheap but we didn’t get there until 4pm so figured we’d only be there a couple of hours (they charge until 8pm!!). After a quick walk through the town we headed off to Birdworld which has penguins, flamingos, parrots, many other species and some rheas. I mention the rheas particularly because they had a two week old chick following his dad around (the dad raises the chicks – what a fabulous species). The chick was tiny – about the same size as a crow. According to the information board the chick will be full grown in only four months – rheas are huge birds. The chick will have to do nothing but eat! It was so cute.

Afterwards we headed back into the town for a sit on the green where a bird crapped on my head. Fortunately it must have been a very small bird. Then we discovered our parking ticket had run out, so we moved the car to the free parking in the town centre (after 5pm) and headed off to one of the pubs for a meal. Unfortunately I can’t remember the name of the pub (but it was near the Motor Museum – the last in the row next to the river). The food was excellent, especially for the price. Mark has paella and I had a steak and ale pie which was delicious. It was a real homecooked pie with shortcrust pastry and everything, and Mark’s paella had huge chunks of meat in it. Even though I was stuffed I couldn’t miss out on the opportunity to sample a pudding there – I had tiramisu and Mark had apple pie. They were both gorgeous. I’d say the town was well worth a visit – you could probably spend the whole day there.

After much debate we settled on visiting the Ironbridge Gorge. There are ten different museums to visit as well as the Ironbridge itself so we bought one of their passports which will allow us to visit as many times as we like for a year. Today we visited the Gorge Museum which gives the history of the gorge showing how the local availability of coal, iron ore, clay and limestone kickstarted the industrial revolution. After a mooch around the town we headed off to the Tar Tunnel – a bricklined tunnel into the mountain that oozes with bitumen.

Then it was off to Blists Hill – a Victorian working town full of folk dressed in period costume – from banks to bakers, blacksmiths to candle makers. At the moment they are expanding the site considerably so it looks a bit scruffy but it’s still great. We bought some handmade candles and had a go on the merry-go-round type thingy.

We may go back later in this week to see some of the other museums.

On our way down to Cheltenham we visited Bridgnorth – what a lovely town! They have a little Cliff Train which trundles up and down between the top and bottom halves of the town – and it’s only 90p return – and it runs until 8pm. We walked around the castle walk (which has great views over the Severn valley) while listening to the bellringers practicing in the local church. Then we went down to the riverside and ate a packet of very nice chips from the local chippy. Just great! I don’t understand why I’ve never heard of the town before.

Now we’ve arrived in Cheltenham for three nights of sleeping in a furnace. They’ve rigged the windows so they hardly open. I’m sorry but I really have no desire to leap from the windows. The Travelodge is attached to a Harvester and a KFC so I guess I know what my tea’s going to be for the next couple of nights.

Hartlebury Travelodge is only just down the road from the Worcester County Museum, although that’s closed on a Monday so we couldn’t go. It’s also only a few miles from the West Midlands Safari Park, but we went to the zoo only a couple of days ago so we didn’t want to go there. It’s also within easy distance of Avoncroft Museum and Historic Buildings, but this sounded a bit like some of the things we’ll be seeing at the Black Country Museum later this week so we didn’t go there either.

In the end we decided a cheap day out was in order so headed off in search of National Trust properties. After missing the appropriate turn off we stopped for a brief look at the Hawford Dovecote – boy those Georgian’s lavished attention on their doves. It’s not worth taking a deliberate detour for but if you’re passing it’s worth a 5 minute stop.

Then after getting back on the right road we were side tracked by a pub called the Eagle & Sun which served a great value carvery. After stuffing ourselves senseless we finally arrived at Hanbury Hall.

We rarely seem to arrive at NT properties when they have things going on, but we arrived just in time for a guided tour of the gardens so we tagged along. It was very entertaining actually. Did you know that in the Georgian period a bowling green was a hugely prestigious thing? This was before the invention of the lawnmower so the green had to be cut by hand – some poor sod on their knees with a pair of shears!

The hall was being re-roofed so we had a rare opportunity to climb up the stairs in the scaffolding to an observation deck where we could see the guys at work. Weirdly for such a rare opportunity this is the second time we’ve seen it – we visited the roof of Dunham Massey last year too!

Inside the house you get the feeling that the Georgians must have spent an awful lot of time flat on their backs as the house has truly beautiful ceilings. One has to wonder why they lavished such attention on them. The main staircase in particular is spectacular.

The volunteers at Hanbury Hall are among the most enthusiastic we’ve met – bringing the house to life and showing a genuine fondness for the property. It did seem that many of them had ancestors who’d worked in service there and perhaps a personal connection and an interest in local history are essential.

Afterwards we went to Droitwich Spa for a quick look around. The Midlands are so not what I expected. I guess I thought they’d be very like the North West – miles and miles of houses and shops without a break, and where there is green it’s often bleak and depressing. But the Midlands are quite the opposite – lots of attractive and historic towns separated by rolling green hills and woodland. It’s quite lovely. I wonder if Midlanders know how lucky they are?

We were then treated to a fantastic thunderstorm – it felt like it was in the room with us! And wow did it rain. This didn’t cool the hotel room down though – it was still like sleeping in a furnace.

We took the decision to visit the National Space Centre in Leicester, figuring we might visit Warwick Castle later in the week. Now I understand why I hadn’t heard of it – Houston it is not. That said it’s not bad, it’s just too expensive for what you get in return (it’s the same price as the zoo was yesterday), and it’s pitched very much at kids. They do have a fantastic dome shaped film theatre offering 360 degree views above your head. We got to watch a 20 minute film called Stars as part of our admission and paid an extra £3 each to watch another film called Big (but I fell asleep in that one – I hadn’t had any coffee all day). They also have a flight simulator ride taking you on a trip to Jupiter’s moon Europa which is very good. We also listened to a short talk about the European Space Agency’s mission to Mars.

The rest of the rather large place is made up of typical museum information boards with interactive bits (that mostly seemed to be out of order or at least malfunctioning) and a huge number of short information films that eternally seemed to be in the middle of playing – they don’t seem to have a beginning or an end!?! That said they have a lot of quite cool model satellites (or in some cases the real thing) hanging from the roof and even a couple of rockets housed in a building made from giant bubblewrap (honestly).

If you went with the intention of just looking at the bits interesting to you personally then it would probably be really rather good, but the overpriced admissions fee meant we felt we had to squeeze every last penny’s worth out of the place so I found it really quite dull in the end (and I like all things intergalactic!). This is probably a bit unfair on the place, but I doubt if I’d go again. Mark would go though I think – he really liked the flight simulator and perhaps one day we’ll have a small child for him to take.

Then we headed off down the M6 in search of Hartlebury Travelodge, a few miles south of Kidderminster. It’s a little hotel hidden behind a Little Chef, but we found a nice enough pub called the Mitre Oak at the next roundabout heading towards Worcester – within easy walking distance (although we didn’t walk, we would have if we’d known in advance).

There are three main things we found that you can visit when using Nuneaton as a base, all of which involve a bit of a drive - Twycross Zoo, the National Space Centre in Leicester and Warwick Castle. Today we picked Twycross Zoo as it was such a beautiful day it seemed a waste to spend it indoors. Actually it was hot as hell though and I’m burnt to a frazzle. Well, I just didn’t expect sun after the summer we’ve been having so I didn’t bring any sun cream!

The zoo is very laid back – quite a different atmosphere to the likes of Chester Zoo. What’s more they seem to spend their money on quality enclosures for their animals rather than on fancy cafés for their visitors. This is of course as it should be. That said the loos are still nice and clean.

It’s a World Centre for Primates, so it’s not a zoo for folk who don’t like monkeys. There are a lot of lemurs, gibbons, monkeys and all three of the great apes. Obviously there are the obligatory lions (lazing as far away from public gaze as they can manage) and a pool full of penguins. But they also have Asiatic Elephants in a large, interesting enclosure, giraffes, GIANT tortoises, dholes, bat eared foxes, sea lions, meerkats and prairie dogs among many others. It must have taken us five hours to visit every enclosure – it was deceptively large and a bit of a labyrinth.

Afterwards we went to an ancient thatched pub called the Cock Inn that claimed to have been a refuge for Dick Turpin back in the day. It had a really great atmosphere and good food. After popping into Sainsbury’s in search of some aftersun, it was time to head back to the hotel for a hot and sticky night – nope, not that kind of hot and sticky more’s the pity! There’s no aircon in Travelodges.

We couldn’t really visit Nottinghamshire without visiting Sherwood Forest. So we toddled off to the Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre for a mooch around the forest. We were a bit disappointed to find we were a few days too early for the Robin Hood Festival, but there were plenty of folk wearing little green hats to make up for it. We wandered down to the Major Oak, an 800 year old oak reputed to be the home of Robin Hood’s band. It’s certainly a huge tree, so huge it has to be supported by ironwork which look’s a bit strange.

We then visited the Southwell Workhouse, a National Trust property. I’d never visited a workhouse before, and to be perfectly honest the audio tour was almost as monotonous as life in the workhouse must have been, but perhaps this is the effect they were going for. It’s well worth a visit though – apparently 4/5 folk in the UK have an ancestor that at one point or another was forced into the workhouse so it’s important to understand this aspect of our history. It must have been immensely degrading.

Southwell Minster was an unexpected bonus of our visit since we hadn’t realised it existed until we drove past it. Of course after a visit to the church we toddled off to the Saracen’s Head pub for a pint!

It was then time to head off to the Travelodge in Nuneaton-Bedworth. Once we’d arrived we had dinner at the local Beefeater (attached to a Premier Inn) which was very good, and apparently once the home of the author George Eliot. Mark had been watching Marco’s Great British Feast about puddings earlier in the week and was after a supreme pudding to celebrate his childhood. Oh boy did we find it. We had a double Chocolate Brownie Sundae to share – it was enormous. Think about the size of a Knickerbocker Glory when you were six – well the sundae glass was that size, about the same size as a bucket in fact. It was quite glorious, if a little embarrassing!

Well we had a lovely day in Nottingham city centre. We got the Citylink 1 bus from outside the Travelodge straight into the city and after a quick visit to the Tourist Info Office (who were very helpful) we wondered off in search of Nottingham’s heritage.

The City of Caves is weirdly based inside the rather down market Broadmarsh Shopping Centre. In the Caves you are treated to a tour of the man-made sandstone caves beneath the city centre. Once they were open to the elements, overlooking the river, but now they are blocked in by concrete. It’s difficult to imagine people standing inside them blinking out into the sunlight. During the tour you meet several characters including the owner of a medieval tannery where they made leather and a warden in a WWII bomb shelter. These characters really bring the caves to life. It’s a shame some of the caves where destroyed in the building of the shopping centre, as the caves tour would be truly excellent if a third era in their history was represented. Two characters just aren’t quite enough.

We got a joint ticket with the Galleries of Justice – the old County Court and Gaol. Again we were regaled by characters from the past. It was much more interactive than the other gaols we’ve visited in the UK (Beaumaris and Inverary), and I have to say the most enjoyable. The character in the court was amusing and got everyone in the mood, the gaoler was genuinely scary and made a small child cry (not deliberately), and the female inmate was disturbing and pitiable. The oldest part of the gaol remains from medieval times and had a horrible atmosphere – it made my hair stand on end and I had to leave because it made me feel nauseous. I cannot imagine being stuck down there for years on end.

We then went for a mooch around the city. There’s a large square in the centre with a huge water feature used as a giant paddling pool by the local kids that’s just great. We were too late to visit the Castle but did take a couple of photos by the Robin Hood statue. Nottingham has a fabulous shopping centre and I finally found a pair of the Merrell shoes I’ve been seeking for several years. This alone was worth the trip.

After this we decided to check out some of Nottingham’s pubs. There are some really nice ones within spitting distance of the Galleries of Justice. In particular we liked the Pitcher and Piano which is housed in a large converted church. It has a spectacular stained glass window and while a pub is perhaps an irreverent use for a church it does at least still serve as a centre for the community!

We then ate at La Tasca before rushing off to catch the last bus back to the hotel.

Verdict: Nottingham is a lovely city and well worth a day trip or weekend. The location of the Riverside Travelodge is great so long as you don’t mind having to get the bus back at 8pm.

Our holiday started in the most exciting way possible – I had to go and buy a new tyre for my car. Whoo hoo! That’s 72 quid I would rather have spent on posh meals and tickets to tourist attractions. Nevermind.

Anyway, we drove down to Nottingham via the Peak District, stopping at Matlock for a quick butty and a mooch around. What we didn’t realise was that we’d stopped in the boring half of Matlock. If you keep going over the bridge the town gets much more interesting. Still we’ll know that for next time.

When we arrived at the Nottingham Riverside Travelodge we were happy to find a big pub attached to it. Nice one. But OMG do NOT order a starter and main course. I’ve never seen so much food in my life.

We’re gonna go for it! Mark and I are getting married in Las Vegas and I’m fairly certain it’s going to be next Easter. It’s either next Easter or next July because of the way our holidays fall, and I think I’d melt if I went to Vegas in the summer!

We’ve got to book some flights first. And then choose a couple or three hotels (4* and above only - it’s our honeymoon after all and a once in a lifetime trip!). And then we have to choose a date for the big event itself. And then we have to choose a chapel. And then a venue for the reception. And then we have to invite people (although I can’t see many folk joining us across the pond). And then we have to choose all the day trips, tours and shows for the rest of our honeymoon. It’s all REALLY exciting! But, coming back down to earth with a bump - we’ve got to solve one huge problem - how to pay for it all!!!

Why is there always a catch??