2022-08 UK Trip

After 5 years and a pandemic we have finally managed to head back to the UK to see friends and family. The flight on Qatar was comfortable and the food was excellent.

We arrived in Lymm on the 19th August and headed down to the Saddler’s Arms to meet up with Crooty and the gang. A terrific evening and it was great to see all our old friends.

Next morning we went for a stroll in Statham which is where our hotel, the Statham Lodge is located. It is pleasingly rural and we walked down to and along part of the Manchester Ship canal.

We then travelled down to Tipton to see Rob’s father, brother and family. We took Dad to the Nailer’s Arms in Bromsgrove see one of his old work mates, Jeff Riley and his daughter Julie who was one of Rob’s childhood friends. The next day we went to the Park Inn (Rob’s old local) with Dave and Fi. The beer is still excellent which it should be since it is the Holden’s Brewery Tap. On the Sunday, we took a walk along Tipton cut, (canal to non Black Country types). In Rob’s youth the cut was full of prams, bicycles and mattresses. Now it has been cleaned up markedly and one can see fish and birdlife. A welcome change.

Hazel and Rob then took Rob’s Dad, Arnold up to Manchester to stay in the iconic Midland Hotel in the centre of town. We went for lunch at the equally iconic Mr. Thomas’s Chop House, a splendid 1860s establishment famous for its tradition British food, excellent beer and period decor. At the rear of the Chop House is St. Anne’s church which has amazing stained glass and in which Arnold tells us, his grandmother was married in about 1890. We also visited Fletcher Moss Gardens to which Rob used to be taken when on the semiannual visit to the family in Manchester back in the 60s and 70s.

The main reason for going to Manchester, was to visit the newly created Royal Horticultural Society garden Bridgewater. It is in the grounds of what was Worsley New Hall. It is large and very impressive and will get even better as it matures. We hired a scooter for Dad and we all had a great time.

On the way back from Manchester to Tipton, we dropped into Lymm to visit with our friend Pauline who was the one who suggested that we visit RHS Bridgewater in the first place. She has a delightful cottage garden on the canal bank in Lymm and we spent a lovely time having a cup of tea and looking around her garden.

After a few more days in Tipton, we headed for Shropshire, one of the loveliest English counties, to do some hiking. We first headed to Ironbridge, the birthplace of the industrial revolution to meet up with Iain Gill, one of Rob’s school chums. We had a lovely work along the Severn valley and then headed up to Shrewsbury, the county town of Shropshire for 3 nights. The next day we climbed the Long Mynd, an iconic Shropshire hill and were blessed with beautiful weather and some spectacular scenery.

The next day we decided to look around Shrewsbury which is a rather pleasant medieval town. After the previous day’s exertions, we were looking for something a little less strenuous and Hazel suggested looking around some churches to see the stained glass. We looked at St. Chads which has a very unusual circular nave, Shrewsbury roman catholic cathedral, St. Alkmunds and then we stumbled across the absolute gem of St. Mary the Virgin church which boasts some extraordinary stained glass by virtue of having escaped bombing in World War two. They say it is one of the finest collections in Europe.

After Shrewsbury, we shot up to Liverpool for a flying visit to sort out our British passports and then headed down to Tipton for a brief evening visit to the Black Country Museum to check out its second pub, the Elephant and Castle, which has just been completed. A splendid building with an exterior and fireplace that certainly puts modern pubs to shame. The next day we headed for Lichfield to see our erstwhile vicar George Frost and his wife. George was vicar at St. Matthew’s Tipton whilst Dave and Rob were at school and Dad was a churchwarden, so we knew them well. We had a delightful lunch with them before heading back to Tipton.

The next trip was to Chester with Dad, and we spent 4 pleasant days there staying in the Chester Grosvenor.

We visited Chester Zoo and the Blue Planet Aquarium.

We then returned to Tipton to spend some time with Rob’s brother’s family and of course his father. We went to Birmingham and saw the Commonwealth Games Bull and visited Gas Street Basin, the heart of the British canal network and one of the locations for the TV series, Peaky Blinders.

Finally, back to Lymm to meet up with pals before our return to Australia

And then the flight home