Nearly there ladies!

Nearly there ladies!

Not mentioned running lately but we're still at it. This is from the Two Hillforts race which involves 9 miles of tough stuff up the prehistoric hill forts of Penycloddiau and Moel Arthur. Here we are at about eight and a half miles plodding through the last fields but Vicky and June charged across the finish line together and were joint winners of the L60 bottles of beer. Well done girls!
We've also been Parkrunning and the previous weekend all did the Vale of Clwyd 5K, a very pleasant gallop round the quiet country lanes near Llandyrnog. The upcoming big one is the 15 miler Clwydian Hills challenge at the beginning of September. Watch this space...

It's a bug's life!

Here's something that landed next to the point pots at a pub we visited recently in Staffordshire. It's a Hawthorn Shield Bug, a member of the family of 'true bugs'. Bugs is a rather misused word but used in it's correct sense it excludes beetles, spiders, flies and colds and flu. Bugs are a fascinating order of the insect family and consist of a wide ranging variety of creatures - pond skaters for instance who use the Marangoni Effect to walk on water! Other bugs you may have come across include bed bugs (but I haven't met any!), aphids and Green Shield Bugs which are related to Hawthorn Shield Bugs and gave their name to Green Shield Stamps.

Washing machine for 185 books!

Green Shield Stamps, rather astonishingly, only disappeared in 1991. The Green Shield Stamp company changed it's name to Argos and stopped accepting stamps at that time - no-one told me and I still have 47 books full! Each stamp was worth a nominal third of a penny and it took 1,280 stamps to fill a book. Things started to get a bit out of hand when competing stores offered 'double stamps', 'triple stamps', and so on. Part of the reason for their demise was that Tesco suddenly decided with no warning, to drop Green Shield Stamps and use instead the novel different sales tactic of price cutting!

And I challenge anyone to see the connection between Charlie Brown, his favourite Genesis album and Green Shield stamps!

Beware of the Black and Yellow

Bit of cherry makes a change from alder!

There are plenty of black and yellow caterpillars around - it's nature's way of telling predators "Don't eat me!" Wasps and bees sting, other creature bite or contain poison - or maybe they don't - but the birds and animals (and humans) don't want to take a chance! This is an Alder Moth caterpillar and, although they are widespread, they are apparently uncommon so I was lucky to see this one (on a cherry tree leaf not an alder!) at the back of West Cheshire College while taking Skip for our evening stroll a couple of weeks ago. 

And where do you think you're going?

Another evening walk we sometimes take is by the river past a house called 'Nowhere". The story goes that in the 1960's the Beatles were playing at a live venue in Chester - John Lennon happened to take a walk past this house and it inspired him to write the song "Nowhere Man"! Readers of this blog will know that I'm fond of linking apparently unconnected facts and those who follow the rock music scene closely may well have heard of the Bristol-based band "Tax the Heat" whose name comes from the lyrics of the George Harrison song "Taxman". And indeed the band were playing a couple of weeks ago at a live venue in Chester- and thanks to the fact that the bass player is the fiance of our niece Katy we were able to obtain tickets (with Katie's sister Lizzie Rose) to a fine gig (as concerts are known as in the 21st century!) Here Tax the Heat were supporting Ash - later this year they are on tour supporting Terrorvision - PLUG,  PLUG!

Go watch!

Bricks and Chester

Now how are we going to mow the lawn?

Cycling along the back roads south of Chester on a Sunday morning - these are quiet roads at this time of the week all I seem to see are other bike riders scooting between the delightful villages. Many of these villages  are within the Duke of Westminster's Eaton Hall estate and are full of listed buildings - this row of cottages is at Aldford and I was rather taken with the audience of gnomes, small animals, etc., who populate the garden of the cottage in the middle. These buildings are better known for the decorative pargetting or plasterwork on the front of the upper storeys. Many of the cottages and churches in these villages were designed by John Douglas, a noted local architect, who was also responsible for many of the brick buildings in Chester plus many of the half timbered buildings which most people think are medieval but, in fact, some of them actually date from the mid 19th century.

Is it easier having teeth out in a nice building?

This is 6-11 Grosvenor Street, also built by Douglas, and the end building with the turret houses our dentist's surgery! Nicklaus Pevsner described this as "a brilliant group of brick houses." I'd started to write this post before the recent death of the Duke of Westminster, who was held in high regard by folk in these parts, and many of the works of John Douglas in Chester and the surrounding area were commissioned by the previous Dukes of Westminster.

Still on the subject of landed gentry, this is Abbeystead House, near Lancaster, which was owned by the Earl of Sefton and built by - guess who? John Douglas or more correctly the Chester firm of Douglas and Fordham! On the death of the 7th Earl of Sefton in 1972 and in the absence of any heirs the House was sold and in 1980 it was acquired by the then Duke of Westminster. And sadly this is where the 6th Duke died last week.

As a bit of a postscript the main residence of the Earls of Sefton was Croxteth Hall, which is in Liverpool and is also the venue for a Parkrun - so we'd better go and give it a go!