"Puff, pant..."

So there I was charging down the final hill at the British Masters Cross Country Champs at Rhug in Denbighshire. Just look at that lovely close cropped green sward that I'm floating across. The photo doesn't do it justice - it was a muddy quagmire and I felt as if I'd been running through treacle for the last half an hour! It seemed to be worth it as some time later, revived by a cup of tea and a large picnic lunch I found that our over 65 team had come third to win nice shiny bronze medals. Oh the memories will come flooding back when I show them to the great grandchildren. 

Put that bow and arrow away!

  The venue for this    years race was the  Rhug Estate which is a  12,000 acre farm and  manor house right by  the A5 on its way to  Holyhead. Travellers  flashing by on their way  to catch the Irish ferry  are likely to look twice  as they pass the  spreading pastures for,  having sailed past  plenty  of flocks of  sheep on the Welsh  hillsides, they are likely  to suddenly get a glimpse of a herd of American bison! The current Lord Newborough (a runner himself) has played host to national cross country events several times now and he enjoys welcoming runners and supporters who gather at the estate farm shop and cafe where the farm's organic produce can be purchased. Yes maybe I should have bought a couple of their bison steaks - maybe next time!

Shrews or Shrows?

A couple of months ago I uploaded a photo of the Catholic Cathedral of Brisbane as it might have been, the current cathedral had been deemed too small and in the 1930's a larger 4000 capacity edifice was designed which would have been the biggest church in the southern hemisphere. But due to a lack of funds (and the impact of the Second World War) it was never built. Just a few days ago we visited Shrewsbury Cathedral, a modest sized church that is depicted here. It's just that the spire and tower were never built not for want of money but because the ground was found to be too unstable to support such a structure, shame as it would have been a striking addition to the city skyline. Coincidentally this pleasant building was designed by Edward Pugin, whose father Augustus designed the chapel which preceded and still stands next door to, Brisbane Cathedral! So what do the locals say Shroosbury or Shrowsbury? Listenng to people in the city (and as we'd previously gathered form our discussions with other Salopians, it's Shroosbury (well you wouldn't call a shrew a shrow would you!) And the Shropshire Star conducted an online poll which overwhelmingly favoured Shroosbury as the accepted pronunciation, Shrewsbury being an affectation adopted by people form down south who don't know what they're talking about.

They wouldn't have called this one Paddy's Wigwam!

And here's another church - this one hardly got off the drawing board and only the crypt was completed. This would have been the fourth largest church in Christendom back in the 1930's but financial woes meant that the catholics of Liverpool would eventually have to put up with a more modest, (and futuristic) design now known by the locals as Paddy's Wigwam. The crypt still exists underneath the church and is the long running popular venue for the annual Liverpool Beer Festival.

Here's one of the finalists in the 1889 competition to design the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York. This enormous construction was, of course, in keeping with the bigger and better ethos of the city. A slightly less ambitious design was ultimately selected and construction commenced a few years late - and it's still not complete! The usual conditions applied - ground that was not solid enough to support the weight of the main tower, shortage of money and interruptions due to the constraints of various world wars. The local nickname for the building is 'St John the Unfinished'.

So, we've done parkruns in Brisbane and Liverpool but not New York, our most recent bit of parkrun tourism was Shrewsbury of course, a lovely route along the river bank in the city centre, Vicky's first in her new age category! Shrewsbury is notable for many reasons, Henry VII stayed there on his way to the Battle Of Bosworth Field where, against the odds, he defeated the Yorkist army once and for all thus ending the War of the Roses and establishing the Tudor Dynasty. He, unlike his son Henry VIII, only had one wife. Following our jog along the river bank we spent the morning pottering around the medieval town centre and came across a busker who'd been halted by the police on his way from John O'Groats to Lands End. Something to do with the fact that the piano he was pulling along wasn't roadworthy.

It's a long way to Lands End!

Footnote: there are estimated to be over 100 billion shrews in the worlds (definitely not pronounced 'show'!!) Here's a picture of one of them:

Looking very shrewd!

Not the Lake District but it's still Cumbria

Can you see what I see?

  If you follow the west coast of England   northwards alongside Lancashire and     then Cumbria the last town you will         encounter before reaching Scotland is     Silloth. It overlooks the Solway Firth       and faces some of the lowland hills of     Scotland just a few miles across the        bay. Unlike some of the other fairly         industrial towns of the Cumberland         coast Silloth is a surprisingly tidy and     well laid out little place, it doubles as a  neat harbour and a seaside resort. It's    not so touristy now and its heyday was    in the Victorian era when trainloads of    Carlisle workers would come over to      enjoy a bit of sea and sun although we    spotted a number of caravan parks on    the town approaches. We were up too    late to come and take part in the    morning's Silloth parkrun so we nipped    in to Maryport, near where we were staying, and did the parkrun there. But on the Saturday afternoon we trundled up to Silloth and took a walk along the very pleasant promenade. The photo is of me and Skip and 'The Big Fella'.

I saw it first!

We're well away from the big Lakeland hills near Gilcrux which is a pleasant village north of Cockermouth. Primarily we've come somewhere fairly remote to escape New Year fireworks - Skip is terrified of all the bangs, you know firework displays years ago were all about the visual display whereas now it's all about the noise, the louder the better! Cockermouth is a well preserved, modest sized, medieval town tucked away in rolling countryside at the junction of the Rivers Derwent and Cocker. Here Vicky was examining an interesting War Memorial display with some odd looking metal daffodils sprouting behind her. You'll also see a wall painting advertising Jennings Ales and behind that building is the fast flowing river.

Until very recently Jennings was the pride of Cockermouth; the large brewery sits in the shadow of the castle and, between the two of them, these buildings dominate the town. In 2005 the brewery owners sold out to the national brewery chain of Marstons based in Staffordshire. "Don't worry," they said "we'll keep the brewery brewing." But the cynics who said they'd heard that before were proved right in 2022 when the brewery was closed and production transferred to a mega brewery in the midlands, sad days indeed. In our very convivial pub which we ran for a while about 20 years ago one of the popular beers that I sourced for our regulars, many of whom were fell runners, was Jennings Fellrunner Ale a beer now consigned to history...... but, hold on, in a local store we spotted some Bowness Brewery Fell Runner Blonde, on our first night in the area we cracked open a couple of bottles of this refreshing brew and remembered past times. Long may Bowness Brewery thrive!