Friday Photo — More Midlands

There is this saying out there that goes along the lines of “the best laid plans of mice and men…”

I had this post ready last night; I just wanted to review it before posting today.

Papyrus Migraine Therapy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Then I woke with the killer migraine from…  Having a prescription medication (I take Maxalt) doesn’t help as much when one wakes up with the migraine already full-blown.  Most migraine medications are designed to be taken at the warning signs, the auras and such.  I was asleep though, and I didn’t get the messages my body wanted to send me until the pillow hurt too much to lay on.  We won’t get into my head’s issues with the sunny yellow paint and wallpaper of our bedroom…

Long and short–I’m late with this post.  I also didn’t end up taking the Boodle to the playgroup with our local homeschooling community today as I’d planned.  Then again, I didn’t put a crocodile on my head either.

A special lunch tea

But now that I’m feeling better,  I can bring you all on a nostalgic trip to Great Britain’s Midlands.  Next week, we will begin our trip south, taking a circuitous path that will highlight cities along the English Channel, and I am adding one more week to this series  so we can all visit London, our last destination before the flight home.

These images follow less of a theme than some.  After I’d reached some “goals”, my travels took more of a “let’s just stop in a town and see what I see” style.  And no, technically Stonehenge and Old Sarum are not Midlands attractions, but they were great day-trip destinations for my husband and I.

Chestershire

Imagine the soldiers who had to walk this hill to take Beestoke Castle

The surrounding countryside looking down from the castle base; it wasn’t hard to imagine myself transported back several centuries

A street in Chester, and no blue boxes

The old and new merge constantly

Cats at Peckforton Castle

In a random Chester building–I should have taken better notes

StoneHenge DaY-Trip

Much more dangerous when they leap from the bushes than a deer

Morning Fog at Old Sarum

About as close as they let the average tourist get to Stonehenge

I think this is one of my best pictures from the trip. Great view!

They don’t look like much, but those earthen mounds in the distance are even more cool historically than the henge itself.

White Horses

A White Horse we saw on our way home–I believe it was the Rockley Horse because of its long tail and positioning

Hubby has steadier hands for evening shots )we don’t have anti-shake on our camera) for this image of the Marlborough White Horse

There are a LOT of White Horses

Toward BridgNorth

On an earlier trip, the hubby and I visited some Shropshire sites (I only had disposable 35mm cameras then) and I wanted to check the area out more on my own. Something about ruined abbes and castles… and topiaries at Wenlock Priory

Imagine walking through this building in tact, how the carvings would flicker in candlelight, casting shadows

More contrasts of old and new, save that the North Gate didn’t look like this until the 20th century

Ruins in Shadow

In high school, I went to Paris and saw basement floors of Notre Dame “paved” with gravestones; here at Bridgnorth and other UK churches the walkways as well were similarly paved

They say that these ruins of the Bridgnorth Castle lean more than the Tower of Pisa

At End of Day

Waiting for some mutton stew at a pub (this was after we’d gone to Stonehenge)

And one of my more interesting night shots–I desperately needed a tripod, but this church in Birmingham was too gorgeous lit like this to pass up snapping a shot