Eden Revisited

I've been to the Eden project a few times.  The first time was in the early 2000s.  There was a large tyre in the tropical dome then and we took a picture of the girls on it.  I remember this day well as Caitlin had just had a bike crash and her lip was bloodied and then, poor thing, she shut her fingers in the toilet door!  Riona, meanwhile, was wearing no shoes.  We were camping locally and we'd swung by the playground in our van to scoop her up. We only realised once we got to the Eden project that she was shoe-less!

In 2007 we were a tad more organised.  Caitlin was in one piece and Riona had bought shoes.

I visited again in 2009. I like visiting the Eden Project but it's expensive, and I didn't feel I needed to keep re-visiting.  However, I was jogged to visit recently as I had a free ticket, and I'm never one to turn these things down.  JC and I visited last Saturday and it was pretty much as I've remembered it.  

The crested partridges are still running around, but, sadly, the big tyre as gone.  

The sausage tree was going well.  

In the temperate zone I found the giant lemon.  Which doesn't look to scale unless you're next to it.  But, trust me, it's massive.

A Week in Luxembourg

I have just returned from a week in Luxembourg visiting JC and his parents.  Luxembourg, like most other countries, is operating under Covid rules so we were limited with what we could do.  We did however manage a few walks on dry days. 

One day we headed to Little Switzerland and walked around Mullenthal.  Our route took us through woodlands with wonderful rock outcrops and startlingly bright moss green patches.  

It also did a fine line in fungi.

Our route not only took us past some amazing rock formations, but through them!

We then passed the largest waterfall in Luxembourg.  I present to you The Schiessentümpel Waterfall.

On New Year's Day we went for a stroll by the Mossel.

I do so love a water level.  So much so that these are the only photos I took!

The next day we walked what is dubbed one of the most amazing walks in Luxembourg.  Manternach Fiels, also known as a Dream Loop, covers a 10 km stretch by rivers, through woodlands and with wonderful views around Manternach.  It was a nice walk, indeed, if not super muddy underfoot. 

The first muddy part was through a woodland which, once again, did a superb line in fungi.

Then across a river, up past some wonderful rock formations, and down to another stream on a muddy footpath.  

We had a slight pause here whilst I waited for the photographer.

Then it was up through some muddy wood and around a few fields.  We dropped down through an ancient terrace vineyard and back through a muddy trial down to the river where there was an abandoned water mill.

It was a lovely walk, but I certainly wouldn't rate it as one of the best in Luxembourg.  Little Switzerland has some far more amazing ones.  And did I say it was muddy?

The rest of our time was spent popping in on relatives, random shopping, a hard jigsaw (which I sadly had to abandon) and prepping for our trip home - the paperwork for testing, entering France, leaving France, entering Britain etc was pretty extensive!

We drove home on Thursday, 4 countries in one day.  First off was the Luxembourg/Belgium border.

Then heavy rain followed by snow in Belgium!

The French border was hard to spot - I'd hoped for a flag or two but it was just a sign which we nearly missed.

Then it was Calais for the Eurotunnel.  As we drove towards the border control, we saw the long queue for the British passports and switched to the EU queue which was a lot shorter.  Now I'm wondering if it's a problem that we went in and out of Europe on different passports.  I doubt it.  

The drive back on the UK side was uneventful, which is how journeys should be.  We arrived home after 11 hours door to door which isn't too bad at all :-)

A Stroll in the Peaks

Given the offer of a free lift to/from Sheffield in early December, I snuck in a visit to Riona.  Aside from drinking tea, chatting, playing the Switch and eating out, we got lucky with a fair weather window and headed for the hills.

The Peaks had had a lot of snow the previous week and this was the first dry day for a while.  We parked at Castleton and walked south west up the route of a water course, which was an actual stream due to rain/snow melt.  Turning around we could see Peveril Castle, a ruined 11th Century castle.        

Oooh snow!

We headed up to Mam Tor, and the views opened up as the clouds briefly lifted.

Oooh look, trig time! Riona knows better than to entice me out on a walk without the promise of a trig.

Super views across the Peaks.

We made a slippy descent and walked back across the fields, as the weather closed in.  Back to Sheffield and then supper out at the lovely Sardinian Domo restaurant.  Even I was defeated by the size of the vegetable plateau I'd ordered!

Shrewsbury, Iron Bridge and the Most Beautiful Tiles

Mid November JC and I popped up to Shropshire to see some old friends of his.  On the Saturday we popped into the Shrewsbury Museum to see a 3000 year old sun pendant, then wandered around viewing the wonky old buildings and interesting wood carvings.

We took a long stroll back to the car via River Severn and The Quarry (Shrewbury's park).  

On Sunday we headed for Iron Bridge.  It was a tad misty which gave it an air of mystery.  

My treat for the day was the Jackfield Tile Museum.  Iron Bridge was the heart of the British tile industry and this outstanding collection hosts some wonderful examples of its history.  The museum is hosted in the old factory offices, and some of the rooms are left as they would have been 100 years ago.  The decorative tiles are beautiful.  I particularly love the art deco style.

So beautiful.

The museum holds a lot of tiles by an outstanding tile designer William de Morgan, many of them amassed by the prolific tile collector, John Scott, who donated some 1300 tiles to this museum.