Tuesday, 9 February 2010

Day out in the Black Country.

This weekend I went with Julie and Dave the Black Country Museum at Dudley to celebrate Dave's Birthday.

The Museum as can be seen from the photo below is mainly about reproducing what it was like to live in the Black Country area at the beginning of the 20th Century. A whole village as been built from houses taken down from the local area and then rebuilt creating a fascinating authentic place to visit.



Julie and Dave riding a Trolley Bus, basically a tram without tracks or bus that has to follow overhead power cables


A Trolley Bus at the museum.


The village has many working shops that sell their goods to visitors, this is Julie and Dave outside the sweet shop, Dave bought us all a cake from the shop next door, further down the street was a fish and chip shop. We visited the cafe while there for lunch all of use deciding to have the large black country sausages which were yummy.


Unfortunately it was a cold day, since most of the museum is outside I would recommend you go when its warmer.


Most of the shops and houses had working fires which were lit to keep the costumed characters that worked at the museum warm and were excellent to keep us visitors warm.


Julie knitted me a cowl for Christmas, it was very helpful in keeping me warm, not that I wore it pulled over my face like in the photo below, most of the time I wore it just around my neck. I highly recommend a cowl as a alternative to scarf.


Picture of the canal inside the museum.


I had a great day out, I assume Julie and Dave did, I wished it was better weather since it may have been more enjoyable, next time we pick a indoor place to visit in winter.

Sunday, 7 February 2010

Friday, 29 January 2010

Monday, 25 January 2010

Mess by the Oak Tree

This weekend despite not feeling well I went along to crew at LRP event at Shining Cliff Wood and found the much of the west end devastated by woodland maintenance. The signs says they a clearing the softwoods to allow a hardwood forest to re-establish itself, this may be great in the long term but they have stripped vast areas of trees totally and thinned the other area so much they are hard to describe as woodland anymore.

From a entry gate at Higgs Lane to the Shinning Cliff hostel car park run 2 paths, the upper path is still a nice place to walk, the lower path is not, stripped of trees, and then the path bulldozed through the debris leaving loose boulders its a place to avoid and will take many years to grow back into nice walk. The end which did have a nice leafy clearing with a oak tree in middle as been halved in sized, given a nice new footbridge, but the hillside behind has been fully cleared of all tree and was full of the noise of chains saws cutting down more, a large logging company seems to have established a base on the road up alongside the wood.

Once past the east end of the wood into the hostels area things are still untouched and protected by owners so will remain that way.

The bottom path, it looks like this from the area we park in all the way to the Hostel car park.


The old oak tree clearing which was full of atmosphere as been reduced to this.


The back drop has been cleared of trees.


The event itself went well, it was 3 or 4 degrees C which did not feel that cold and dry on Saturday, Sunday it did drizzle then rain at the end of the day, so my costumes got very damp and muddy. The players got into things even if the event was designed to keep them moving, fighting and thus warm, its not the time of year for long outdoor negotiations, although their seemed plenty of things to discuss.

AndyL who wrote the plot had now way of knowing what the players would do Sunday with many optional paths so we had to have many contingency plans and quick costume changes at the ready.

Two mountain bikers nearly came off as they rounded a bend and spotted 2 Gaisha in the wood trying to seduce a chaos mage.


Sam forgot her hair brush, I thought she would make a good Ronald McDonald.



I finished the weekend feeling much fitter than I started with the running around clearing up my listlessness, but the downside was the my cough got worse as the mucus settled on my chest and I think as set itself up for a long stay.

Saturday, 23 January 2010

Sunday, 17 January 2010

2010 Photo 3 of 52

Having not taken any photographs this week apart a rubbish photo of my cat checking I had washed behind my ears.



The only thing I could do was spice the photograph up a bit to make it more interesting.

Saturday, 9 January 2010

2010 Photo 2 of 52

Snow days for vegetation