Shrewsbury Abbey

Today we headed north, to Shrewsbury, about 25 miles away. We parked opposite the Abbey, of which only the church of St Peter & St Paul remains. Our luck held in terms of avoiding inadvertant recitals, when we discovered that just as we arrived - 1pm on a Wednesday - should have been the start of a weekly free concert, but this week the organ was broken. We looked round - it houses part of the original shrine of St Winifred - and walked round the outside.

Walked across the bridge over the Severn into the town, of which much is timber framed. Very busy with traffic but very pretty, and a lot of shops.

Stopped off at The Old Post Office pub for a drink - sat outside in a little courtyard surronded by timber framed buildings. Moved on to look round the town - bought postcards. The museum was closed (for much of 2007), annoyingly.

Walked up to the castle - the later (Civil War) castle houses the Shropshire regimental museum, but you can go up to Laura's Tower which is a little turretty thing on the site of the original castle mound without paying the entrance fee. This has spectacular views to the north and east, including the Abbey.

Walked back through town along St Mary's and stopped at Cloisters teashop on Wyle Cop for a very nice piece of homemade coffee cake (me) and a good plate of BLT sandwiches (Chris). It was sweltering hot in there in the sun, so much so the icing was melting on my cake! (and no, that's not a euphemism).

Back to Clun by about five. Wilbur and Myrtle from the Bothy have been replaced by another couple and bugger me if this bloke wasn't sat outside staring at us too. He continued staring until I stood in the window and stared back, at which point he found something terribly interesting in his paper.

Have run out of wine. Cock.