Holiday - Yorkshire/Shropshire - Day Nine

Yorkshire/Shropshire Holiday

Day Nine

Continuing the theme of healthy breakfasts we started the day with sausage sarnies!!

09:10 – 09:45 Wem 8 12-2-23 service ringing

10:30 – 11:00 Myddle 3 7cwt service ringing

There were Alpacas in the field by the church.  They posed for photos and kept trying to mount each other!!

11:15 – 11:45 Loppington 3 8-1-04 ringing after service – sadly we had a lock out!  The service had been held at a neighbouring village - think the bloke had forgotten we were coming.

Roast dindins - We went to the Two Henries in Shrewsbury.

14:45 – 15:15 Leaton 5 14-2-00

16:00 – 16:30 Shrewsbury, St Mary 10 19-2-08

16:50 – 18:00 Shrewsbury, St Chad 12 39-2-07

We attempted a quarter here of Plain Bob Cinques however we didn't get it.  The band was...

1. Local Ringer
2. Malcolm Penney
3. Paul Smith
4. Ken Waller
5. Sas Watson
6. Carol Waller
7. Joanne A Waller
8. Local Ringer
9. Jon Waller
10. Ben Waller
11. Tim E Rose (c)
12. Joanne Waler

This evening we had sandwiches for tea and then the Wallers came over to us to play pass the bomb.  Many words used were taken from the profanisaurus!!  A great evenings entertainment!!

Holiday - Yorkshire/Shropshire - Day Eight

Yorkshire/Shropshire Holiday

Day Eight

The second day of our ringing holiday.

Bacon sarnies were a good way to start the day.  Paul did a very good job at playing mum!!

10:00 – 11:00 Clive 6 25-0-09

www.campanophile.com/view.aspx?149868

11:30 – 12:30 Stoke on Tern 6 8cwt

www.campanophile.com/view.aspx?149869

There was a picnic area by the church so we sat and had our lunch and a small amount of silly string!!

14:00 – 15:00 Hodnet 8 12-0-24

www.campanophile.com/view.aspx?149871

15:30 – 16:30 Market Drayton 8 17-2-03

www.campanophile.com/view.aspx?149872

17:00 – 17:20 Childs Ercall 3 6-3-00

A good days ringing – we got all quarters.

On the way back to the caravans we stopped by the local Chinese to get some dinner.  Tonight we did Tim's quiz.  We were in three teams - Helmetdales, Wallies and JWs.  There were 5 rounds - guess the celebrity/presenter by listening to their voice, a round on Shropshire facts, a round based on Doves guide! (Ben showed his true geekyness during this round!!), guess the tool Tim was using in his garage by listening to sounds! and name the cathedral from photos.  Team Wallies won, then Team Helmetdale and the JWs came last.

Later on Ben came back over from their caravan sporting the merkin made out of doughnuts malted fur we had made for him 18 months before!!!  We had no idea he had actually kept it!!!  Jo and Ken also tried it on!!

Holiday - Yorkshire/Shropshire - Day Seven

Yorkshire/Shropshire Holiday

Day Seven

The first day of our ringing holiday.

This morning we had a couple of things to sort before we set off to the first tower.  We first went to the bank to get plenty of £5 notes to sort the tower donations, next was the bit I had been looking forward to – going round the charity shops looking for suitable wedding presents for Ben and Jo!!  We managed to get a great selection of tat – however it did make us late leaving!  We got held up in a lot of traffic and realised we were not going to make the first tower – Boningale. The rest of the day went as planned.

11:30 – 11:50 Boningale 3 3-3-26

12:15 – 12:45 Kemberton 4 6cwt

14:00 – 15:00 Shifnal 8 18-3-09

www.campanophile.com/view.aspx?149856

15:30 – 16:00 Sheriffhales 6 9cwt

16:30 – 17:30 Lilleshall 6 9cwt

www.campanophile.com/view.aspx?149860

After the last tower we went to the caravan park, booked in and unpacked.  In the evening we went to the Albion pub in Wem.  While we were waiting for our meals to arrive we presented Ben and Jo with their bag full of presents!!  They seemed to be very pleased with them!!  Back to the caravan for tea and curly wurly before bed!

Holiday - Yorkshire/Shropshire - Day Six

Yorkshire/Shropshire Holiday

Day Six

This morning it was again dry so we thought we had better do some more caving!!  We decided to walk out to the two caves we investigated on Tuesday.  The bog got Tim at one point as he suddenly ended up to his thighs in it!!  We first went into Thistle cave – We weren’t alone in there we could hear voices from the entrance.  As we got in we saw a group of kids having a play a round.  We went up stream and tried out some of the photography techniques we were told about at the caving conference.  We exited the top entrance and had a look into the top section before walking further along the hill top for Scar Top Cave which was the top section of Runscar Cave.  The entrance was in the stream under a pile of boulders – the way on was through a low crawl that carried on for far too long!!  We determined it wasn’t really going anywhere so we turned round and came back out and went in the downstream entrance through Runscar 3 and 2.  We also went into Runscar 1 as far as the sump and then back out.  A lovely trip into two nice small caves.

We went to Inglesport for some lunch and to get a survey for Alum Pot from Bernie’s Cafe next door.  Back at the caving club we cleaned up and packed the car and headed to Warrington for a Toby Carvery.

After dinner we went to the ringing practice at Lymm.

That evening we travelled down to a travel lodge in Crewe ready to join everyone on our ringing holiday the next day.

Holiday - Yorkshire/Shropshire - Day Five

Yorkshire/Shropshire Holiday

Day Five

This morning we got up to dry weather!!!  We had decided that we would try and get underground today.  We had a look at our options and decided that we would go for Pikedaw Calamine Caverns.

We parked on the edge of the road and followed the bridal way out to the cave.

The walk to the entrance was very much UP hill!!  It only took about 30 mins.  The entrance shaft had a concrete cover with a man hole cover in the middle. 

Tim rigging the pitch.

We abseiled down the 23 Metre mine shaft and made our way down the passage running NW first and then the NE passage.

It was mostly walking passage with the occasional low section.  A nice trip with some formations and an opportunity to get some SRT practice.

Holiday - Yorkshire/Shropshire - Day Four

Yorkshire/Shropshire Holiday

Day Four

The rain was still falling!!  We didn't really feel that inspired to go underground.  We decided we would go to Ingleton and have a late breakfast in Inglesport and get a few surveys from this area.  We tried a couple of roads to get there but had to turn round  due to rather deep flooding.  The road we eventually got down took us near the entrance to a couple of caves so we decided to stop and see if we could locate them.  When we had eventually found the correct place to park we walked out across the bog to an entrance we could see from the road.  We found Runscar and Thistle Cave entrances

Runscar Cave

Thistle Cave

We then headed for Inglesport to get some food, when we got there we found that most of the village was experiencing a power cut!!  We therefore couldn't get food there.  We did however manage to get a survey we wanted and I tried on a neofleece that I have been interested in.

We went to Settle in search of food - I had remembered seeing tea rooms there.  We went into the Singing Kettle as they were doing all day breakfasts and baps - they served massive portions!

On our way back to the caving club we decided to go via some lime kilns that we were told were worth a look.  However on the way Tim's car began to behave odd and a warning light came on and then a burning sort of smell!  We stopped, got out and had a look at it but there was nothing we could see going on.  We went back to the caving club as we were mostly back anyway.  I got online looking for local garages where we could get it looked at.  There was one in the village  near by - we took it there and they found that it had got a little bit waterlogged!!! 

They very speedily rectified the problem and we were on our way.  We had lost all motivation for doing anything else so we came back to the club.

That evening we went to Skipton to join their ringing practice.