Quick trip to Shrewsbury.

One of the advantages of mooring at Queens Head is that you are on the main bus route to Oswestry one way and Shrewsbury the other, Arriva, route number 70, buses every half hour. Today we set off, bus pass in hand, for a trip to Shrewsbury, takes about forty minutes and for those of us well stricken in years it's free. We have been debating whether to treat ourselves to some decent waterproofs as our old ones have gone to that great wardrobe in the sky and the decision was  "Let's do it." Well we found an outdoor shop and plunged in, we are now the possessors of top of the range waterproofs, which means it probably won't rain for a twelve month. Don't even think of asking the price, they had to bring out the sal volatile to keep me conscious and then use the thumb screws to extract the cash from my wallet. At least we'll keep dry.
As it was a shopping trip there wasn't much time for exploration but

we did find the old market hall, built in1596 as the plaque on it shows.

I wonder if this is the oldest Costa Coffee in the world?

The High Street here is just a continuous stream of cars and buses, luckily it's one way so you've got a fifty-fifty chance of surviving as you hurl yourself between them. Not all the roads are that bad,

you don't get many lorries coming up this lane. You can almost sense Cadfael just around the corner. At the top there is a most pleasant open space

with a splendid English tea room, called Camellia on one side, it is the sort of establishment that should have four elderly ladies in black playing chamber music in one corner but it gets by with a grand piano that plays itself, spooky watching the keys move on their own.

The curse of anyone trying to get an atmospheric picture in a town, street signs and blasted cars.

Watch this space................