I was delighted to discover that my Out Of Place entry in the Senior Travel Expert website’s travel writing competition was placed as a runner up. And lovely to see some names I recognise in the runners-up list with me too!
“Is it true monkeys like bananas?” my nephew, Ashley, asks as we watch a gibbon swinging on a rope high above our heads. Thankfully, we have an expert to hand.
The August issue of Country Walking magazine has a route around Chirk and the Llangollen canal. This one is for the international wanderer who likes crisscrossing the border between two countries. Trailzilla users can access the route via code TZID30598
As Celtic Life International correspondent Simon Whaley explains, there was once a whole lotta shakin’ going on in the quaint Scottish community of Comrie. It didn’t matter how hard I tried, nothing moved. I stamped my feet. Nothing. I jumped. Nothing. Thinking I needed more weight, I picked up my heavy rucksack and jumped again. Still nothing. I peered through the glass, my nose squashed flat against it so my eyeballs were a couple of millimetres closer, in the hope…
STRICTLY COME LEKKING Witness early morning dance contestants compete for the avian equivalent of the Glitter Ball Trophy in the black grouse lek, says Simon Whaley.
“We need more kangaroos,” the manageress said to her assistant as I stepped into the shop. Puzzled why a card shop in Ludlow would have any need for Antipodean animals, I paid for my postcard and left. I’d read the Mortimer Trail was a good walk for wildlife, but I didn’t think it included large marsupials.
“Uncle Simon, why is there a goat on top of that castle wall?” My nephew stares at the white adult goat fifteen feet above us. A series of frantic bleats fill the air and, suddenly, three sure-footed kids join their parent on the narrow, stony ridge. “And how did they get up there?”
It’s not difficult to see why Church Stretton is known as Shropshire’s Little Switzerland when there’s been a fresh dusting of snow overnight. If weather forecasters predict snow in Shropshire, you can guarantee Church Stretton will get some!
My photo of a misty South Shropshire, as seen from Ragleth Hill, appears in the February 2016 issue of Outdoor Photography, under the Viewpoints section.