A walk along Stroud Water, Frome

Today we went for a walk along the Stroud Water, Frome River near our house. We walked down from Rodborough to Capel Mill and the river. We walked from there along the river to Cheapside in Stroud. From there we walked back up hill to Rodborough.

Snapper absolutely loves walking along the river. I worry one day he will fall or jump in. We've no idea if he can swim and we worry that even if he can that he will be swept away in the swift current of the river, which is quite deep in places.

What Snapper likes most is chasing the leaves floating down the river. He often runs into the water to snap at the leaves.

He didn't get more than his front feet wet on this occasion, but there have been times when he waded in and got quite wet. He's not afraid at all! Hence why I'm worried he will go in where it's deep with a swift current. Lucky he's pretty good at coming back when we call.

I think he was captivated by the swift moving water and the swirls of water in the river in the photo above.

Someone has been working on the footpath along the river, it's looking quite smart at the moment.

There's also a new play and explore area with picnic table and carved eels.

We had a lovely walk indeed! And it's just down from our house. We are very blessed with beauty and adventures where we live. Looking forward to many more walks along this bit of river. I'm sure Snapper is too!

All photos taken by me with my Huawei P9 mobile phone. :-)

New Year's Day Walk with Llamas

Jo with Llamas

Today was New Year's Day 2013 and we were invited to go on a Llama walk with Mark and Jo and friends. What a lovely day it was too, for a walk around the country side! Been a while since we've seen a bright sunny day. It was still a very wet and muddy walk though as the land is so water logged.

Peter with Latte

The last time +Peter and I went walking with the Llamas it rained the whole walk, so this was a very nice walk for us, though I did miss having my daughter +Alyssa with us this time. Next time my daughter +Sarah  comes for a visit we will definitely be going on another Llama walk. I highly recommend this for a family day out with older children. My daughters are both in their 20's now. :-)

Simon with Peanut, Howard with Spud, and Mark

The lanes were mostly quiet and the views across the valley were lovely. People did take notice of the Llamas and came out to take photos of us walking them. The Llama's were very well behaved and were only spooked a couple of times but never really gave us any worry. I think they quite liked their walk as they haven't been out in a while with all this rain and flooding we've been having. They do have quite a large field to roam around in though, so over all they are quite spoiled.

A War Horse (Dray?)

It wasn't all about Llamas on this walk though, we ran into several groups of horses along the way who came to the edges of their fields to say hi to us. There was a lovely gentleman on the walk with us who told me all about the horse above, but as I have a memory like a sieve I can't remember exactly what he told me. I do remember that he said this was a war horse, the type that a Knight would ride, a very strong horse. I think he said the horse was a Dray, or in the Dray family. What ever he was he sure was beautiful. He's also my new best friend. :-D

Howard with Spud... or ... A Man and his Llama

This was a most enjoyable day, spent with friends walking along the beautiful English country side in Horsley, Gloucestershire. A great start to the new year. :-)

Short video from the walk taken by my husband Peter with his mobile phone:

Cloudy Monday Walk to Town

Junction of Rodborough Hill and Bath Road, Stroud

I had an appointment in Stroud today so I walked down into town. It was a bit cloudy and cold but still a nice walk with lots going on. Going to be a lot more going on soon too as there are more road works going to be happening soon. And right at the point where the worst of Stroud's rush hour traffic comes to a stop twice a day during the work/school week. Sometimes over half my travel time to Gloucester from my house is just getting out of Stroud, especially if I go this way. I will be avoiding this way the last half of January. 

The canal in front of the old Stroud and Swindon building in Stroud as seen from Wallbridge

Lots of work still going on down at the canal. Today they were working on removing the little damn they made during some major reconstruction of the canal and road. You can't see the damn anymore as they'd let the water back in, so they were busy removing it from under water. 

Stroud Canal at Wallbridge

Stroud Canal at Wallbridge

This brings out the kid in me, I love watching these guys. As kids we pretended to do just this sort of thing either with toy dump trucks and cranes or with just our hands.....in the sand...in the mud...in streams...at the sea....and in ditches. I can't help but smile thinking about it. :-)

Stroud Canal looking the other direction

As you can see above the new gates are now in and they are busy cleaning out the other side now. I'm quite sure the guy on the left is not doing what it looks like he's doing.

During all of this resurrection of the canal the path is closed. Looking forward to them opening it back up as I like to walk along there. Hope they finish it soon as come spring time there are lots of babies born along this bit of the canal. Would be a shame if they had to find somewhere else this year.

As I sit here thinking about it all, I guess there won't be so many swans and ducks and other wildlife making their homes along here anymore. Not with the canal all being cleared out. Shame that. :-/

The Lock Keeper's Cafe in Stroud

The Lock Keeper's Cafe is a lovely place to have lunch, I know as I've had lunch there several times now.  The last time I had lunch there was with my husband and I was introduced to 'Bubble and Squeak' for the first time! I loved it! Yummy!!

This is also the location of the Friday Forum where a small group of local small business people meet on Fridays for a bit of chatting and a bit of networking and a bit of working. Quite a few bring their laptops and have them open and logged on. I usually just pop by for a quick lunch and a natter. Anyone is welcome to join in, if you're in the area on a Friday drop in and say hello. :-)

Something odd on my walk to and from town today was the number of flowers I saw about. Very odd for January I think. Here are a couple of the flowers that I saw today.

January Daisies

January Roses

After my appointment I had a roam around town and went in a few shops. Mainly the charity shops, those are my favourite in town. I feel like I'm on a treasure hunt of some sort and I never know what I might find. Today I found what I think is a very interesting and I just had to buy it. Here's a photo of it:

Detroit Spinners Smash Hits!

Yes it's a real record! It's a shame it's been melted like this, but I think it's cool. I've seen this sort of thing on the internet before, one of those blog post where they explain how to do this at home. It's got some pretty good songs on it too, shame  I can't play it! Not sure what I'm going to do with it. What can you do with a bowl with a hole in the centre? hhmmm I just stuck it on a nail in the wall above the stereo. Looks pretty cool, think I might leave it there...for now.

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Photograph information: All of the photos in this blog post were taken with a Canon 5D II with a Canon 85mm 1.8 lens. Settings varied. 

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Let's go for a walk.

On Monday 2nd January my husband and I went on a little walk about. We grabbed our cameras and some shopping bags and headed out the door. Just a block over from our house in Stroud, we spotted this beauty:

Vintage Volkswagen Van

We both love these old vans. This one looks in great condition too. I was a bit surprised when I looked at this photo later on the computer....as it looks like a black and white photo! But if you look closely you can see that it is in colour. No, I did not alter the colour or desaturate the photo in any way. The grey overcast day along with the colour of the van gives the impression of a mono image here. I quite like it. 

Later when we were walking through Lodgemore we came upon something very unexpected! This was quite out of place:

Of course we had to go investigate. Here's a few more photos of it:

My husband Peter with his camera. 

 If anyone reading this knows anything about this plane please do share in the comments below. Thank you.

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Update on the plane:  Tom Radford (@tcr4x4 on twitter) Found the history of this plane here: http://www.fradu-hunters.co.uk/fraduhnt/864xe689.html
How cool is that?! 

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After we tore ourselves away from the plane we headed towards Sainsbury's, the reason for bringing along some shopping bags. Along the way we came upon one of the biggest, if not the biggest, eyesore in the Stroud area. Tricorn House.

Tricorn House, Cainscross, Stroud

Everyone I've ever spoke to about it wishes they'd just tear it down. Every couple years or so you hear about plans to turn it into something or hear of some company or person buying it and so on. The last thing I heard about it recently was to turn it into a retirement community. I thought this was totally nuts! A retirement community with no gardens and right on a busy loud round-a-bout?! Who'e want to retire there? I sure wouldn't want any of my folks living there.

Before they tear it down or what ever they are going to do with it, I'd like to get permission to roam around inside with my camera. Of course lots of people have already had a roam around inside and some I hear have even taken up residence. Here's a photo showing one of the ways they get in:

Tricorn House, one entrance. 

Tricorn house is not the only eyesore in the area, we spotted this burned out building on our walk home:

A closer look at what's on the floor:

We did not go inside this building, I took these photos from outside the door. 

I hate to end on a negative note/image, but this was pretty much the end of our walk. After this building we did walk along the bike / foot path, which is always quite lovely. It was getting quite dark by that time and I didn't take any more photos. Maybe next time. :-)

A Christmas Walk

Note: I'm writing this at 1 o'clock in the morning so when I say today, I mean yesterday. 


Today was Christmas. The first Christmas in 20 years that I didn't share with my children. Alyssa now lives in Torquay with her boyfriend and Sarah lives in the States with her dad where she's going to college. I've been a bit depressed about this for awhile now, trying not to think about Christmas and avoiding Christmas type things. I talked to both of them on the phone today and both my parents and I feel a bit better. I do miss them all so very much though.

That said, I did manage to enjoy Christmas with my husband Peter. Last night I made something very similar to a candy I used to make every Christmas back in the States and in Italy and anywhere I've lived. I say similar as I can't get the key ingredient here in the UK. Well not in my neck of the woods anyway. The candy turned out pretty good. I think I'll try again and add a bit of peppermint to the mix next time and see what happens.

Also last night we watched the second in the Narnia series and exchanged gifts. It was a really lovely evening all around. Just the two of us.

Christmas morning we slept in, then I got up and made us some home made blueberry pancakes. We watched a silly Christmas movie about Santa then decided to pack a lunch and go for a walk in the snow. The temperature was around -2c to -3c today. We both took DSLRs with us and took a few photos along the way. Here are a few of mine from today.

Just up the road from our house.

View of Stroud. 

Peter, with his cow horn hat. 

I saw Peter take this shot then copied him. :-) 

Sunlight streaming under the railway bridge down in Stroud. 

Frozen bus stop.

Frozen lake in Stratford Park. 

Another view of frozen lake in Stratford Park.

Peter sharing his lunch.

Sledging in the park.

Park at your own risk! A very icy car park. 

We rounded the day off with the Doctor Who Christmas special. And have spent this evening working on some personal projects. Tomorrow is Boxing Day here in the UK. I'm not sure what we will be doing. We usually go cycling with The Stonehouse Wheelers and have a special tea at a certain club member's house, but it's a bit too icy out there to go cycling. We could show up by car but our road is too icy to drive and I don't fancy walking that distance. 

Maybe we'll go for another walk. :-)