Twenty Minutes Late

Car Parked Outside The Cottage

It's amazing how an extra five minutes in bed can make you twenty minutes late. This means that this post will be extra extra short.

Also when you are writing you often get onto a roll and before you know where you are there goes another twenty minutes.

I still have to do my voice only post, but will do that in Shropshire I think, with trips to Stradford planned and lots of quiet walks I hope.

This is where I will be staying , and it's usually fairly quiet so signing off as it's time to leave for work now. Have a great day everyone!

Shrewsbury In A Nutshell

Coming to the end of our week in Shrewsbury , well Hook-A-Gate and it has been most excellent. Lots of new discoveries meeting great people and finding things I didn't know were there , but thats the joy of going to different places.

I always look for the positives in things and got a phonecall from my neighbour , he'd discovered a leak in our second bathroom , luckily it stayed in bathroom but leaked through to the kitchen , so will see the full extent tomorrow. Just shows what  brilliant neighbours I have , so will have to make sure I get an extra special looking after the house present.

Anyway this week I have discovered , in no praticular order of brilliance:

• A wonderful pub , with excellent staff , great food and excellent service, The New Inn at Hook-A-Gate.
• A wonderful cottage to stay in , The Old Coach House, very comfortable , well equipped with really friendly owners
• Excentric Tattoo Parlour run by Val and Dirk and two girls who may or may not be their daughters , but crammed with amazing stuff , and all as friendly as anything
• Attingham Park a wonderful National Trust property with amazing grounds and a fantastic stately home , complete with deer and sharp horned cattle
• Cromwell's in Shrewsbury , incredibly friendly , and they do excellent food but make you feel very welcome.
• In The Groove - an excellent vinyl and memorabilia emporium with a really nice lady running in . I dont normally buy vinyl but came away with some very nice stuff. It's in The Parade Shopping Center in Shrewsbury which is full of interesting shops.

I'm sure I've missed out loads but it's time for bed now , and will maybe expand on some bits later.

Hook-a-Gate and iPad Annoyances

Well finally got to Hook-a-Gate yesterday and although there’s little phone signal (E at best certainly no 4G) the cottage does actually have free Wi-Fi.  However as usual the iPad refuses to acknowledge that the signal exists, so I can only access the internet through the iPad by tethering to my Samsung Note 2 with the weak mobile signal although I suppose I could tether to the wifi with the phone then tether to the phone but that might just tie it in knots.

Hook-a-Gate is a small village in Shropshire with a couple of pubs, one of which, The New Inn , is incredibly busy but welcoming and does superb food. While there is obviously money in the village the prices in the pub are extremely reasonable.

The Old Coach House where we are staying comes complete with cat who has an enormous sense of entitlement and seems to think it owns the place. You can check the details here.

Oh yes and the laptop has a Java update that insists on getting you to install the Ask Toolbar and McAfee PC Slow Down Software. I recently spent an hour decluttering  someone’s PC after telling them it was OK to install the Java update forgetting to tell them to uncheck the Ask and McAfee installs. There was another piece of software on there , apparently recommended by RBS which effectively wouldn’t let you uninstall it because it was “protecting” the PC. Most of this is the equivalent of fitting four Denver boots to your car and throwing away the keys to make sure it doesn’t get stolen and you don’t have a crash.

Anyway time to have something to ea.

Oh we're also currentlly watching The Wire with it's excellent opening Tom Waits penned credits song , "Way Down In The Hole".