North Shropshire Folk are back – with live music at Whitchurch Leisure Centre. It was so lovely to meet people again, enjoy listening to the music – and watching the musicians play.
Live music is always magical to me – I love music but I don’t play any instruments myself and it constantly amazes me how musicians can weave intricate patterns with their fingers and create tunes that harmonise, watching and listening sends me into another world, totally enraptured with the music.
The Jeremiahs opened a new season of folk nights – an Irish folk band of four musicians who clearly really enjoy performing the folk tunes they have composed.
‘The Wild Barrow Road’ was written in the back seat of a car on a summer journey through Cumbria – and completed for a gig they were playing that night: “Ireland is the only nation in the world where procrastination takes on a sense of urgency”.
Singer Joe Gibney is from County Dublin. On fiddle, viola and vocals is County Cork’s Niamh Varian-Barry; French born Julien Bruneteau plays the flute and on Guitar is Dublin born James Ryan.
Ireland has inspired many artists – poets and writers as well as musicians – the Emerald Isle with its castles and rugged coastlines, folklore and fairy tales, has inspired many haunting melodies, passionate love songs, and poignant lyrics about leprechauns and love and loss.
Irish folk music is so diverse, from rousing sea shanties to traditional songs about villains and villages, poets and prisons, castles, courtship, sea life and sailors. The Jeremiahs brought back memories of watching an Irish folk band playing in a bar in Ireland, a traditional Irish pub with a few pints of beer, clapping along to an Irish jig …
The next North Shropshire Folk night is on Saturday, 14th May at 8.00 pm featuring ‘The Outside Track’ – a band of 5 musicians hailing from Scotland, Ireland, and Cape Breton, who blend fiddle, accordion, harp, guitar, flute, whistle, step-dance and vocals with amazing dexterity.
For more information, future events and to book tickets visit www.northshropshirefolk.com
@northshropshirefolk @northshropfolk
@thejeremiahsmusic @thejeremiahsie
@outsidetrack
Published in the April edition of the Whitchurch Gossip
It’s two years since a new virus reared its ugly head and the world, as we knew it, changed. We had to adapt and learn to survive in a different way, in a very different world.
We couldn’t do some of the things we took for granted but we learned to appreciate the ones that were still available – like enjoying making and eating meals – and many of us learned new skills to help us adapt – like meditation.
Many more people found that meditation helps with lots of stress related conditions like headaches, insomnia, IBS, indigestion and phobias. Sleeping and eating are a vital part of every day and our bodies need a regular balance of both or they start to complain. A regular routine for sleeping and eating helps balance the rhythms of our body and meditation can help establish this routine and will enhance the beneficial effects.
You don’t need anything special in order to meditate and you can start with just a few minutes a day – as you reap the benefits you will most likely want to meditate more but just a few moments enjoying watching a butterfly on a flower will be beneficial.
You can sit on the floor or in a chair – or lie down – it really doesn’t matter. The best meditation I have ever experienced was sitting on a deserted beach feeling the sand touching my feet and hands – being a part of the ground beneath me, watching the waves cascading onto the beach – nothing else existed, just me and the sand and the waves. A magical experience but you can recreate a taste of that by just standing still and really listening to the birds singing, closing your eyes and enjoying the fragile scent of a primrose, or concentrating on the brilliantly coloured patterns on the wings of a butterfly. With meditation you just focus on something totally and shut everything else out.
Meditation music can really help, try some of the tracks on
This whispering music enhances the senses, creating metaphysical sensations of silvery sparkes which release negative energy and the vibrations emanate a tranquil feeling of wellbeing.
Published in the March edition of the Whitchurch Gossip
Today’s Treasures – Serendipity – A lucky find, an unplanned fortunate discovery
This beautifully painted pebble was found recently in Prees. It’s such a lovely idea, and it really cheered me up. So I looked up ‘Love on the rocks uk’ on Facebook and found the page which says:
“Paint a rock, write ‘Facebook love on the rocks uk’ on the back, take a photo and let us know where you are hiding it, then make a stranger smile when they find it. It’s so easy, spread the love.”
We’ve kept this pebble for a little while – it’s on the windowsill in the kitchen – but it will be hidden again somewhere new soon – to hopefully make someone else smile.
Arigatou gozalmasu (Thank you in Japanese ) Fb: Love on the Rocks uk Share your find, then keep me, or rehide me, enjoy, PPN x
Anyone can join in, you just need a pebble and some acrylic paints and you can share on ‘Love on the rocks uk (hiding rocks – making smiles)’
I wish I had found this pebble during the first lockdown as I would have painted lots of pebbles and hidden them all over North Shropshire once I could go out again – we all needed a lot of cheering up by then as many of us had only seen smiles on screens!
Serendipity can mean a lot of things – have you ever been in a bookshop and found yourself drawn to a particular book which you then had to buy – and somehow the story held a message that was relevant to your life at that time
Or woken up with a song in your head, turned the radio on and that same song was playing?
Or wished for something and seen a shooting star?
Today’s Treasures are things that have extraordinary meanings in people’s lives – serendipity.
A new year – a new start – January is about looking forward – to Spring – to new beginnings – the trees reawakening with the lengthening days, new lambs in the fields, snowdrops in the woods and the birds in their bright spring colours getting ready for courtship.
North Shropshire has some beautiful places to go for a walk – Prees Heath Common, Whixall Moss, Ellesmere and Colemere, Whittington castle and Brown Moss – take some corn or bird food and feed the ducks.
We are so lucky to have the meres and mosses close by – with their easy walking and beautiful views. There are also several interesting canal walks along the Llangollen canal – including the staircase locks at Grindley Brook. The Whitchurch arm of the canal – is now abandoned but continues in a beautiful walk through Whitchurch Country Park – as does the disused canal at Dobson’s bridge – which the swans have now colonised making their nests there each year.
Several paths cross North Shropshire – The Sandstone Trail, the Shropshire Way – and Offa’s Dyke is on the Welsh border. Whitchurch Walkers organise regular walks locally: www.whitchurchwalkers.co.uk as do Prees Walking Group – which you can find on Facebook. www.shropshiresgeatoutdoors.co.uk has lots of great walks – which include some historical information as well as access details.
Get 2022 off to a happy, healthy start by enjoying our beautiful countryside and treading in the footsteps of historical figures that have walked before us – right back to King Offa at Whittington Castle; the commoners who dug peat for a living on Whixall Moss – and the famous names – Charles Darwin – the naturalist born in Shrewsbury who studied the geology of Llanymynech Rocks; Randolph Caldecott, born in Chester but who created his illustrations for ‘The House that Jack Built’ whilst working in Whitchurch. They all found inspiration from our Shropshire hills, rivers, woods, meres and mosses.
Published in the January edition of the Whitchurch Gossip
The Marl Allotment (or Marlot as it is known locally) is an area of common land between Whixall Moss and the Llangollen canal which has now been designated a Local Nature Reserve. It gets its name from ‘marl’ a crumbly limestone clay which was used as a fertiliser and the clay may also have been dug out and used to line the canal – which could explain how the ponds were formed.
The Marlot has been incorporated into the circular Whixall Mosses Trails that can be accessed from Roundthorn Bridge and Morris Lift Bridge (pictured).
Whixall Moss is the most amazing place – a wilderness of bogmosses, ferns and cotton-sedges – described by Gladys Mary Coles as “a kingdom of sphagnum where space and time interweave”; it reminds me of a long-forgotten English lesson learning about D H Lawrence: “He breathes the fern seed and drifts back, becomes darkly half vegetable, devoid of preoccupations,” – which probably ignited in me the first stirrings of inspiration to be a writer.
Throughout the summer and autumn, a series of sculptures depicting wood and metal work measuring tools formed an art trail across the moss. This inclinometer, created by Elizabeth Turner & Keith Ashford is one of the waymarking sculptures. An inclinometer is “a tool for measuring angles to the horizontal. Its curve reminds us of the turn of our head as we scan the horizon”.
As well as being a SSSI, at nearly 1,000 hectares, Fenn’s, Whixall and Bettisfield Mosses together form one of the largest lowland raised bogs in Britain. The acidic and waterlogged ground provides the perfect environment for rare bog plants and insects to thrive, including 18 species of sphagnum bog moss, cranberries, bog rosemary, bog asphodels, and sundews; nearly 2,000 species of invertebrates; bird calls from teal, curlews, skylarks and hobbys fill the air – and adders can be seen basking in the sunshine. Formed at the end of the last ice age, sphagnum bog moss absorbed and acidified the rain, water-logging the peat surface and dying vegetation became preserved as layers of peat which, in turn, preserved history – a bronze age axe and 3 peat bodies have been discovered on the reserve.
“It took millennia to lay us down, the ferns & moss decay. Down in the ancient darkness, the ancient dead were laid. The sedges and the mosses, the grazing lands of beasts. And all the time the Earth rolled on and nature was at peace.”
1 tblsp oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 lb minced beef
Salt and pepper
1 tblsp soya sauce
1 tblsp tomato sauce
1 large squash, peeled and chopped into 1 inch square chunks
2 medium potatoes, washed and cut into 1 inch chunks
½ tsp salt
1 tblsp butter
Put the potatoes on to boil with the salt – after they have simmered for 10 minutes – add the squash. Cook for a further 10 minutes by which time the potatoes and squash should be soft.
Drain and mash with the butter.
Whilst the potatoes are cooking, heat oil and fry onion until soft, add minced beef and salt and pepper, stir until browned then add soya sauce and tomato sauce.
Put mince into casserole dish, then spread the mash on top. Cook in oven for 30-40 minutes at 180 C.
LLanymynech Hill was once an impressive iron age or possibly late bronze age hillfort – one of the largest in Britain. Archaeological excavations have revealed part of an iron age roundhouse and coins dating between 30 BC and 161 AD were found in the cave known as the Ogaf on top of Llanymynech Hill. There is evidence of copper and lead mining dating back to at least Roman times. Lime putty mortars were used by the Romans and the use of lime as a fertiliser may date back to the medieval period.
The site is now a significant industrial heritage area. From the early 19th Century to the end of the first World War limestone was quarried here – on both the Welsh side and the English side – eventually linked by a railway tunnel. The Montgomery Canal was specifically built for the transportation of limestone from the hill and reached Llanymynech by 1786. The opening of the Ellesmere Canal with connections to Birmingham and Liverpool greatly increased the market for Llanymynech limestone.
Originally, limestone would have been transported from the quarries to the canal by horse and cart. In 1806 a tramway and incline were constructed to transport limestone to a new wharf on the canal. In 1863 the Llanfyllin branch line, part of Cambrian Railways, opened and eventually took much of the lime trade from the canal although quarrying and lime burning continued until 1914
As well as abundant lime, Llanymynech was also near to sources of coal from the Oswestry, Chirk and Ruabon coalfield.
Limestone was burnt in a kiln to make quicklime and spread on fields to improve acidic soils; some was used in building mortar and some would also have been transported via the Montgomery Canal to the blast furnaces of Staffordshire as flux, cleaning the impurities in iron ore.
Built in 1899 and working until 1914, the lime kiln in Llanymynech village is one of only 3 remaining Hoffmann lime kilns in the country and the only one with its historic 42.5 metre tower intact.
Being a more modern version of the old ‘inverted bottle’ type kiln, limestone was loaded through the arches – not from above – from trucks on temporary rails. Iron rods were held in position through the holes in the roof so that packers beneath could build a stack of limestone rocks around them.
Coal was poured into the kiln through holes in its roof by the firers. Each section through its respective arch was packed and fired in succession rather than every section packed and the whole kiln fired, the fire never goes out as it is transferred from one chamber to another. All chambers connected to the single chimney shaft.
Standing in the now derelict kiln shaded by a leafy canopy, it is difficult to imagine the working conditions that the men must have endured, the heat, the dust, the rumble of trucks, the smell of burning, the long hours and tiring manual labour entailed.
Thanks to a conservation project managed by the Llanymynech Heritage Partnership the site has been restored and opened in 2008. www.llanylime.co.uk
With the help of many volunteers, Prees Heath Common is managed by the Shropshire Wildlife Trust and Butterfly Conservation.
The old WWII airfield and surrounding land were restored to heathland to provide a haven for the few remaining silver-studded blue butterflies. Heather brash was brought from Cannock Chase to provide food plants and the heath is now covered with many nectar rich flowers for the butterflies who are thriving.
The heath has become a patchwork of yellow bird’s foot trefoil and pink-purple bell heather, interspersed with musk thistles, mulleins and evening primroses. Larks soar overhead, buzzards sweep across the heath, chiffchaffs chatter in the crab apple trees, and yellowhammers sing their ‘little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheese’ in the hedgerows.
The caterpillars of the silver-studded blue have a symbiotic relationship with ants. The ants protect the caterpillars from predators and parasites and, in return, get to feed on a sugary substance produced by the caterpillars. When the caterpillars pupate – often in ant nests just below the ground, the ants protect them – and they also look after the newly-emerged butterflies until their wings are dry and they can fly away.
The musk thistle (Carduus nutans) is loved by bees – and goldfinches love the seeds. It is also called the nodding thistle because of the way it gracefully bows it elegant deep purple-pink flowerheads.
Find out more: www.preesheathcommonreserve.co.uk
Published in the August edition of the Whitchurch Gossip
I’ve written this blog as a reminder to myself of the specifications and times for hatching chicks in an incubator – and when to do what – but it should be helpful to anyone else thinking about hatching chicks.
An incubator is designed to regulate incubation temperature (about 99.5 degrees F for hens), and humidity (between 35-45% until the last two days when it should be raised to 65-75% for hatching) and some also rotate the eggs – if it doesn’t – then you have to do this manually.
A broody hen does not of course know what temperature her nest is – or the humidity – or how many times a day she has turned her eggs – but she seems to get a better hatching rate than my incubator!
Choose eggs ideally up to 7 days old – but they can be up to 14 days old.
Wipe the eggs if necessary – and store pointed end down. Egg shells are porous so don’t wet them.
Mark the eggs – I put an ‘X’ on one side and a ‘O’ on the other side – and I use a felt pen although often a pencil is recommended – but my eyesight isn’t that good!
Turn the incubator on and leave to warm up for a few hours.
Put the eggs in the incubator and leave for 24 hours to settle – day 1. On the following days you need to turn the eggs 3 times a day – this prevents the embryo sticking to the shell.
Turning 3 times a day means that they are a different side up every night. Don’t panic if you miss a few turns – hens can’t count. But it helps if the eggs are a different side up each night. I keep a notebook and mark every time they have been turned with a ‘O’ or an ‘X’.
Candling – is holding an egg against a light to see if a chick is developing – this can be done at day 8 but you can see better at day 14. I don’t do this because I only have a tiny incubator so only have 8 eggs to turn and as an amateur, I am never sure what I am looking at. It also means opening the incubator more which upsets temperature and humidity, so I just turn them three times a day and top up the water – and hope for the best. 50% hatching rate is normal, the most you are likely to get is 80% hatch.
Day 18 – increase the humidity to 65% and stop turning the eggs – just leave them until they hatch – usually 21 days for hens.
Turning the eggs on the 21st day, it’s incredible to think that there might be a little life inside each egg, a tiny heart beating, just waiting for the right moment to break the shell. Life is amazing.
My Silver Grey Dorking chicks never started hatching until day 22 – and sometimes it was day 25 before the last one hatched – so don’t despair. Just wait and DO NOT be tempted to help them. It can be really painful hearing a chick cheeping, but their chances of survival massively increase if you leave them alone. (There speaks the voice of experience.)
One chick took 3 days to hatch from pipping – so don’t worry.
If you try and help, the chick may not absorb the egg yolk properly, and its legs may not develop properly.
And you don’t need to move chicks – they can happily stay in the incubator for 72 hours before they need to be moved to a brooder.
Absorbing the yolk gives chicks enough nutrients for about 72 hours – which allows other eggs to hatch before mother hen leaves the nest to find food and water. Newly hatched chicks spend the first 4 days mostly sleeping – so don’t rush to move them.
Most of what I have read says that the first few days chicks need a temperature of around 95 degrees F – which is nearly the temperature that they hatched at – then it is recommended to
reduce the temperature by 5 degrees each week until week 6 – when you get to 70 degrees. In practice, the chicks just move further away from the heat source as they grow.
And temperature depends on a lot of things – the size of the space they are kept in – the number of chicks that hatch – one chick is going to be much colder on its own than cuddling up to brothers and sisters – so the best advice I have read is to use common sense.
If the chicks are all huddled together cheeping then they are probably too cold. If they are asleep together then they are fine.
If they are panting and cheeping then they are too hot. If they are hopping about and drinking and eating then they are OK.
I use hay as bedding but you can use shavings, sawdust, or straw, whatever you use it needs to be changed regularly.
Chicks need chick crumbs for the first 6 weeks, then you can give them growers pellets – it’s a good idea to feed a mixture of both for 2 weeks, gradually reducing the crumbs.
Mother hen will peck corn into tiny pieces for her chicks but your chicks will have to put up with pellets until they can fend for themselves.
Chicks at 4 weeks old
At 8 weeks they will have all their feathers and can go outside but they will still need protecting from rain and wind – and predators – and will of course need to be indoors at night.
Introducing them to the hen house can be a bit fraught – and I leave this as long as possible as hens will have a pecking order and the current residents will want to demonstrate this quite forcefully.
Ducklings take 28 days to hatch and the humidity needs to be higher. So I tend to leave mother duck to this task. The most wonderful thing about ducklings is the first time they find they can swim in their water bowl. I have read that ducklings shouldn’t be allowed to swim until they have their feathers – but as long as they are warm and can get dry quickly – and the water is very shallow – I have never had a problem with tiny ducklings having a swim!
When they get older and go in a proper pond, they discover that they can swim underwater and they get so excited splashing from one end of the pool to the other, wonderful to watch.
Today’s Treasures Shrewsbury is coming to life again – change is in the air – with the promise of laughter and happy times.
Theatre Severn is still closed, silent and deserted, but its namesake flows swiftly past the lonely building under weeping willows clothed in vibrant spring green to The Boathouse which is alive with visitors again, enjoying the spring sunshine.
The Quarry is busy with children playing and people sunbathing, playing football, running and cycling – and the ducklings on the river dodge canoes and rowing boats – and the Sabrina chugging her way downstream, serene in the sunshine.
Shrewsbury is coming alive again.
These first tentative steps of meeting friends for meals outside hold high hopes of a return to the events that Shrewsbury has become famous for – the Food Festival, the Folk Festival, the Shropshire (West Mid) County Show – and the Flower Show – seeing the bandstand lonely and empty, you can imagine the musicians in their bright red uniforms, the sun glinting off trombones and trumpets – and hear faint whispers of the brass band playing well known British tunes.
Shrewsbury, with its timbered buildings and cobblestone alleys, is one of the oldest towns in the UK with many Saints remembered in its churches – St. Nicholas, St Chad, St. Alkmund, St. Mary, St. George, St. Peter and St Giles all have a place in Shrewsbury’s history.
The spire of St Mary’s is one of the tallest in England and for over 500 years it has dominated the skyline of Shrewsbury’s old town. The church is now the only complete medieval church in Shrewsbury. It dates from Saxon times and has beautiful additions from the twelfth-century onwards.
St Chad’s Church is the only grade 1 listed circular Georgian church in England. It overlooks the Quarry and has a wonderful view of the Dingle gardens.
St. Alkmund’s church is named after a prince of the Christian Kingdom of Northumbria, who was murdered by Eardwulf and became a saint. In 889, Aethelfleda, the ‘Lady of the Mercians’, governed Mercia. She believed that St. Alkmund was her ancestor, and she named the churches on the route from Gloucester to Chester, through Mercia, after him – so the churches would have some protection from marauding Danes – hence Aymestrey, Whitchurch and Shrewsbury all have a St. Alkmund’s church. Let’s hope he protects us from future marauding viruses!
Published in the May edition of the Whitchurch Gossip
