(Sorry, no pics of Wendy Craig).
We returned from idyllic Cheadle via the workaday A50.
The history of the Uttoxeter bypass has been engaging the two Mudgies on the Beer & Pubs Forum recently; if that doesn’t get you to sign up I don’t know what will.
I told you about our stop in North Leicestershire AS IT HAPPENED. But that won’t stop me revisiting it now I can tint my photos and add nice maps.
It’s always nice to stop somewhere bucolic.
Diversity of scenery is the joy of England.
Two minutes off the M1, ten minutes from Lockdown Leicester (sorry folks), five from cosmopolitan Coalville, with a granite quarry one side and a volcano the other, Stanton under Bardon draws you in on the OS extract.
The Wiki article is obsessed with statistics, the best of which is presented in this pie chart.
That dramatic fall-off in faith between 2001 and 2011 is widely ascribed to the visit of BRAPA to the nearby Bull’s Head in Markfield after a 2-0 Hull defeat at Leicester in 2007.
You’ve heard about the Old Thatched Inn already.
We left a half dozen other drinkers for a short stroll into the fields, which look nothing like they do on that OS extract.
It was lovely. No traffic, no car noise, no rubbish, well marked trails.
Just wild flowers and butterflies.
Back at the pub, a group of leather jacketed bikers were installed at the outside tables, which were pleasingly filling up nicely.
As LifeAfterFootball knows, the AA511 is a hotbed for bikers pubs, just as North-West Leicestershire is the centre of the car mechanics industry.
Wendy Craig? Now there’s a face from the past! 🦋🦋
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Got made a CBE in the New Year honours list. Possibly for services to butterflies.
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A bit mothist this blog.
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Well you know where to go for that kind of filth.
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Disappointing with no Wendy Craig shots…the national forest is surprisingly good. Not much in the way of hills but some terrific walks and a definite success story 👌
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LAF,
Yes, early days yet though and it won’t be properly ‘National’ in my lifetime.
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Good point Paul. Give it 50 years and it will be impressive as it matures
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They’re already proper sized trees just beyond Uttoxeter ( which the bypasses might cause you to miss ) but it needs planting much further afield to become anything like ‘National’.
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There really must be a cracking daytime TV show (possibly a 12 part series) on the trials of finding the perfect home for the Martin family.
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I want it to be hosted by Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan, each of them doing their best Michael Caine impressions at the local pubs, as Martin schools them on what does and does not constitute a proper scummy head.
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Simon can wander on from stage left asking the way to the loo, and Duncan can be chasing a rare moth.
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In a perfect world Lotte Lenya guests as Mrs RM, whilst Norman Wisdom randomly appears as Simon, every village’s idiot.
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Lotte Lenya? Mmm 😊
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Serenading you with all those Kurt Weil songs….
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I’ve just noticed the clouds in your pictures.
Was that three days ago ?
I had never seen cirrus type clouds as good as that.
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That was last Sunday lunchtime !!
We’ve been commenting how gorgeous the air quality and clear skies are at the moment.
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Yes indeed, not only the one day.
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The improvement in the air quality just shows what can happen when we avoid unnecessary car journeys.
I only drove 110 miles in the first half of this year and that’s a 55% reduction from the previous two years.
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That’s one percent of my journeys in the first 3 months.
In the next 3 months I drove 110 miles too.
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