It’s the first week of August and we are in Shropshire staying at my brother and sister in laws house in a tiny rural village about 15 minutes drive from the small town of Ellesmere. Our village is not much more than a couple of crossroads, with six single track lanes that radiate in to the village from the Shropshire countryside. It’s a big house and garden, the latter with a browned off lawn from the summer drought, but ideal for football, paddling pool and general games for the grandkids.
We are taking a week away from school holiday time in Teddington London, and introducing the grandkids – 5.5 and 2.8 years old – to the Shropshire English countryside. Whilst we have identified some organised activities for them, they are most keen on seeing animals which we oblige with.
The village provides us with a number of simple childrens activities. A modest walk down a lane by the house takes us to a farm for fresh eggs, two enthusiastic very child friendly dogs, horses in their paddock, a cockerel crowing contest and three blue tractors
A large field adjoins our garden, and is separated by a thick hawthorn hedge. Yet small children with sharp eyes can spy through the hedge, brown and white sheep, a cow,( apparently very pregnant we learn later), a bull and two donkeys. The donkeys we find are happy to be patted via the gate just down the lane which also provides quite a few juicy blackberries.
The village also has its own lake, correctly a “mere”, Colemere which has a pleasant circumnavigation boardwalk and trail, that tracks part of its way along the canal that runs out of Ellesmere. We see the canal at Ellesmere itself as it has a “dead end and turning point” by the Tesco Superstore and an entertaining opportunity for the public including two grandchildren to watch a hired barge of holidaymakers, complete a challenging Clockwise 3 point turn, with the last point of the turn being dead into the wind. It was impressive as was the wide paved area for a childrens “scootering area”.
The grandkids were quite fascinated by the canal and the barges. They had first seen the canal by a “duck eggs” farm in the village, seen it again in Ellesmere a few kms away, and had it explained that it was not a river but that barges moved along it by engines these days but in the past had been pulled by horses. We also talked about how the canal wandered through the countryside, but what happened when it came to a valley??? How would it be if the canal could cross the valley on a bridge -WOW the response- and how about if we could go on a barge across a bridge up above a valley – River Dee – Can we get Ice Creams?? Born negotiators!!
The animal theme continues at Park Hall Farm at Whittington a 20 minute drive away, where a good 20 years back, a local farmer decided to convert part of the working farm to a children’s play farm, with tractor rides, animal petting, animal feeding, soft play and much much more. This year just as good and the grandkids had two wonderful sessions there.
A series of heatwaves across England this summer has not prevented us getting out and having adventures with the grandkids, many more to come these holidays too.
Travels with My Wife 