Rachel sprained her ankle on Thursday and with my arm still in a sling it was clear that the long weekend wouldn’t be as adventurous as usual. Rachel was having a lot of difficulty walking on Saturday morning, so we elected to have a reasonably quiet day around the house before heading off in the afternoon to the fund-raisingg party for the South and Mid Wales Cave Rescue Team (responsible for Rachel’s practice and my real-life rescue) at the South Wales Caving Club hut at Penwyllt. While we were there, we also paid a visit to Dudley Caving Club’s Brickworks Dig, now celebrating 25 years of futility!
The fund-raising party was pretty good, and I got to chat to a few of those responsible for rescuing me, as well as drink the beer, but as I’m still having difficulty sleeping, we left fairly early and headed for Whitewalls for the night as it would be a lot quieter.
Sunday we had arranged to meet Richard and Carol at the County of Salop Steam Engine Rally near Shrewsbury (yes, quite a drive from South Wales; Rachel very generously did all the driving for the weekend as I still can’t drive with my arm in a sling). I wasn’t quite sure about the idea of a steam rally, but in the event, apart from the enormous traffic jam to get in, it proved an interesting and fun day. We watched some of the huge steam engines chug around hauling logs and one-another, looked at lots of little engines for pumping, sawing, baling hay, and myriad other tasks, and then wandered over to the farm demonstration area. There there were huge numbers of harvesters, ploughs, etc., being operated, along with a demonstration of ploughing in the age of steam – two huge steam engines at opposite ends of a field pulling a plough back and forth by means of cables attached to rotating drums under the engines.
The most spectacular event was the tractor-pull, with tractors trying to pull a heavy trailer that dragged along the ground up a hill. We saw one tractor break under the strain, and most got their front wheels up in the air!
Monday was another quiet day, but we took the opportunity to tour the archaeological dig that is going on at Polesworth Abbey. The abbey was founded in the 9th century, dissolved by Henry VIII in 1535 and replaced with a Tudor manor house, so there’s lots of history to dig up! The dig is using local volunteers – we wish we’d known about it earlier, as we might have joined in. Anyway, we got a very nice tour of the excavations, which included a couple of skeletons, most likely of nuns from the monastery, as well as lots of interesting bits of pottery, clay pipes, etc. The dig is continuing for another two weeks, so we’ll have to go back at the end and see what else they’ve found.
Another interesting blog – who needs an “adventure”??
I have suggested to Ian that, if you are still both walking wounded at Rachel’s birthday weekend, we challenge you to a run. I bet you would win with less than the usual margin 🙂
Seriously, “Get well soon!”
Thanks! You mean, like Pete and Tish challenging us to the Rab mountain marathon? At this rate they’ll win in a canter! 😯
Challenge? Now then, I remember something more like Rachel saying “… come and join us you’ll love it …” Either way I’ll take all advantages your broken arm gives us – we need it! 😉
Are you hoping to take part? Will your arm be fixed enough? I’d assumed you would still be recovering…
Okay, so you’ve got tractor pulls too. But do you have corn dogs? Or fried butter?
Sadly no corn dogs or fried butter. No cheese heads either. There were fairground rides though. A small fraction of which were steam-powered!
Why is steam power so fascinating? They are wonderful machines, but what makes them so much more interesting than, say, diesel, petrol, or electric powered vehicles? They all burn fossil fuels (even the electric has to come from somewhere – most likely, at present, a fossil fuelled power station), they all get their drive from expanding gases, they all have ingenious mechanics, etc., etc. But it’s the steam engine that seems to endure in people’s imaginations as being “romantic” etc.
Is it the sound, the smell, the time of their invention, or something else?
Whatever it is, I think the they are awesome. 😛 I just don’t really understand why…
My money is on the smell, although the scale of them has a lot to do with it as well. Petrol engines are so much smaller and less dramatic for the same power output.
I agree about the smell – a wonderful cocktail of steam, oil, coal & somthing indefinable. There’s also the latent power whilst it sits there apparently snoozing!