Janet and Phil Had A Busy Day

Last night Janet and Phil went to Cleobury Mortimore (pronounced Cliberry) to visit one of the "Pick of the Pubs" from their trusty Pub Guide.  The Crown Inn.  Distance wise, it was very small.  Driving wise it was pretty long; lots of single track roads.

Their dinner was delicious. The hostess tried to sit them in the restaurant section, but Phil insisted they needed to sit in the pub portion.  It was a crazy crowd as it was the first day of duck hunting season.  Some of the men had crazy, crazy socks on.

Janet had Pork Belly and Phil had Sea Bass.

Pork Belly.

After dinner, they made some new friends in the bar.  They stayed up way past their usual bedtime.

Janet says they were lots of fun and found Canadians to be very interesting.  There was also a Canadian waitress there, who with her boyfriend works in various pubs and is saving up to go to South Africa.

This morning, they headed off to Ironbridge Gorge; birthplace of the Industrial Revolution.  Janet says it's a World Heritage Sight and it was pretty interesting.  Most important feature of all is the first ever steel bridge, built in 1771.

There were several museums, but they didn't have time to see all of them.  Coalbrook Industries was founded in 1709, and over the years have made many important works.  This one was commissioned more than 100 years ago and is now back in the hands of the museum.

A dining table made of steel and the dogs are life size deer hounds.  It weighs 810kg.  Please, please Mr. Tightwad...can't we get one with Golden Retrievers and reinforce the floor boards in the dining room to support it?

Back in the hay day of the Industrial Revolution, there were also china and tile factories in this same place.   They visited the museum of both factories.

Fancy fireplace with pretty tiles.  Janet says this is not a good representative of the beautiful tiles they had.

At the China Museum, they sold saggars, which they make on sight.  Turns out, in the olden days, china that needed to be fired were set inside the saggars which were stacked up very, very high and then the kiln was turned on for a week.

These are now sold for garden containers.  Most expensive was 22 GBP.

They have very interesting chimneys in this part of the U.K.

It would also appear that Janet find the car antennae equally fascinating!