Trip to Westonbirt Arboretum

 

 

Before all the leaves fall from the trees I decided as I now have an annual pass to visit Westonbirt this weekend.  

 

It is a lovely drive through the countryside with amazing views as you have to go up a very steep windy hill to get to the brow of the Cotswolds and you can see over to the River Severn and Forest of Dean.  But as I was driving I could only very quickly admire it!

The above picture does not really do justice to the huge expanse of open countryside for miles to see and the sun in small pockets working it's way across the landscape.

 

I had registered to attended a guided walk around the original Arboretum at 11 am, but due to the huge amount of traffic getting in and parking I arrived at receiption at 11.05.  Needless to say the group had already left and with so many paths their was no way I was able to catch them up, which was a real shame but I will book to do it another time as it is only £1 so not lost out too much.

 

I had not brought my DSLR camera so all the pictures where taken on my mobile as I thought it may rain alot and in a group would have been awkward to keep stopping.  I wish I had now although I am pleased with the pictures which gives an overview of the beautiful colours.

I love macro photography and seeing a mini world within a raindrop.

I sat with my flask of coffee and my sock knitting for a while people watching.  Surprisingly I heard hardly any bird song, but it was still lovely to just sit in amongst nature.

I did find it funny how many people went up to this particular tree and wonder if the "Toothache Tree" cured toothache.

I was blessed in the fact that the sun came out and it made the shawdows and the light through the trees just look magical.

I found a lovely little secluded spot to eat my picnic lunch I had brought with me and spent a while just watching this squirrel hard at it just digging furiously to hide the crop of nuts.

The clocks changed to mark the end of summer time so at 2pm before it started to get too "dusky" I decided to head home.  Goodness I was glad I did as the heavens opened and the previous view of beautiful sunshine was now covered with a very heavy downpour of rain.

 

 

Sheppy's Cider

I don't really drink alchol, but was really looking forward to a trip to a cider making and cheese tasting experience laid on by Sheppy's Cider Farm.

Based near Taunton it is easy to access and a great place to visit. As part of the tour which lasted two hours you got to learn about the history of the family, see the whole process of cider making and then sample cider and cheese.

In a bid to try and learn some of the facts I made notes so hopefully it will make sense and be interesting for you.

Originally the cider making started in 1816 in Congesbury and then they in time moved to the location they are at now in 1914.  Amazingly the business now is in it's sixth generation of the family having traded for over 200 years!

There are three type of orchard at Sheepy's

The first they plant 50 trees per acre and the tree takes 15 years to reach it's full potential where they are happy to use the apple as a consistant crop.

 

 

The 2nd orchard takes 10 years to develop 200 tree's per acre

A wild orchard planted takes incredibly one day to plant as it is all done by machinary.

 

 

 

CIDER MAKING YEAR 

On the 17th January under the traditional Pagan tradition their is a Wassali Festival where they have a Wassali King or Queen who processes through the orchard to bless the crop for a bountiful year to come.

Then in March they prune trees lightly to get rid of any dead wood.

To be able to gather the apple crop up they use a hugh machine to shack the trees and gather the apples down.

 

Up to 30 tonnes of apples in a bay which gets processed.

The brewery offer four flavours 

Bitter sharp

Bitter sweet

Sharp

Sweet 

Last year they sold 2.2 million bottles!  They export to 17 countries including Czech Republic, Canada and Japan.

In the press house they can process up to 6 tonnes of apples an hour.

 

The apples are chopped then squeezed for juice where they get 85% juice from apples, the pomace that is left behind is sold for cattle feed.

 

In the Vat house the one vat can hold up to 2200 gallons of liquid.  There are 10 vats some of which are 100 years old.

Now on to the cider and cheese tasting.

When drinking cider 

Put in mouth and breath through nose

1. Made in oak vats - sheppys gold medal cider 7.5%

Barbers 1833 Cheddar matured for 24 months 

 

2. Perry 7.4% pear cider - 

60 % mould ripened Somerset Brie. 7 week to ripen 

3. Sheppys 200 Cider - To mark the 200 year's 5% medium sweet 

 Harlech Cheddar - blended with horse radish and Cheddar 

4. Cloudy Cider - 4.5% blended with apple juice 

Smoked Dorset red - Cheddar been coloured with red dye.  is smoked overnight. 

5. Sheppy's with Raspberry 4%

Dorset Blue Vinny

 

I hope you've enjoyed reading something different from my normal post.

Spinning and Slimbridge

So earlier this month Stroud Textile Trust put on a day's workshop where you could go and learn about spinning and weaving at the Stroud Brewery.

The Brewery is a lovely venue right next to the canal running right along side it, so perfect to walk to reach the venue. 

 

 

Back in early September I had been to a yarn show and did a course learning how to use a drop spindle.  I really loved it, a bit like sock knitting it is something that is really portable and very relaxing to do.

So I brought my spindle along and was really grateful for the help from Bridget of Cotswold Alpacas for helping me.

 

 

So this is my first ever skein of hand spun yarn!  I also have some Shetland and John Arbon Exmoor sock fleece to spin.

So after the show I was not too far from one of my favourite places WWT Slimbridge.  It had been sunny almost all day and the light at this time of year is just gorgeous.  So I headed off to meet my Son and his partner.

Slimbridge are always switching things up and from September through to 1 January 2024 they have an incredible exhibition of Quentin Blake paintings around the site.  I have not seen them all and will be back for a more indepth look, but here are a few shots I took.

Then on the drive home I had to stop off at the bridge over the canal and just capture the beautiful light again.

 Until next time ....

Last camping trip of the year

I am very blessed in many ways.  

One of those is that my son now has a roof top tent, so sometimes I get to enjoy his company whilst we go camping in our respective vehicles.

So for my last trip out in the van for the year we headed to Brecon to the first campsite I went to as a solo camper.

I knew it would be perfect not too big and the facilities are first rate, this is the site if you'd like to take a look Bryndu Camping.

 

We were lucky as there were barely anyone else staying so we got to pick where we wanted to park.

After a good night's sleep we headed off to Botanic Garden Wales.  But we did stop off briefly at Llandovery. 

 

 

We then arrived at the gardens.   I had been previously a couple of years before twice in one week and still hadn't managed to see everything, but knew I would loved it third time round. 

So I decided to invest and buy a year's membership as I will be visiting again next year. 

The Annual membership is really worth it as I can also visit Westonbirt Arboretum, Birmingham, Coventry and Oxford Gardens all in the price. 

 

I took some pictures for you to see some of the gardens.

 

 

 

 

The tropical house was amazing with the Bananas growing. 

 

 

I love walking around the grounds too and it was so lovely to see the autumnal leaves against the water. 

There is a big sculpture that from one direction it looks like a seat and another it looks like an apple. 

It was a long day so it was nice to settle in and snuggle down with the fairy lights in the van. 

The next day we headed to Hay on Wye, famous for once a year having a Literature Festival spread over 11 days and attracts over 100,000 people.

The town is so refreshing, not only is it surrounded by beatifult coutryside, but it has so many small indepentant shops.  

Along with knitting and van life I do also enjoy reading so to walk around the incredible amount of bookshops of which there are over twenty was amazing.

 

For the final part of the trip we stopped off for an hour at Weir Garden which I wrote about here
Again it was a short trip and we did not get to see everything, but it was a garden's will definately visit again and the drive home was very pretty too.

 

 

I thought I would finish the blog with this great plague I saw.