Load of old cobblers...

Today I was on a course all day. It was a quick, rough and ready introduction to Microsoft Project Manager. Useful for me in as much as I project manage several things each year, but pointless because with usual departmental efficiency, I still do not have the application on my PC and am not likely to anytime soon. Already the benefits of the course are sliding from my brain and by the time I am in a position to use the software it will have gone completely.

Still, I was home a little after 5.15 and had a free lunch, so can't complain.

I have just got around to downloading some photos off my phone. I took them on Monday while I was on the train coming back from seeing the family in Shropshire. I wish I'd remembered to take my digital camera, but there we are. A couple of views of The Wrekin.





I always know that I am near my roots when I see The Wrekin standing larger than life looking out across the north Shropshire plain. It makes me feel as though I am at home and safe.

For those as don't know it, the hill is not particularly big, but it dominates the area around it - especially to the north. There is an Iron Age hill fort on the top, which the MOD once graced with a radar station. That has long since gone and there is a TV transmitter instead. The Wrekin is a beacon hill, one of those set in readiness for the Spanish Armada that never landed in Elizabethan times. I recall the becon being lit for the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977, and then moments later, seeing another beacon flaring on the Welsh border, miles away as the chain spread across the country. I guess that was where Tolkein got the idea for the beacons of Gondor.

There's a few legends about the formation of the Wrekin; my favourite involves a stupid giant, a wily cobbler and a grudge against the citizens of Shrewsbury. Many Shropshire legends involve a supernatural being being pissed off with the citizens of Shrewsbury. More than one involves a wily cobbler.

What was it in medieval times about shoes, the town and revenge?

Load of old cobblers...

Today I was on a course all day. It was a quick, rough and ready introduction to Microsoft Project Manager. Useful for me in as much as I project manage several things each year, but pointless because with usual departmental efficiency, I still do not have the application on my PC and am not likely to anytime soon. Already the benefits of the course are sliding from my brain and by the time I am in a position to use the software it will have gone completely.

Still, I was home a little after 5.15 and had a free lunch, so can't complain.

I have just got around to downloading some photos off my phone. I took them on Monday while I was on the train coming back from seeing the family in Shropshire. I wish I'd remembered to take my digital camera, but there we are. A couple of views of The Wrekin.





I always know that I am near my roots when I see The Wrekin standing larger than life looking out across the north Shropshire plain. It makes me feel as though I am at home and safe.

For those as don't know it, the hill is not particularly big, but it dominates the area around it - especially to the north. There is an Iron Age hill fort on the top, which the MOD once graced with a radar station. That has long since gone and there is a TV transmitter instead. The Wrekin is a beacon hill, one of those set in readiness for the Spanish Armada that never landed in Elizabethan times. I recall the becon being lit for the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977, and then moments later, seeing another beacon flaring on the Welsh border, miles away as the chain spread across the country. I guess that was where Tolkein got the idea for the beacons of Gondor.

There's a few legends about the formation of the Wrekin; my favourite involves a stupid giant, a wily cobbler and a grudge against the citizens of Shrewsbury. Many Shropshire legends involve a supernatural being being pissed off with the citizens of Shrewsbury. More than one involves a wily cobbler.

What was it in medieval times about shoes, the town and revenge?