Best Of

We are back home after a really good four days away. We are exhausted though, not used to packing so much into a day, and we have walked a lot of miles, much of it up and down Edinburgh hills. I planned things carefully, trains, hotel location, meals, things to do and see, and everything worked out really well. Didn’t quite manage to see and do everything, but we can save those for next time. Blessed with the weather as well. We could see thick snow up on the hills around Edinburgh, but it’s been lovely in the city and along to North Berwick. Edinburgh was heaving with French visitors today, all in town for tomorrow’s big game at Murrayfield. Berets and Tricolours everywhere.

Zoo King Penguins strutting their stuff. The Gentoo penguins were hilarious picking up pebbles to build their nests, the pebbles are painted by children in the local hospitals, and there’s a live stream camera for them to watch.

Always one of my favourite animals, a Pygmy Hippo.

Another lovely church seat dog carving, this time in The Thistle Chapel in St Giles Cathedral.

Panoramic view from up on the Castle ramparts. There’s quite a bit of building work going on, including something happening to the old Jenners building.

Edward Burne Jones window in St Giles.

Hi @nelliethehooker - Years ago I bought a book dedicated to Churches, principally in England. It only mentioned those that had at least 1 memorable reason for a visit. The book was already second hand and it broke the churches down into counties, it's currently in the van so if want to know the title let me know and I'll look tomorrow. Some churches in Wales got a mention. I use that as a starting point. However I know the there are Church trust sites set up in most counties and Shropshires is more active than most. Try https://www.nationalchurchestrust.org/explore/central-england/shropshire.

The national churches trust website will give you a county to look at but many of the churches in Shropshire have a free leaflet "Guide to Shropshire's Churches" inside them.

Car went in for MOT and service, yesterday - and it passed and no advisories, so I was pleased. Seemed to spend the whole day like an expectant father, waiting for the phone to ring to give me the news one way or the other😂.

Made a very sharp phone call to Amazon customer services, this morning. Yesterday, a new iPad I had bought for Ros, arrived - but not until 7.30 pm. Light left on, over the front door so that delivery driver could see the doorbell etc. First thing I knew that it had been delivered was when an email popped up on my phone, telling me. No doorbell, no knock on the door - nothing. Meg didn't even bark which she always does if someone comes to the door. It had just been left outside the front door in full view of anyone passing. According to the email it had been "handed to the resident". Given the value of it, I was fuming when I went outside to collect it. Trouble is, this is by no means the first time this has happened and it all appears to stem from the opening of a new distribution centre just outside Hull - and, presumably, an influx of new drivers.

The young lady I spoke to got a piece of my mind and she promised they would start an investigation, but I'm not holding my breath.

But they do tend to follow free, or cheaper subsidised holidays, or at least in my experience!

You ask how accurate the weight figures are that the manufacturers state. They are accurate, but they need to be interpreted correctly. One must appreciate that the mass in running order figure that they quote is a generic value that doesn't necessarily apply to the caravan in question, It is the weight of the caravan that the manufacturer submitted for type approval and it may have had a slightly different specification to the caravan that you are looking at. I recall that some time ago someone on another forum posted that the actual weight of his caravan according to the Certificate of Conformity also supplied by the manufacturer, was over 200kg more than its mass in running order. While this is, no doubt, somewhat extreme (probably because his caravan had a lot of factory fitted extras) one needs to be aware that there can be differences and that the actual weight will tend to be more than the mass in running order. If the payload margin is important to you, it would pay to have the caravan weighed before you buy it.