Back to Lapworth

I really enjoyed my first visit to Lapworth last year, a lovely Warwickshire village where the Stratford and Grand Union Canals meet. I returned yesterday this time to walk the Stratford Canal back up in the Birmingham direction (i went the other direction last time).

My walk took in Lapworth Wharf, the Lapworth Lock Flight and made it as far as the cricket club. You can see my photos here. I plan to return to Lapworth later in the year and explore more of the Grand Union which i only briefly visited last time.

Solar lights

Over the last few weeks i've been buying solar powered lights for the garden, especially the herb garden. The only reason was so when i looked out of my window at night i might see something and not endless blackness. I'm quite enjoying how the lights slightly illuminate the herbs, when they have grown more in a couple of months it might be quite a nice effect. As for the herbs they seem to have survived the winter well, the mint is growing like crazy in new plants right across the vegetable plot.

Electric Railway Museum

The Electric Railway Museum is fairly close (Coventry) to where i live but i haven't been to it until now mostly because it does not open that often. Yesterday though was its first open day of the year and i visited and viewed the great selection of electric trains, mostly EMUs.

Most of their collection is unique and it is a shame that EMUs and the like tend to be neglected by most of the railway preservation movement. Still as long as one survives is all that matters i suppose, its not like we need breeding pairs, though there is safety in numbers. You can see my photographs here, check out their website for the next open day, they are very worth a visit.

A new generation

The great thing about spider plants is that they reproduce by growing plantlets on the end of a long stem so if you get one plant then you can (unless it dies of course) have generations of new plants every year to spread around the house. My Nan had spider plants for over 30 years all from one original plant. As for me well i can claim a mere 10 years or so with various generations of spider plants from a couple of plantlets i took from the plant in my boss' (at the time) office.

Once i had over a dozen plants but that dropped to 2 over time, but now i have taken 4 of the plantlets for a new generation. I don't think the 2 "parents" are my original spider plants, to be honest i should have kept track which were the originals! But never mind the spider plants live on for a new generation!

Royal Navy Historic Dockyard

The RN's Historic Dockyard at Portsmouth is where the famous HMS Victory and HMS Warrior are  on display and of course visiting this was a major part of my holiday in Portsmouth!

I was able to go aboard Victory (which personally i didn't like so much as everything was so low i had to stoop down everywhere!), Warrior and the WW1 monitor M33 which was my favourite. I was also able to see the current RN in the form of HMS Diamond which was easily visible from the dockyard. You can see my photos here, the dockyard is a great place to visit.