The Black and White villages

Not content with a small oil leak on the engine, I decided to change the o-ring at the oil filter thermostat housing. In true “cause a bigger problem” style, I did this job on a Sunday afternoon, the day before a fast start on another shakedown trip. Even though I used a delicate 1/4” drive socket, I cracked the case flange because the new o-ring was a bit thicker than it should be and it was Sunday and I couldn’t get another.

So now I needed a new housing and optimistically arrived at Paddock’s the next morning at 8am. Unfortunately their website was correct and they didn’t have one but I did get the correct o-ring. Happily the other customer there, who was spending a lot more than me (on this occasion anyway), suggested I try Cavendish at Chesterfield. Guess what? They had one on the shelf, although they didn’t know why.

So two hours after I left home, I returned and a little bit later the Landy was available for loading.

We came close to the Welsh Borders, in order to finally visit friends who have been working on a major barn rebuild and conversion and have almost finished the plastering stage. Wow, what a beautiful job they have made, considering that the dominant gable-end needed to be totally rebuilt and ancient timbers helped to serve another hundred or more years.

It is magnificent and is worthy of ‘Grand Designs’. We can’t wait to return this summer to see the finished building.

We visited a community-run café in a local village church. What a great use of space. We discovered that the sprightly octogenarian that served us was a one-time farmer at Monyash. Oh how we enjoyed talking about grass, finishing cattle and general ‘farming on Limestone’ stuff.

The local art group were busy in the nave and the community shop with Post Office counter is under the café at the back of church and so the whole space was in use.

Later we walked up to the local viewpoint, nearly failing to negotiate the water and mud that are the result of incessant rain since the end of October. It didn’t rain until we were halfway down. Taking in a view from an elevated position always shows you the weather that is coming soon and we therefore knew what to expect. We got drenched.

Later we moved to see the back and white villages that are found west of Leominster, conveniently finding a little museum and later a tea room, so that we were able to dodge some of the rain in Eardisland.

Finally it stopped and we were in yet another Back and White village, with a caravan site and space to dry out.

This was Pembridge and that evening we had beer and curry at the Red Lion pub. Nothing better!

The church here has a separate bell tower, as have several other village churches in the area. This one is magnificent with huge oak pillars and beams that have been here for many hundreds of years.

The bells are driven by a 19C clock and chime the quarter hours, so a few minutes were eagerly spent waiting to see the mechanism whirring and hear the 3.30pm chime. I learned a little about the autonomous maintenance of church bells too.