Travel Ottawa to Shrewsbury. May 10-11

What a great way to start a trip! This tile work is in the bar of the Three Guineas at Reading. The original railway station where I worked. This bar was originally the Station Manager's office.

The Air Canada flight from Ottawa to London leaves very late in the evening. This time I seem to have slept most of the flight although Mary wasn't so lucky.  We arrived over London quite early but were stacked in a bunch of fluffy clouds and so our actual arrival at the gate was only about 10 minutes ahead of time.  I passed the time playing Beethoven's Pastoral symphony in my head. There were annoying waits at customs and also the bus station where we found we could have saved a lot of time by simply buying a ticket on the bus which took us quickly to Reading.

The Three Guineas had an excellent breakfast menu albeit at lunch time. I had the full English with a pint of London Pride while Mary had an excellent Parmesan pork schnitzel with lots of vegetables.

There was a leisurely wait for the train to Wolverhampton which was very crowded indeed. The conductor apologized for the 4 minute late arrival at Birmingham which was really caused by overtime at stations where there were delays while those waiting to board had to let those trying to get out first. However with a surprising unchecked entry into Birmingham New Street and some hidden recovery time we left Birmingham on time and arrived at Wolverhampton on the advertised.

The advantage of changing at Wolverhampton is that the train to Shrewsbury leaves from the same platform; the disadvantage is that this is a very full commuter train and we weren't able to get a seat until the train had emptied out.

It is cool in Shrewsbury and there was a little rain. The Old Police Station is, by now, very familiar to us. After unpacking we dropped next door to the Coach and Horses for a pint of Three Tuns pale and a half pint of Thatchers Gold cider.  We had a good conversation with three men and chatted about the area and the eleven plus and O level exams.

Quick trip to Waitrose, for breakfast essentials then snuggled down into a toasty warm bed.