It seemed like an age since our last Dame Shirley trip, but at last our next one arrived. As The Millers were away at Shrewsbury I had scouted around for a nice looking campsite in the vicinity and came up with Love2Stay. Ian was really busy at work, as always, so we decided to leave after lunch on the Friday. We waved goodbye to Kathy, Einar and Sam who had been stranded at our house with Norwegian Covid, and left before the school rush about 2.30. Despite England being mostly under water after terrible flooding we had a really nice journey down to Shrewsbury and arrived at Love2Stay around 5pm. Love2Stay is an all singing, all dancing campsite. I booked us in and was told to make sure I used the complimentary cold water pool (no) and warm outdoor pool with hot tubs (maybe). We were directed to pitch number 8 half way up the hill near the toilet block. Our fully serviced pitch.
Superpitch number 8
Ian plugged us in and turned the gas on. He set up his Jerry rigged waste pipe to empty straight down a hole and filled us with water from our own standpipe. We even have our own chemical toilet emptying point. I took a trip to the all singing all dancing toilet block. Lovely! Then examined the (sadly not required as Misty is not here) indoor, five star, dog washing stations. As I said, Love2Stay is all singing all dancing.
Dame Shirley nestled in her Super Pitch
We had a coffee and set the TV up. Even the Netflix’s of this world were working in a five star manner. I then rustled up a butter chicken and rice which we washed down with a nice red. Lovely!
Charlie Bingham butter chicken
As it was football Vicky was driving up to stay with us for the weekend. Despite the floods she too had an easy run and arrived about 9.30. Ian popped down to let her in, Love2Stay is all locked up for the night to keep out the Salopian riffraff. We watched a programme about songs from musicals before retiring for a lovely nights sleep.
Ian was up early on the Saturday morning, I know! He had decided to run the Shrewsbury Park Run. So had Vicky but she bailed at the last minute citing neck and toe injuries. I made some coffee and lazed about before Vicky rose, then I donned my new dry robe and went for a shower. Lovely and hot, sensor initiated, powerful, but the drainage channel was right in the middle of the dressing area leaving only about a foot square to get dried. Bizarre.
Back at Dame Shirley I began a full English brunch and awaited Ian’s return. He was given a full hero’s welcome as he had set a new personal best of 24mins dead. We later found out that his official time was an even better 23Mins 56sec. He was elated! The brunch was delicious as well.
What a brunch!
We decided that, as it was only two miles we would walk to the ground. On the way we examined the pools and cafe, all looked very nice though we wouldn’t be using them this chilly weekend. There is also a lake for paddle boarding and canoeing, and a massive adventure playground. We exited Love2Stay and came to our first obstacle. Crossing the roundabout just outside the gate. Ian just ran across playing chicken, despite it being at the end of the M54! Vicky and I pressed all the buttons and waited for the green man. Two miles later, we arrived at Shrewsburys ground, the cloud Meadow. We had been there before during the promotion season where Richard Wood gave us a famous victory, but none of us actually remembered it! That is until Vicky went to the toilet and the memories came flooding back. We chose our seats right behind the goal and right in the firing line for wayward shots. Vicky had to be on her toes the whole game. The less said about the match the better as we continued our unbeaten away run of not winning. We did at least salvage draw with a dodgy JCH penalty. This caused all of us huge worry as it was at our end and we still have not recovered from JCH’s legendary penalty at Preston. Thankfully, the ball nestled in the net and not in one of our heads.
Fun (and fear) at The Cloud. Meadow
After the game, there was the inevitable in fighting between the Rotherham fans, many who felt that it was a poor performance. But this is to be expected with our fan base and thankfully it didn’t turn into fisticuffs. It was only Two miles from Shrewsbury town centre, so we decided to walk that too. As we arrived Ian showed us where he had begun his park run, where he turned around in his park run, where he got a stone in the shoe in his park run. It was all very interesting. We wandered down towards the restaurant that I had booked for tea, the armoury. Much to my delight there were bouncers outside. How exciting, I am still young. Inside it was lovely and Vicky and I spent awhile choosing which of the myriad gins we would have as a starter. Then I had chicken with Gorgonzola gnocchi, Ian had sea bass, and Vicky had fish and chips. All were very nice. Then Vicky and I washed it all down with a Negroni.
Nice food and ambience
Amazing doggy menu
Pud
The armoury also had that thing on the menu where you could have a coffee and a small pudding which me and Vicky availed ourselves of, having the waffle.
After we had finished I arranged a taxi on my new ‘Veezu’ app. Who knew it could be so easy!? Within two minutes our driver, in his black Prius, had arrived and we were winging our way back to Love2Stay. We settled in to Dame Shirl to do the pub quiz and watch some telly via Love2Stays excellent WiFi, before all retiring to bed.
There was no need to rise early on the Sunday so we lazed in bed a bit, then I got up and made coffee and sausage sarnies. We were going to go for a look round Shrewsbury, but Ian had ascertained that the Shrewsbury half marathon was taking place so we checked for somewhere else to go. We found that just down the road was a National Trust property called Attingham Park. After a lazy morning we set off there and had a good wander around. Then we took a walk through the grounds crossing the suspension bridge and a look round the walled garden.
The Facade
On the balcony
The dining room
Library
Nice staircase
With resident mirror ghost
The stables
Suspension Bridge
Kitchen Garden
Full meat Sunday dinner
Some veggie stuff
Stuffed, we returned to Dame Shirley for coffee before Vicky departed. We battened down the hatches and departed ourselves. I loved Love2Stay and would like to return one day, maybe in the summer.
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