Take me to the river

Now that English summertime has officially kicked in with a couple of scorching days (that's probably going to be the end of it now, ho hum!), OH is on a little quest to find our nearest watercourse.  There is a tiny brook in the village, but it is no more effective than a dripping bath tap, something you would struggle to wring a handkerchief out in, I'm afraid!

We discovered a double whammy last week whilst driving over to the picturesque Kinver, a river and a canal, wowsers!  The river is the quite short and previously used as an industrial sewer in the industrial revolution, River Stour, and the canal is the Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal.  If you've been reading my blog since the typepad days, you've probably seen my previous canal walks, I have a bit of a canal fetish, and so does OH!   

We've been over today and intend to revisit on Sunday mornings for the forseeable future, exploring different areas of the canal, and taking a peek at the river through the various barbed wire fences and other barriers along the way, as the river appears to run through some rather beautiful private land.

This is as much of the river as we found today 

I took this from the canal towpath, that's how close the two run.

The canal, of course, was just lovely, ducks, boats and leafy green trees. 

The obligatory old bridge

This one is Clay House no. 25, if you were wondering!

There were a few ducks with ducklings, but we had nothing to feed them although they nosily came swimming over to see us

We saw a few narrowboats too, this one was full of tourists

some were obviously liveaboards

The canal has some unusual sandstone mini cliffs in places

But there was also this, a marker for the county line between Worcestershire and Staffordshire

Technically, I suppose I was in two places at once whilst taking this photo!

I appear to have been on a bit of a roll with charity shop and other bargains these past few weeks, and last week was no exception.  I started the week off with a free deodorant, courtesy of old points on my Boots Advantage card

I also found this t shirt on a pound rail, I know, I know, another t shirt!

Then, bingo!  Out and about shopping, I walked into an Age Uk charity shop and scored these two beautiful tops, Per Una brand new top with button detail and umbrella print, just £1.75

This top is just lovely, Next and was just £2.50

I thought this would be just too girly for me, but it looks great on, and I do like the sleeves, I thought they would annoy me but they don't.

After a cake-making interlude on Thursday,  (Lime and coconut traybakeif you're wondering) I found more bargains on Saturday morning at the charity shops.  These 1lb Kilner jars were just 50p each, I'm pretty sure they retail at around £3.50 each (edited to add; just found them online for £2.09 each)

These Yokono leather sandals are a 5 and a little big at the back, but were only a pound and I'm already wearing them to run around the house and garden.  They sell for £30 on ebay as brand new

This top is just the sort of thing I'm looking for to replace my large collection of long sleeve work t shirts I'm still wearing,   It is by ALS and also cost a pound

Of course, I've already removed the silly sleeve tab things and the patch pockets, and might just shorten it a bit too! 

I know some of you are wondering about the cottage and garden, we've done quite a bit in the garden but I keep forgetting to photograph it, but I did take this photo the other day before I cut the lawn, umm, clover bed!  The four vertical posts in the photo will become an archway at some point, and we have laid a small patio under the existing pergola to the right. 

The render needs repainting white, it's a sort of dirty white at the moment, the windows need replacing and the roof tiles are too heavy and wrong for the house, but all those things will have to be done when funds allow.  For now, we are concentrating on the garage conversion and have had the final quote from the builder, we are just checking all finances are in place before we go ahead.