Ludlow 2023

The annual pilgrimage to Ludlow takes place after the first week back at school after 6 weeks of cruisiness. Although I’ve blogged about it previously, we’ve counted up, and it’s more than 20 years that we have been enjoying its epicurean delights with a backdrop of Shropshire farm camping.

This year marked the triumphal return of Team Haaker and it was an absolute belter. Such a pleasure to spend the weekend with the lot of them.

The constraints of education meant that we arrived later and were they were well in advance of us, setting up in the sunshine, and a most mysterious WhatsApp picture made it look like they were in the front field!

Never in 20 odd years have we enjoyed such VIP treatment, but it was so. The back field, which to be fair we love, was empty except for one lonely caravan.

We tucked in to bowlfuls of KB’s sweet potato and spinach curry brought from home and enjoyed a dang pleasant evening.

Small children played in the field, grown ups enjoyed a fizzy drink or two as the evening cooled down and the stars came out.

Champagne was called for. This time it answered

The face of someone in their happy place

Plans were made to park at the rugby club (£5) and walk up to the castle. Even by 10am as we were preparing to head out it was hot.

That hazy mist that means it’s going to be sweltering

Bubble machine + children = Reluctance to leave camp

The festival was similar to last year, in that mostly it was aimed at eating and drinking on the spot, rather than selling stuff to take away. We decided to aim for filling up whilst we wandered, and buying stuff to nibble on for when we got back to camp. Easier said than done as the temperature meant that lots of sitting down and drinking water was required.

We mainly played the game of Find the Shade

Mid afternoon, on the pretext of looking for something or other, and needing a cash machine, the mummies took a stroll into town, around the mercadillo and had to pause for a small refreshment stop.

Business was concluded, and we retreated to camp, mainly to find some shade. It had been the best part of 30°, which for September is quite frankly ridiculous.

Cheeses, charcuterie, crusty bread, the odd glass of something nice 👌

It’s never a good idea to pack away on an empty stomach, so KB got some snags on the barbie before we packed up, ready for a side adventure on the way home.

Normally Sunday is a slow and steady drive home and a quiet afternoon snooze before reality hits, but not this time. Small children were quite excited as we were going to stop off to see BIG planes at RAF Cosford near Wolverhampton.

Thankfully, Sunday was cooler and after a looping detour around Cosford, we parked up in a bus space and paid 6 earth pounds to park, no charge for the exhibits.

Coffees and lunches were procured at the caff and we entered and exited many hangars, marvelling at things we never knew we were interested in.

Stop. Hangar time.

The play area was a hit with the smalls, and the gift shop was skilfully avoided, as was the hangar with the slippery floor due to excessive condensation.