Sunny weekend in Loughborough

So, this weekend in Loughborough proved to be very sunny, and very busy!

It had been a while since I'd been down to the Old Rectory Museum, so I thought it was about time I went again, especially as I was keen to see their latest display! But first I spotted the willow bell made by Nita Rao, for last year's Bell Festival - looking stunning against the beautiful green backdrop!

The 'Home Front' exhibition in the Pantry Gallery didn't disappoint! Some very interesting exhibits, making good use of the space available to show them off to their best advantage! Examples of real clothes from the era; newspapers from the time; a gas mask; holiday brochures; recipe books; cosmetics, and paper dolls all serving to show what life was like during the Second World War.

The exhibition is only on until the end of May, I believe, so if you haven't already been to see it, I'd suggest you hotfoot it down to the Old Rectory, which is open 11-3 each Saturday. The Rectory Wildlife Garden is also usually open during this time, and is a peaceful oasis, nestled between the Old Rectory and Fearon Hall.

Today I spent a lovely couple of hours wandering through the annual Ceramics in Charnwood market. I've been to this event for quite a number of years, and it's always a pleasure to see so much variety of pottery on show and on sale. It's a very popular market, and makers come from a wide area, not just our locality. nad it's not just made pots that are for sale - there's also a couple of opportunities to try your hand at making something!

Of course, we do now have our very own pottery-making destination, up on Ward's End, next to the Old Bleach Yard. I was lucky enough to have a guided tour, and was really surprised how big the place was, especially the upstairs, which actually runs along the first floor of the shop next door. Seems they run special events, too, in other local venues, like pubs!

Well, could the weekend get any better? Well, yes!!! I was too early to listen to the band playing in the bandstand in Queen's Park, but I did walk through the park and listen to the Borough Carillonneur, Caroline Sharpe, playing some wonderfully expressive pieces on this beautiful instrument. Sadly, I didn't have time to go into Charnwood Museum this time, but of course, I will be back!!        

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Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

_______________________________________________

Thank you for reading this blog.

Copyright:

The copyright © of all content on this blog rests with me, however, you are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follows:

Dyer, Lynne (2024). Sunny weekend in Loughborough. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2024/05/sunny-weekend-in-loughborough.html [Accessed 12 May 2024]

Take down policy:

I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

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By including links to external sources I am not endorsing the websites, the authors, nor the information contained therein, and will not check back to update out-of-date links. Using these links to access external information is entirely the responsibility of the reader of the blog.

Blog archive and tags:

If you are viewing this blog in mobile format, you will not be able to easily access the blog archive, or the clickable links to various topics. These can be accessed if you scroll to the bottom of the page, and click 'View Web Version'. Alternatively, there is also a complete list of posts, which when clicked will take you to the page you are interested in.

Searching the blog:

You can search the blog using the dedicated search box that appears near the top of the blog when viewed in the web version. Alternatively, you can search using your usual search engine (e.g. Bing, Google, DuckDuckGo etc.) by following this example:

site: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/ “Radmoor House”

NOTE – the words you’re actually looking for must be in “” and the first of these must be preceded by a space

Thank you for reading this blog.

Lynne

Reflection of the A-Z Blogging Challenge

Yet again, I’ve been poorly, so I’ve had no time to research anything for this week’s blogpost, so, instead, I thought I’d review the 'April A-Z Blogging Challenge' that I took part in.

When I stumbled upon the A-Z Challenge, it reminded so very much of the 100 Days project, which was also something I found out about by chance. The 100 Days was a project aimed at creatives, and was a challenge that invited people to do something creative for 100 consecutive days. Well, being neither handy with a knitting needle, a garden trowel, or a paintbrush, I decided that writing was a creative activity. In addition, knowing how I find it so difficult to write concisely, I decided to add an extra challenge, and write only 100 words on each of the 100 days. Of course, there could only be one topic – Loughborough! You can see the outcome of that particular challenge on the 100 Days page. Of course, it starts at Day 100, because I added each day’s piece to the start of the page, so scroll to the bottom if you want to read from the beginning!

The A-Z Blogging Challenge appealed to me, especially because it was only 26 posts, rather than 100 posts, and these were to be shared every day except Sunday. Oh! So that meant that I would actually be sharing a blogpost every day of the week in the month of April, because, as you might know, this blog’s regular posting slot is a Sunday evening!! I must admit, that did add a bit of a challenge, so not only was I thinking about what to write for a particular letter of the alphabet, but I was still trying to write a regular post too!

The other reason the challenge appealed was because although the blog has been going for more than 10 years, there were not 10 years’ worth of posts! While I try very hard to blog every week, sometimes I don’t manage it – I might be away, I might go on holiday, I might be poorly, I might be too tired, I might have visitors, or I might even struggle to find something to write about! Curiously, the blog was about 26 posts short, so this seemed an ideal opportunity to fill those gaps!

As I say, I stumbled upon the challenge quite late in the day, so I didn’t have time to prepare anything in advance, so the topics I wrote about were the ones that happened to come into my head whilst I was pondering what to write about for a specific letter. Had I been more planned, the posts might have been more interesting, or they might have each contributed to a theme. I admit there were a couple of days when my imagination left me, and I resorted to sharing something I’d already written about in ‘A-Z of Loughborough’ (see letters I and X) which by now you’ll have gathered is not a map book, but rather a book about different aspects of Loughborough, in an alphabetical sequence.

All in all, I had a great time, if a bit pressurised as I actually had quite a lot on during April! I was pleased with the average number of page views that my daily posts received, and could probably have predicted that a post about the Eagle pub would have been the most viewed, shortly followed by the one about a railway accident. I was very surprised though, that Lucy Boxes proved to be so very popular!! Given that May is Mental Health Awareness Month, I think it would be great if you were to re-visit the W post, and consider getting out, if you are able, into the town centre for a walk, or up to the Outwoods: walking is an amazing way to revive the spirits!

Along the way of the challenge, I met quite a few other people who were doing the A-Z, and really enjoyed reading their posts and getting to know them.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading the posts on this blog!

Below is a complete list of the posts: if you click on the link, it will take you directly to the post.

A – is for Abbeyfield

B – is for Brooks

C – is for Canal Mile Markers

D – is for Domesday

E – is for Eagle

F – is for Fire

G – is for Garages

H – is for Heritage Open Days

I – is for Incorporation of the Borough

J – is for Jones

K – is for K

L – is for Lucy Boxes

M – is for the Mayor and Mountfields House

N – is for Nanpantan

O – is for Odeon

P – is for Pubs

Q – is for Q30541

R – is for Railway Accident

S – is for Swan

T – is for Trees

U – is for Ursula

V – is for Victorians and what they did for us

W – is for Walking

X – is for X26/27, XPS, and X-Rays

Y – is for Yates 

Z – Z is for ? [Zeppelins]

____________________________________

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

_______________________________________________

Thank you for reading this blog.

Copyright:

The copyright © of all content on this blog rests with me, however, you are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follows:

Dyer, Lynne (2024). Reflection of the A-Z Blogging Challenge. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2024/05/reflection-of-a-z-blogging-challenge.html [Accessed 5 May 2024]

Take down policy:

I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

External Links:

By including links to external sources I am not endorsing the websites, the authors, nor the information contained therein, and will not check back to update out-of-date links. Using these links to access external information is entirely the responsibility of the reader of the blog.

Blog archive and tags:

If you are viewing this blog in mobile format, you will not be able to easily access the blog archive, or the clickable links to various topics. These can be accessed if you scroll to the bottom of the page, and click 'View Web Version'. Alternatively, there is also a complete list of posts, which when clicked will take you to the page you are interested in.

Searching the blog:

You can search the blog using the dedicated search box that appears near the top of the blog when viewed in the web version. Alternatively, you can search using your usual search engine (e.g. Bing, Google, DuckDuckGo etc.) by following this example:

site: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/ “Radmoor House”

NOTE – the words you’re actually looking for must be in “” and the first of these must be preceded by a space

Thank you for reading this blog.

Lynne