Dahlia at Anglesey Abbey.

Cyclamen at Anglesey Abbey.

Lovely Dahlias in the gardens of Angelsey Abbey in Cambridgeshire.

This is a flower that Joanne's very proud of growing. Mostly this is because she managed to prevent me pulling up thinking it was a weed. I think it's from New Zealand.

These posts aren't in any particular order but this is a castle we came across in Shropshire. It's called Hopton Castle and is conincidentally located in a village called Hopton Castle though it sits in a farmer's field and as such is entirely inacessible to the public. There was a massacre here during the Civil War - 30 or so Parliamentarians were killed after a lengthy seige and supposedly had their hands cut off and thrown in the moat. They have a website which says that English Heritage are taking it over from next year.

We went on a steam train in Yorkshire. It was all a ruse cooked up by Joanne using her cousin's kids as cover; she said 'we'll say we're taking the little 'uns on the railway and no one will know we're actually desperate train nerds ourselves'. I think it worked out quite nicely.

Steam train on the Keighley and North Yorkshire railway.