Tuesday 4 August: Scotland’s National Museum of Flight is just down the road from Dunbar, at East Fortune’s former WW2 airfield. We’d better pay it a visit!

We’re not experts on things that fly, though we have taken to the air once or twice. Geoffspages’ first flight (and only one in a jet*) was many years ago, from Birmingham to Munich (a school ski-ing trip), in a BAC 1-11 – just like that one over there! Seemed very modern at the time… So did Concorde, a few years later, when it roared overhead during occasional family visits west of Heathrow. There’s one on display here! At the other end of the scale, there’s a home-made plane, based around a VW ‘Beetle’ engine (amazing!) – and just about everything in-between.

* the others: a propeller-powered cross-channel hop, a short spin (not literally) in a 2-seater Cessna, and a helicopter flight over our little corner of Shropshire. I guess I ought to try a hot air balloon one of these days, or maybe a hang-glider? Maybe not…

NMS National Museum of Flight

Built in 1797 as a flax mill, from 1897 to 1987 it was a maltings. Disused for several years after that, it’s now in a fine state of preservation. Appropriately so – it’s the world’s first iron-framed multi-storey building – predecessor of the modern skyscraper. On the ground floor is an impressive exhibition making good use of hands-on multimedia displays, and outside, the attractive old buildings are well worth a few photos (taken on the phone. I haven’t lost my memory – simply forgot to put it back in the camera…)

EH: Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings

Cardiff Castle! Tuesday 20 May – a visit to the Welsh capital, and on this occasion, we’ll take a look at the castle. It’s quite a place! In particular the interior of the 3rd Marquess of Bute’s mansion, paid for by the south Wales miners and the sales of the coal they dug, is quite astonishing. Can’t help thinking that the lives of those human moles could have been improved if the wealth generated by the coal had been spread just a little more evenly. The castle is now owned and managed by Cardiff Council.

Castell Caerdydd
Cardiff Castle

Sunday 25 May: Hereford – for the waterworks museum and miniature railway. The museum has “Steam Days”, twice a month during the season, coinciding with the public running days on the miniature railway. We’d thought about a visit for some time: today the time and weather seemed right.

The museum’s real fascination lies in its collection of water-pumping engines of several types, operating for demonstration purposes on steam days. The sight and sound of all these engines is mesmerising! The miniature railway operates on a satisfyingly complex layout (there’s a map on their website), with several trains running in a way that maximises that complexity. Great fun!

Waterworks Museum, Hereford
Hereford Society of Model Engineers

Wroxeter (or Viriconium) was a Roman city, the fourth-largest in Britain. The remarkable ruins date back to those days, but across the road to Wroxeter village is a much newer Roman structure – the town house built for a Channel 4 TV programme. Just a mile or two to the east, the Wrekin looks on indifferently. It’s seen it all.

Wroxeter Roman City: English Heritage