Exploring New Places :: Part 1

Hello Lovelies,

 right back in January, in my first post of 2014 in fact, I mentioned a calendar of local scenes I had bought after being being inspired by Louise at Ramblings of a Roachling. 

Louise bought a 2013 Calendar of her local area and each month did a walk around the area depicted. It seemed like a great way of getting to know places that are not far away , but that I had not visited before.

 I bought this calendar ..............

It had 12 ( well 13 actually) fairly local scenes and I wanted to use it to inspire me to get out of the usual routine of visiting the same old places.

I decided not to worry about doing the visits on the month they were depicted, but simply to aim to have visited all the places by the end of the year...........

In February the photo was of a street scene in the market town of Melton Mowbray..........

All that month I looked at this photo and felt less than inclined to make the effort to visit.

But now the days are warmer and the countryside is so pretty, a little day trip seemed much more appealing.

On Wednesday Mum and I headed off to explore. 

It's a good omen when you easily find a parking spot right outside a florist with bargain flowers, don't you think?

We ambled along and soon came to the Market square. Wednesday isn't the main market day but there were some stalls set up for business......... 

You lovelies know how much I like buildings with character and this row of shops had oodles of it, especially this one with a statue of a  Swan on a plinth ..........

I was intrigued and  searched the internet which threw up THIS interesting link to the origin of a well known phrase, one that we still use in Britain today.

This small market place looked happy and colourful in the sunshine.........

    

I do love to see an ice-cream van......always adds a cheery feel.

And here is my version of that scene from the calendar. It's almost identical............

In fact I think I prefer my version. The sky is not quite as nice, but I like the fact it has people in it. I do like to see a street scene with some life in it.

Melton Mowbray is famous for it's Pork Pies So it's not surprising that my calendar chose to include "Ye Olde Worldy Porkie Pieee Shoppeeeee"

O.K. that's not quite it's name :0).........

Here's the view a little further down the street. The impressive building in the foreground was once the corn exchange. It's now a shopping centre and sadly none of the original features remain, just this lovely facade..........

And here is the view in the opposite direction, looking back towards the market place.........

Mum and I explored the shops, it was nice to see some independent outlets as well as the chain stores. Of course we also had a look in the charity shops, but they did seem expensive compared to our usual market town.
 After a bite to eat mum headed back to the car, but I dashed off to find another view from my calendar.
This is November's image, taken in the park here..............

Not being familiar with the town I wasn't sure exactly where the park was, then I spotted this street sign.........

"Park Lane" turned out to be an interesting little place........especially when I saw fabric.........

Oh, I loved this cluster of buildings with an interesting courtyard.......and look at the sign-writing!.......

I thought it was lovely.......especially this bit.........

It's a tape measure....how perfect.

At the end of Park Lane I arrived at these impressive gates and wandered across the grass towards the trees........

Here's my version of the calendar photo........ quite different this time due to the season........

I wandered down this avenue and came to a strange sight.....lock gates in the ground............

Once again the internet cleared up this mystery ......it's to mark the course of a canal that once ran between these two rows of trees ( info found HERE) 

I do love a canal, so was a little disappointed that it had been filled in.

Happily there were rivers running through the park..........

And a large pond..........

The pavilion cafe was doing a good trade........

And there were pretty bridges to get from one side of the river to the other.............

I left the park and headed back to the car, passing more interesting old buildings........

Like this gorgeous old pub, which I've since learned dates back to the fourteenth century, and it gets it name "Anne of Cleaves" due to it being part of her divorce settlement from Henry VIII............

It was time to go and I just snapped this cute looking tea room as somewhere I would like visit another time.......

What did I come home with?........well, some Sausages from the Pork Pie Shoppe (they were really good ) and a fabric remnant from that shop on the way to the park.

But my favourite purchase was this sweet Viola hanging basket from the florists shop........... 

who could resist  these sweet and hardy , happy faced flowers...........

Melton Mowbray impressed me with it's wealth of history and cheerful, traffic free shopping.
 It was a great start to this little project and I'm really looking forward to exploring more new places this year.
Jacquie x