Friday Smiles 2026 # Week 28

 Well I have a lot to smile about this week, and lots of photos to share, but I will start with last Saturday when again the park came alive to the shouts of excited children as TNS (a local football team who play in the Welsh league), organised a fundraiser fun day, with bouncy castles, inflatable football pitches and games. And No! I didn't take any photos even though I met my very excited grand-daughter over there. 

It was also the Oswestry Food and Drink fayre so all the streets around were lined with stalls selling street food, local produce, baked items and locally distilled whisky. It was too crowded to take a meaningful photo, but I bought some very tasty pies and some lovely cheeses.

However, the day before that, on the Friday I took loads of photos when I had a day out with my daughter-in-law Ella. Months ago she told me she had been to Oswestry Ironworks with her sister and I mentioned that I had never been there but woud like to one day. She promised me we would go there for lunch one day but it has taken until now for us to find a day when we were both available! Fortunately it was another lovely sunny day so off we went. I wasn't sure what to expect though I knew they had sculptures made for scrap metal. Probably their most famous sculpture is the "Knife angel" - an angel made entirely from knives surrendered after an arms amnesty. Sadly that was not on show for us as it is currently on a nationwide tour.

But we did see the famous gorilla made from 40,000 plastic spoons collected by children from around the world. 

https://www.blackcountrymetalworks.co.uk/spoon-gorilla

It is in the centre of this collage along with some more fantastic exhibits.

These are some of my favourites, especially the 'Grim reaper' carrying a lantern in place of a scythe. I hope you can click on the image and enlarge it enough to read the caption next to him. 

I also liked the cut away head listening to music through headphones. The work involved in creating each one is amazing.

There were some cute little characters with an explanation of the materials used, and also some characters familiar to the younger visitors.

These fruits stood out because of their bright colours which clearly show the cogs and gears used in their construction.

The vehicles were pretty cool, especially the car made from drift wood, and the van with a millipede wound round it and each of its legs was a golf club.

Of course there were lots of mythical creatures allowing the makers to use their imagination, and all were very striking.

We walked a good few steps as the sculptures were spread over a wide area. I couldn't stop taking photos which is why I have put them into collages, but this is only some of the ones on show. But tired and hot, and mindful of the time when Ella's daughter needed to be met from school, we decided to stop our wanderings and were glad to settle in this lovely restaurant for a very tasty late lunch.

And finally, not an exhibit but my lovely smiling grand-daughter enjoying her day out.

One last happy event for this week is that now the garden is cleared of builders rubbish we decided to buy a little bistro table and chairs for our patio. There isn't much space out there yet but this is big enough for a cup of tea each, and even a light meal if we wanted it. It is a very pretty design, and we actually both agreed on the same one which made buying it easy.

And that is more than enough from me for this week.

Friday Smiles 2026 # Week 27

We had another weekend with activity in the park. This week it was for Oswestry Pride. There were a few tents and stalls set up early on Saturday morning and people drifting in from all sides. At around 12.00 they all formed a line and there was a parade through town. It was fairly low key by most town's standards but we are a fairly small town. Anyway there were lots of colourful costumes and people enjoying themselves and that what I like to see.

Another addition to the park is our stone snake. I don't know who started it but I have watched it growing as the days go by and it is quite an impressive length now.

The front area of the park is looking beautiful. I showed it newly planted a few weeks ago, but look at it now. I want to know what magic spell the gardeners uses to make them all bloom at exactly the same time!! The judges for "Towns in bloom" were in the park on the hottest day so far, so I hope they take the temperature into consideration when judges the flowers. Like us, they were wilting a little.

All through July and August there is music in the bandstand every Sunday afternoon. The first week it was a band from Shrewsbury and this week it was the more local Porthywaen band. One of my sons played a trombone with them a good few years ago. Quite a few people come with chairs to sit around and listen, but we can hear them from our house.

Last week I told you about the red-tailed bumble bee. Well this week we had another variety in the garden. He was sitting on my ox-eye daisies, and seemed exhausted. So I found a syringe and gently dripped a few drops of sugar water onto the flower. You can just see it in one of these pictures. He immediately drank it all so I added a few more drops. He became a bit more active after that and eventually flew off. I googled his photo as his big red thorax was very distinctive and not something I had seen before. He also had a white tail not really visible in these photos. Apparently he is a "buff-tailed tree bumble bee", and they have only been seen in UK since 2021. The first siting was in Wiltshire and they have since spread widely. He was very big so just possibly 'he' was a 'she' and was the queen about to form her new colony.

We have had a painter in all week, painting the ceilings and any bare plaster walls in the kitchen, utility and bathroom. He finished today and it all looks so much better. So now I can hang a few things that have been waiting for this, including a pin board, a kitchen cross stitch picture I made many years ago, and various other bits. Also we had a skip to take the rest of the building rubble etc so now we can take a deep breath and rest until the autumn, when we are considering having the sitting room decorated and new carpet put down.

I don't get many sky pictures these days but this one really made me smile. Either the cheeky cloud is putting his tongue out at me and winking, or it is having a smoke and the smoke got in his eye! Either way I hope someone else can see the face. It jumped out at me so clearly, but maybe I just have an odd way of looking at things.