Wednesday - RAF, Coldwar & Lilleshall

Hello all!!
This is day 5 of England! The trip so far has been great! Arriving on Saturday I am pretty sure I don't remember most of the afternoon on Saturday, which should of been the middle of the night for me. My host family took me downtown Shrewsbury, and I was determined not to sleep until the evening so I was able to sleep that night. After a few hours I had powered out and went for a couple hour nap. I can report that even though I had a nap I had an excellent sleep that night!! Just one other thing before I give a short account on the Wednesday tours is that I loved being in the Livestock Auction! I was able to actually seem smart explaining to my team how things worked there, and how that compared to being home in Canada. I had an interesting conversation with one gentleman that was selling Holstein x Belgian Blue calves and hoping to buy a couple of Holstein cows that day to add to his herd at home. Very interesting how things work, and how farmers make a living here compared to home, especially with the small land base that they have to work with! There is not a whole lot of room to expand.

Wednesday was another really nice day outside. We keep hearing about the weather in England and how it is never very nice this time of year, and for the first couple of days I was very overdressed weather wise. I can tell you though that as I write this it is raining outside, and I've heard that we might have seen the end of the nice weather. But I have learned since I have come here that you never know what the weather is going to be like until you stick your head outside! In the morning we went to the RAF & Cold War museum, and I found this really interesting. They had an account of the timing of things happening starting in 1912 until today, and there were a few flights made by women that I took special notice of such as the first solo flight! I also found the newest hanger the Cold War exhibit to be extremely interesting. I knew the story of the Cold War growing up, but didn't know a whole lot of specific details about it, and I really feel the museum did a very good job of telling all sides of the story.
Lunch was at a very nice pub called the Bell Inn. Pubs in England I have found are nothing like what we would consider a pub back home, and most of them are sit down restaurants serving meals. The one we ate at Wednesday was very good, chicken Tikka being my meal of choice.
The afternoon was a visit to Lilleshall which is one of 4 English National Sports Centres. Lilleshall specializes in football, field hockey, and gymnastics. The grounds were beautiful, and I can only imagine what they would look like in the spring and summer with all the flowers blooming, and grass as green and lush as grass can look. The grounds and the estate used to belong to the The Duke of Sutherland who owned a lot of the land in the area. The large estate was a hunting lodge, and wasn't even the Duke's home. The details that they have inside the now hotel, and outside the building is just incredible! I am very impressed and thankful for the people we have met along the way it seems people will take a minute or two, or even longer out of their day to explain things to us. One of the managers of Lilleshall saw us in the gardens and came down to give us an explanation of the estate. We asked about a thousand questions which he seemed very happy to answer. I am really enjoying the information and pride that people here take in knowing facts about history of buildings and the surrounding area, and England as a whole. It is really very impressive.
In the evening we had a supper with the Rotary club of Newport and did a presentation for the club.
The day was a good day for all involved!!
A full day of activities is planned for Thursday, and soon we will be moving on to a new Host family. I can not believe that we have been here almost a week already! Had a great first week and I am looking forward to the next 3. I am especially looking forward to Harper Adams on Friday.
Signing off for now & will post some pictures in the next day or two.
Jody