It seems that this summer is all about music festivals for us. No sooner had we recovered from Glastonbury than we were making our way to Ludlow Castle for one of their summer concerts. We decided to make this trip a mini break and travelled just north of Ludlow to Halfpenny Green Wine Estate. Set in 30 acres of wonderful vines, this winery has established itself as a popular venue in Staffordshire. It had added a shop, cafe and a lovely craft village on site to complement the winery.

We arrived on Friday July 18th to make the last wine tasting of the day at 15.00 and were joined by our friends, Maria and Jane. We had five glasses of wine each accompanied by various charcuterie boards and nibbles. A delightful, if somewhat boozy, couple of hours sat on their terrace enjoying the company, wine and sun. Luckily, we could stumble back to the vans parked nearby and spend the rest of the evening next to the vines.

The next day we made our way to Ludlow Rugby Club where we were able to stop overnight on one of their pitches in the shadow of the castle and only a ten minute walk up to the concert. Perfect.

As we had arrived at lunchtime and the concert doors didn’t open until 17.00, we wandered into town. Ludlow, once the capital of Wales, is a delightful medieval town and somewhere we would like to go back to to explore more fully.

A BBQ late lunch/early tea set us up nicely for the evening. There were a couple of warm up acts, including Natalie Imbruglia, before the main event. Texas were amazing and Sharleen Spiteri, their lead singer, still has an incredible voice and had everyone on their feet dancing and singing – even Jo with her new knee!

All done and dusted by 22.30, we headed back to our vans feeling somewhat smug when we saw the hundreds of cars queuing to get out of car parks to drive home.

On Sunday morning we needed to be out of the rugby club by 10.00 so we had arranged to meet up with other friends who were staying at a local campsite. With combined contents of various fridges, a wonderful cooked breakfast was created and shared amongst us. Just the ticket before our drive home.

Miles since last blog: 297