A Free Show

Shrewsbury Flower Show is a marvellous spectacle, but it’s an expensive day out. I’ve only been there when I’ve been lucky enough to be given a ticket. Fortunately, just living in Shrewsbury gives me a taste of the show for free.

Many shops have colourful window displays, but Birch’s at the bottom of Roushill really pulls out all the stops and covers all the walls. (And it’s a wonderful Aladdin’s cave of a shop – packed with things that you didn’t think you could still buy.)

 

 

Loads of flowers everywhere in the town.

Here’s one of the approach roads to the Quarry Park, Victoria Quay.

 

 

I’m lucky to have an attic flat which gives me a view of the grand firework display that ends the show on each of its two days. I can only see the higher rockets, but it’s free. (If the wind is in the right direction, I can hear the massed brass bands and male-voice choirs at the finale, too. I love the way the Welsh National Anthem is always twice as loud as God Save The Queen when the choirs sing.)

And being on the road from Shrewsbury Castle to the centre of town, the marching bands pass right  below my window. I could hear this band, but couldn’t see them. They were going at a quick march – I’d no time to raise the sash to set up a proper shot. So I waved the camera out of the top half of the window at arm’s length and hoped for the best.

Two years ago, I was given a ticket to the 120th Flower Show. Here is my set of pictures from that day on Flickr. 120 of them, of course.

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