Camels in Shropshire

[skyring]

Camels in Shropshire,
originally uploaded by skyring.

I received this postcard from GirlFromIpanema, which puzzled me, as I had seen Shropshire and the bits I'd seen didn't look like this, but of course it wasn't summer then and I hadn't seen ALL of Shropshire.

But GfI is big on truthiness, so I put my reservations to one side.

Comments

[gir1fromipanema.livejournal.com]

Yay! It got there :-). Well, actually Shropshire didn't look quite as bad, but as we hadn't seen a drop of rain in all our time in the Border counties I thought it a fitting description. The region actually was a real dust-bowl. It hasn't rained since April and even the moors on Hatterall Ridge (Black Mountains) were dry as a bone...
Note to self: Next vacation in Wales, leave raincoat (400 grammes) and umbrella (180g) at home.

[skyring.livejournal.com]

"Next vacation in Wales, leave raincoat (400 grammes) and umbrella (180g) at home."

Sage advice! I'll bet this wasn't in the guidebook!

[miketroll.livejournal.com]

This advice is in fact barking mad. Not taking a raincoat and umbrella in Wales is guaranteed to bring torrential rain.

[gir1fromipanema.livejournal.com]

OK, I'll have it posted poste restante to Chirk for the rest of my hike. That should do the trick. I now know, that I *can* do 22km in 7h and 34°C, but that doesn't mean I *want* to... We had the author of our guide book with us --running gag "What sez the author?". And she did list a raincoat. So we toted the bl##dy things all over Wales.

[gir1fromipanema.livejournal.com]

BTW, miketroll, "barking mad": Love it! That one goes into my collectors' box :-).

[(Anonymous)]

As matter of passing interest the term "barking mad" originates from the fact that there used to be an insane asylum at Barking in London. Just to keep a bookish flavour to this you will find this fact referenced in Peter Ackroyd's excellent book "London: The Biography" which is a slow but rewarding read.

[skyring.livejournal.com]

Anyone I know?

[dubnordie.livejournal.com]

We used to have wallabies in a field in Worcestershire. Truth. They'd escaped from a private zoo, but none the less, there they were, wild in a field