A Works Trip to Mid Wales

Wednesday 22 June 2005. Another trip for work and this time the car hire firm have dropped off a Nissan X-Trail. Not that work were so extravagant with their travel funding, but I was using hire cars such a lot that if the firm had customers for all of their smaller cars they would pick their regular customers to upgrade at no extra cost.

I was heading to Newtown in mid Wales and my route took me through Oswestry, so I stopped for a look at the old hill fort.

Whilst it had the usual rings of earthworks there were a few surprises for any would-be assailants in the form of pits and banks perpendicular to the circumference. They would have been much deeper 1500 years ago than they appear now and I reckon the authorities have probably made the owners of the site remove any rusty sword blades and sharpened stakes that might await anyone luckless enough to fall down the side of one of these pits!

Old Oswestry (Hen Ddinas in Welsh) was built around 800 BCE and occupied, according to most sources including English Heritage under whose care it is and Wikipedia, up until 43 CE. 43 CE is a curiously precise date, so I'm not sure how it was derived.

There is a legend that King Arthur's Guinevere was born here and that would have been some 360-400 years later if, indeed, he ever actually existed. So either that's just a legend also or we have to believe that her mother, on the brink of giving birth, decided to climb up the steep slopes of the hillfort, that rises almost 27 metres (90 ft), whilst avoiding falling into the pits in order to give birth...

I was meeting a colleague, Alan, and we were staying here at a country hotel called the Maesmawr Hotel just south of Newtown. Alan had further to travel than myself, living just outside Edinburgh and I picked him up at Newtown Station before going to book in at the hotel.

We found the hotel fairly easily. The Maesmawr was a wonderful black and white timbered building, dating from 1565 a mile from a place called Caersws - as impossible to guess at the pronunciation as Maesmawr was...

Over a period of several months I worked closely with a team at the University of Glamorgan and my main contact there told me once that if you want to learn Welsh you should start by ignoring from an English viewpoint how words are spelt... After a dozen years of regularly visiting Wales, my grasp of the Welsh language is limited to simple phrases like "Good morning" and (because road traffic signs are written in both languages) words like "Stop", "Slow", "Welcome to...", and the one I used the most: "humpback bridge"...

This was the view from my bedroom window.

The hotel was very close to the River Severn. Most surviving buildings of this age are close to rivers come to think of it. They would have provided water for drinking, washing, and cleaning and also perhaps (hopefully a little downstream) for getting rid of waste.

The menu for our evening meal included Welsh lamb. "Ah well..." said Alan, whose slender frame belied his capacity for food, "I think we deserve it!"

The hotel entrance. A strong woody smell came from the orchids in the entrance hall. On the wall... no... it can't be... It was. Bambi's mum!

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Around Wales in the 1950s

A couple of weeks ago I was celebrating the end of a long-running task - the scanning of some 700 postcards from the Hayley Easthope collection. Readers may well have been wondering when to expect to see them, but with so many postcards from so many different countries it was a daunting job trying to think of how to present them!

So here's the first instalment. Wales is the country most represented outside England so today's selection are all of Wales. There are around 80 postcards from Wales so to try to arrange them into suitably sized collections, today's postcards are all older monochrome shots. They were mostly published as black and white, but there are a couple of sepia treated examples.

Llangwyfan Old Church, (The Church In The Sea) Aberffraw, nr. Rhosneigr. This tiny 13th century church of St Cwyfan stands on the south west coast of Anglesey. The land on which it stands was once part of the island of Anglesey itself, but erosion of the land by the sea sometime after 1770 caused the land around the church to be cut off at high tide, forming an island known as Cribinau. By the early 1900s the erosion was encroaching on the churchyard and some graves were lost to the sea, at which point a wall was built around the remains of the island to protect it.

In the latter half of the 18th century a very strange thing occurred. In 1766 Dr Thomas Bowles, an ageing English priest, was appointed to St Cwyfan's church. The congregation numbered 500 and of those, 99% spoke Welsh but no English. Dr Bowles spoke English but no Welsh... Not surprisingly the locals demanded he be replaced. A court in 1773 found that he should not have been appointed to a Welsh-speaking parish, but now that he had been - and legally - he could not be removed. In the event, he stayed for another ten months before he passed away, leaving the way open for his replacement by a Welsh-speaking priest.

Wrexham, The Yale Tomb & Sundial. Specifically this is the tomb of the exotically named Elihu Yale, born in 1649 in Boston, Massachusetts. He worked for the British East India Company and whilst in their employ became Governor of Fort St George in Madras. He made himself extremely rich mostly by flaunting the rules of the company and entering into secret deals. After five years he was removed by the East India Company and returned to live at Plas Grono, the family mansion near Wrexham in Wales, where he proceeded to enjoy spending his accumulated wealth. Part of it was spent in response to a request for help from the Collegiate School of Connecticut. Yale sent them some books, a portrait of King George I and some goods which were sold for the very considerable sum (at the time) of £800. A new building was erected and called Yale in gratitude and later Yale became the name of the entire institution.

The seaside resort of Tenby is one of Britain's most westerly towns, but still manages to have a seafront facing east on the south coast of Wales. This gives it a sheltered harbour and it was an early trading post between Wales and the Norsemen in the 9th century. There are remains of 13th century town walls. Castle Hill, seen in the top left segment of the postcard, started off as a hill fort and the stone castle was built following the Norman Conquest by the Earls of Pembroke. Meg and Ern sent this postcard to an address in Wellington, Shropshire in July 1959. They had attended a wedding on the previous Saturday and had then journeyed by train to reach Tenby that night. Perhaps they were the two who got married? The message finishes with a somewhat breathless "See you sometime - don't know when!"

The Promenade, Colwyn Bay, North Wales. Colwyn Bay is a resort roughly halfway along the north coast of Wales in the county of Denbighshire, facing onto the Irish Sea. It enjoys a mild climate thanks to the wind passing over the mountains of Snowdonia to the south which then dry out and get warmer as they descend towards Colwyn Bay. A lovely row of old-style motor cars along the Promenade with a half-cab single deck bus approaching in the distance. The card was sent back to Wellington, Shropshire on 11 July 1956 during which week "A heat wave decided to come too!"

Erddig Hall, Wrexham. Erddig Hall is a National Trust stately home (voted the UK's "favourite historic house" by Britain's Best). It was built by the High Sheriff of Denbighshire, Joshua Edisbury, in 1684-87. It was sold to John Mellor, Master of Chancery, in 1714 and on his death in 1733 passed to the Yorke family who owned it through several generations through 240 years until it was given to the National Trust in 1973.

Several years earlier a shaft from Bersham Colliery had collapsed underneath the house, causing a subsidence of five feet, requiring a substantial sum of money to save the house. Compensation paid for the necessary structural underpinning, but 63 acres of parkland had to be sold to finance the restoration of the house.

Writing on 21 July 1954, in a hand that turns each of the capital letters F, S and T to a J, the cursive lower-case is thankfully easier to read. "Just to let you know we are having a nice time and lovely weather. We are getting out somewhere each day. Hope Rex hasn't been fretting. We shall stay until the last train on Friday but don't wait for us if that is too late for you. All are well here and your Dad and I are feeling better for the change. Love to both, Mum."

Wrexham, The Cup and Saucer, Erddig Park. Three years later, Mum makes the return journey but obviously alone, for she writes: "Just to let you know I am having a nice time and a good rest. Could manage a month like this, shall be home Friday. Love to both, Mum."

The Cup and Saucer, situated close to Erddig Hall was a pool or font, filled with water by a hydraulic ram which forced water uphill from the nearby river.

The Gateway, Acton Hall. Another once-stately home near to Wrexham, Acton Hall was demolished in 1954 having become badly dilapidated. It had once been owned by the Jeffreys family - they who included the infamous Judge Jeffreys, the Hanging Judge, in the 17th century.

The card was sent again in 1954 back to the same address as the Erddig Hall postcard, by the same Mum and Dad. The postmark is missing the exact date but presumably this was from a different visit as although there is the same hope that "Rex is ok" (what was the matter with that dog / cat / guinea pig / goldfish / milkman?), on this occasion the absent parents are due to arrive on the "last train on Wednesday." Perhaps this time because the "weather is very wet."

Harbour and Beach, Saundersfoot. Saundersfoot is a hop, skip and jump up the coast from Tenby. The harbour dates only from Parliament granting permission in 1829, though coal from the many mines around the village had been loaded onto boats from the beach for centuries. Another card with a line of cars of the 1950s. This time a more modern light-coloured box saloon can be seen third from the right. This card has also gone back to Wellington, Shropshire but was sent by Meg (due to be half of the couple Meg and Ern who we met earlier) on 12 June 1957. She writes: "Having a lovely time here at Tenby. Weather perfect, been in for a swim once or twice every day. It has a beautiful stretch of sandy beach."

The Two Bridges, Menai Strait. The Menai Strait separates the island of Anglesey from the Welsh mainland. Cross from the Welsh mainland to Anglesey and turn left and you come to the village whose name trips so easily from the tongue: Llanfairpwillgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwll-llantysiliogogogoch... As the old joke goes: I asked the guy behind the cafe counter to say the name of the place really slowly. He said "B-u-r-g-e-r K-i-n-g...". This time another branch of the family is roaming Wales and writing back to Shropshire. On the 1st of July 1954 the message went "Thursday. Shall be pleased to see you at the usual time on Sunday. Order a fine sunny day. Love Aunty P, Uncle E."

Horse Shoe Falls, Llangollen. This is a 460-feet (140m) long weir, stocking a pool from which water can be released into the Llangollen Canal. It dates from 1908. This card is unused and therefore cannot be dated.

Welsh Postcards

January's a quiet month for photographers so that sort of leads to a quietish month on the blog as well. I can't let 78rpm records dominate the blog to the exclusions of all else, so here's a quick (and somewhat lazy) series of postcards from the Hayley Easthope collection. As they came from not too far from the Welsh border, I'll pick out a few postcards of that part of the United Kingdom and hope that the recent problems with weather particularly around Aberystwyth abate soon!

Hayley gave me a massive collection of postcards - I'm not halfway through them yet, but there's 260 of them scanned so far covering all sorts of places from the Wirral and Southend to Arab states and China! It'll keep me going for a bit!

Aberystwyth Evening

This week included a trip to Wales for work, starting on Tuesday evening as I arrived in Aberystwyth on the west coast.

It must have been about the - oh, let's see - the first mild day of the year... I dumped my bags in the hotel and set off to look for somewhere to eat, no coat, hat, mittens or anything!

It was quite pleasant to walk along the promenade - Marine Terrace, they call it there. The pier juts out into Cardigan Bay and I passed by, seeing the unmistakeable walls of a castle in the distance.

Just before the castle was an impressive building that turned out to be the Old College of the university. This had been built as a hotel but the owner had problems and sold it to the then University College of Wales in the 1860s. A most impressive building with a tower and three-panelled frieze. I suspect the crazy golf course is more for the benefit of holidaymakers in the town rather than the students, but you never know!

Two dragons stand guard over the doorway, perhaps as a warning to students. One is named "Error" and the other "Darkness". A trifle harsh perhaps... do we not learn from mistakes? Anyway I had occasion to visit the new campus of today's Aberystwyth University the following day and managed to run a workshop for university and college managers without being shrivelled up by dragon fire!

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Deja Vu Part Two - It Rhymes...

So you already know where I've been this week so why am I writing? Well, having not updated this blog for a week it's nice to be able to sit down and connect and lovingly compose a message to the faithful followers - er...you are still there, yes?

And it gives me an opportunity to put a couple of old sketches up here from 1992. This was drawn whilst on one of Wales' great little trains and shows Llanberis lake and Snowdon. It was done in a rush because the train wasn't hanging about...

The trip down to Bridgend was uneventful - actually all the trips this week were uneventful thank Goodness. Travelling the mileage I do, you do tend to see a number of accidents but the only one I saw being recovered this week was a minor shunt on the motorway during a slow stop-start patch in the Birmingham area.

I pulled in at the hotel only to find I'd been booked in one further away this week. I suspect the travel agents had been told to find the cheapest accomodation for the standard required and got one Premier Inn branch to knock off a quid or so. I had to get back in the car, feeling foolish and quietly berating myself for not having checked the hotel address closely and then cheerfully spent the quid (or more) on petrol driving the extra distance...

The following day I ran a Change Management workshop to a mixed audience from universities, colleges and private training providers and then settled down to drive up from Bridgend to Colwyn Bay. From the south coast of Wales to the north coast. I'm not sure how far it is as the crow flies, but crows have it easy in Wales and I had to go west to join the M5 then up the M6 to the M56 towards and past Chester. 250 miles almost, with a meal snatched on the motorway services.

My hotel was a family run one this time and they were busy enough to have given me the Honeymoon room!!! Imagine my disappointment... I slept in a four poster bed with all the regulation draperies. You know, whenever I watch The Tudors on the telly this type of bed is always dripping with nubile young maidens, eager for the mature manly presence. But nothing! Not a one! Over-rated, honeymoon suites...

So I went downstairs and joined mine host for a drink in his bar and watched Birmingham and West Ham whilst the rest of his family wanted me to side with them for a channel change to Gold...

Yesterday I was at Coleg Llandrillo to deliver a workshop on Managing Multiple Projects in a Complex Environment. Almost as hard to say as "Coleg Llandrillo", though I had had practice for both. The last time I was at Llandrillo must have been around 15 years ago and I was doing a session at a conference for college people managing computerised Student Records systems. A colleague started his session by saying "Bore da" ("Good Morning" in Welsh) and got a murmer of surprise and a round of applause. I've never quite replicated the effect...

The day went well and the drive home this week was fog-free I'm glad to say and it was nice to get home last night and be welcomed by Miss Franny's loving words, "We're up early in the morning, I'm in work at seven..."

This sketch, also from 1992 was drawn at Beddgelert. This was fairly early on in my sketching days and my tree technique was perhaps a little short of something but not to worry! Someday I might even get it right!

The First Stage of Deja Vu

The first stage of experiencing deja vu is to have an experience. In my case it was starting the week with a day north of Lancaster followed by a trip to South Wales, followed by a trip higher up in Wales.

Next week will be the same. Deja vu...

Except that what I do there won't be quite the same and where I go (for the bit further north of South Wales anyway) won't be the same. South Wales in both weeks was and will be Bridgend, between Cardiff and Swansea. The bit higher up in Wales was Welshpool in Mid-Wales this week but will be Colwyn Bay next week.

The drive from Bridgend to Welshpool the night before last was an absolute delight. Had the route, weather and lighting been arranged specifically by the "Welsh Marketing Board" I would not be surprised!

As I turned north off the M4 motorway and into the remoteness of Wales, I passed under the shadow of mountains and was flashed by the low sun through the shutters of trees, and then into a vista of a long valley with a steep hillside on one side extending up beyond the top of the windscreen so I could only guess at its height by what I could see a mile or two in front.

The roads became narrower and had someone told me I was on the alpine passes of Austria I'd have believed them. Mountains, sheer drops and hairpin bends were the order of the day.

The sun disappeared and the most glorious thing happened. The moon, either full or as near as makes no difference appeared through wisps of cloud and mist, shining with a brilliance so great that it appeared to have a corona. This gave it an ethereal fairy story quality and I was now in the Celtic fastness, the descendants from those of Arthurian legend and keepers of the tales of elven folk. Werewolves are not really seen around Britain but instead, if you look for them, there are stories of other creatures. The church where Miss Franny and I were married had a legend of a were rabbit that used to frequent the churchyard. By day a man, by twilight a pest and once told to "hop it"... he did...

This mist and cloud disappeared after a while and as it got dark the moon shone with a brightness that I've seldom seen. This wasn't just me, because I was travelling through areas with no street lighting, the locals in the hotel and on the workshop were commenting on it the following morning. In fact the entire country as they were talking about it on the radio last night.

But those roads! They twisted, they turned, they did everything but complete a loop. If I hadn't known better I'd have said the moon was on strings and a mad puppeteer was swinging it across the sky. It started at the side of me then disappeared behind me then swung madly around the other side of a mountain to rise pop out of the trees in front of me! Despite the fact that the sun had set a couple of hours ago I could still make out details in the distance, so bright was the moon. Was that a werewolf? Where wolf? There wolf! No... I think it may have been a sheep... But it could have been a were sheep... What a shame that the road conditions did not allow me to stop for a few photos.

It took me a while to find the hotel. It was an old village inn on the high street but they hadn't got as far as illuminated signs and as it was right on a set of traffic lights I was concentrating on those and missed it. I only found it by parking the car and having a walk round.

Last night's drive home was not as enchanting. Fog. I got as far as Cheshire and then the fog came down and once I turned onto the M56 heading East towards the M6 and Thelwell Bridge the entire trip was a case of peering through fog, braking, watching as the other two lanes of traffic became faster than me, and most certainly allowed no time for romantic notions of ethereal or supernatural creatures. This morning I am certain my body clock is several hours behind the one on the wall... yawn...

Day Trip to Wales

Apart from Wednesday and Thursday when I've been at a conference, I've been off work this week and on Tuesday we had a drive down into North Wales.

The view of Conwy Castle as you approach over the bridge that spans the River Conwy is stunning and I've never taken the trouble to walk back over to get a good shot. So I did this time!

We had lunch in a cafe housed within one of the towers on the city wall and bagged a window table overlooking the RNLI Lifeboat House and the river harbour. A stunning view.

Then a walk along the harbour wall. Britain's smallest house is said to be this tiny red painted cottage along the city wall. There was a group of schoolchildren sitting opposite it, all illustriously drawing it. That takes me back - remember going out to draw something from school, being very self-concious and hating it if anyone tried to look over your shoulder?

We exchanged a few words with the lady in Welsh National Dress (she didn't sound Welsh to be honest) and had a walk through the city wall and then up a steep hill to re-enter the town through another gate in the wall.

Fran bought a Liliput Lane model of the smallest cottage - the woman in the shop sounded more Merseyside than Welsh too...!

Then we drove towards Snowdon, Yr Wyddfa, Wales' highest mountain and Britain's highest mountain south of Scotland.

We were fancying a ride on the Llanberis Lakeside Railway, having last done this in 1992. It was an extended railway from the 1992 layout. It is one of the Great Little Trains of Wales and is a pleasant way to spend an hour and a bit!

From the railway you get good views of the Snowdonia mountains and travel alongside a couple of lakes, though many visitors, I'm sure, as I did will think of them as one.

A small steamer passed by in the opposite direction on the lake, passengers exchanging waves with those on the train whilst the two steam powered vehicles exchanged polite toots on their whistles!

We had our evening meal in a cafe in Llandudno - an absolutely huge chunk of gammon steak that even I had to admit defeat over... And I was always taught to clear my plate! (Looks at waistline and thinks "and see where that got me!!!")

Old Postcard Messages

There was an antiques fair on in the Winter Gardens today and I nipped in to have a look, coming away with a whole bag full of 15 books for a tenner - that'll keep me going for a bit - and half a dozen old postcards at 25p each. They are a bit tatty around the edges but what does that matter?

This one shows an idyllic scene of Arthog, near Barmouth in Wales and was sent on 20 August 1918 from the Vicarage to an address - beautifully simple: "The Bungalow, Llanwygwril" is all that's given.

In the picture two children are standing at the side of the road in the distance and the woman in the foreground is pouring water into a bucket, perhaps to give the children a wash which is why they've run off up the road?

One of the other postcards shows the London Embankment at night with Cleopatra's Needle in the middle of the picture.

It looks more like a painting than a photograph this one, though many postcards were a good mix of both with a painted image over a photographic background. This one was sent on March 10 1904, the postage being, at a ha'penny, half the price of the one sent ten years later.

Again no house numbers used in the address which was sent to "Moat House" somewhere in the Midlands and with a rather apologetic message:

My dear Ellen,
I was so sorry I could not send a card before but I could (then he realised this excuse wouldn't wash as he was in London and crossed out the word "could") did not go into a shop.
With love D.C.T.

You cad, Sir! Did Ellen give him the order of the boot? I shall keep an eye out for a card from 1910 that says "D.C.T. Thank you for your card of the 10th inst. Bastard..."

Help Me Rhondda

Hey ho, Sunday night and I've just driven 4 hours to get to Cardiff, where I have a day's business tomorrow.

Weather wasn't too bad and the motorway was fairly quiet except for one bit. Looked like an accident heading north on the M6 too - driving as many miles as I do, I see quite a few of those. I drive around 30-35 thousand miles a year. Clive puts that into the also-rans though as he's clocked up a staggering 51,000 miles in his car in the 13 months that he's had it!

The hire company have shown a bit of humour this week... As rain falls and temperatures threaten to turn it into snow, I've been given an Astra twin-top convertible... I haven't tried it out...

Subsequently this weekend has been a bit short. We had breakfast yesterday with David and Jeannie in our favourite spot in Blackpool and then I'd promised Fran a return trip to Cheshire Oaks outlet - actually finding it this time... One of those places that women like much more than men... It was cold, it was miserable, it was shops...

We came back after Fran and daughter Gill got cold enough. I was shivering and turning blue from the start... I had a lukewarm panini in a cafe which was cool enough to wolf down but it still burned my fingers!

The rest of the time has been spent watching Christmas present DVDs - I've got through the first series of The Tudors and am now looking forward to the second. Fran has taken advantage of me not being in to watch Mamma Mia...

The car had an MP3 player so I burned a CD to come down here then realised the computer rips CDs as WMAs which the car spat out with the digital display saying "Nice try but I'm not playing this rubbish..."

Yakky Da...

Caerleon, Roman Isca

I just couldn't resist it! Having had a twice weekly fix of the HBO/BBC version of Rome, I found myself within spitting distance of Caerleon in Wales on my way to Caerphilly (where I am now).

I have a Change Management workshop tomorrow in the college at the somewhat evocatively named Ystrad Mynach.

So I did a short detour and spent an hour looking around the roman baths - superbly helpful staff, thank you so much - and the remains of the amphitheatre as seen in the photograph.

It is Britain's most complete and fully excavated amphitheatre and backs onto the old roman fortress wall.

Caerleon was Roman Isca - a name half remembered in the name of the river Usk.

There was a large military fort here with a well-developed bath house which had both indoor and outdoor pools. The presence of an amphitheatre is another indicator of Caerleon's importance.

I found it totally absorbing. I am one of those people who can infuriate others by extolling the virtues of what they see as "a hill", but I'm afraid old stone circles, hillforts and henges are just one of my enthusiasms!

I had the place to myself and started by approaching as a viewing customer may have done. I went down a series of steps towards the arena, gaining a tantalising glance through a gateway and was then directed by a slave (imaginary of course) through an archway which led to another series of steps climbing up. At the top and turning to my right I found myself on the front row above the arena and with a climb up the terraces to my seat.

A smaller arena than the others I have visited - Deva (Chester) and the mighty arena at Verona in northern Italy. But hey! I'm nearer the action!

Back in the 21st century I left the terraces and half-circled the arena, entering through one of the two processional tunnel entrances. Horns are blowing, people standing and cheering, petals are thrown and float down. I turn to face the official in whose honour the games are being held and salute - whoops, darn, there's a bloke with a dog wondering what the hell I'm doing... Thankfully the bloke hasn't noticed...

You should never lose the child within!

Welsh Sojourn

I'm just back from a two-day trip to Wales, land of unpronounceable place names and bestest hospitality!

Clive and I were joined by Marianne from JISC infoNet at Gregynog, a hall owned by the University of Wales and used as a base for the JISC Regional Support Centre for Wales's annual conference. JISC RSCs have a new remit which has more of a strategic content and manager, Peter Scott, had invited us to deliver the Change Management workshop and EduChallenge simulation over the entire second day, with an initial input at the end of the first day.

Apart from one instance of misunderstanding the language - I said "Who has a lawn?" and my Lancashire accent caused them to think I'd asked "Who has a loan?"... Probably not the most politically correct question to have asked and of course it was a while before I understood what they hadn't - if you see what I mean...

Anyway, this was the largest group we had ever run the simulation with and it went down well, once delegates got over the usual first hour frustrations and started to make some headway. Feedback was excellent anyway and lots of folk told us how much they had got out of it.

I was glad of the SatNav getting there and the mobile phone refused to work at all, although it was rumoured there was a "hotspot" if you stood next to the third rhododendron from the left whilst holding your right leg aloft!

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A Welsh Morning

I've been in Wales this week, going down on Monday afternoon in some rather abysmal weather, but the view from the hotel car park yesterday morning was certainly nice.

The village is called Chancery and it's just outside Aberystwyth on the Welsh coast. I missed out on most of the scenery driving there as it was dark by the time I turned off the main north-south road to head west. There was one bit where a river ran alongside the car behind a bank and I was hoping the bank held out because the water level was about halfway up the car doors...

Clive turned up around 11:00pm having driven from Motherwell in Scotland. We were in Aberystwyth at the university, running a Risk Management workshop which went well and the drive back north took us over the mountains to join the M56 at Welshpool. More spectacular scenery - including a lorry perched on a narrow bank of earth 6 feet above the roadway. Either a tyre blew or he went to sleep... He was lucky not to roll down sideways - the drop on the other side was the longer!

Got back to find wife and daughter frantically writing out wedding invitations. My daughter gets married in June so I'd better get out now and earn another crust!