Blood Brothers in Toy Town

“Now there’s so much that time, time and memory fade away”

Ironbridge Gorge, 11th August 2024 (Author’s Collection)

I closed my latest travelogue article (A Radiohead with The Boss in Toy Town) with this somewhat enigmatic, some might say rhetorical question:

Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?

It was a silly play on words and call back to the Radiohead lyrics used in the sub-title of my article and one person, one person in the entirety of The Matrix was kind enough to reply and their reply was

“not really”

and I can’t tell you how the receiving of those nine letters through the wizardry and witchcraft of The Matrix made me feel. A silly, throwaway article on the passage of time, a weekend that had happened, was happening and was yet still to happen, of playing the fool with my son and losing at cards over a picnic breakfast fit for a fucking King, a Boss and a Radiohead too. The making of memories over a bacon sandwich and the sharing of stories mixed with a musical note or two, a bewildering lyric and a cryptic in-joke message that raised the question of whether the reader had any idea what I was talking about and a reader said “not really”.

You couldn’t pay me enough to tell you how wonderful that made me feel but you’re welcome to try.

You might be surprised as to how cheap I am.

Here’s a happy handful of images from beautiful Ironbridge on Sunday 11th August 2024 as two blood brothers played cards (I won for a change!), “tri-ominos” (think dominos but triangle shaped — I lost) and over a bacon sandwich and some old fashioned sweets we shared another picnic breakfast beside the riverside and in my favourite toy town in all the world.

---

A Radiohead with The Boss in Toy Town

---

View heading south/south west from the middle of the oldest iron bridge in the entire known world (Author’s Collection)

History and Heritage alive and well in Ironbridge. Toy Town is famous for many historical way points and here, on a Sunday morning in the 21st Century, the enduring use of their famous “coracles” (Author’s Collection)

The “Coracle Man” of Ironbridge (Author’s Collection)

A picnic breakfast fit for a champion! Bacon sandwich and assorted extras (pineapple rings and American Hard Gums from the sweet shop — oops!) a 2–0 victory at Uno (109–80 and 125–98) and a thumping 294–195 defeat at Tri-ominos. Making silly memories with my son (Author’s Collection)

The “Grand Old Lady” of Ironbridge - Part 1 (Author’s Collection)

A busy Sunday in Toy Town (Author’s Collection)

The “Grand Old Lady” of Ironbridge - Part 2 (Author’s Collection)

---

Thanks for reading. For more gibberish and balderdash such as this, here’s one I prepared in late March of this year:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CZ7BKWNS (Author’s Collection)

"At the end of a Storm" - link to Amazon

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CZ7BKWNS (Author’s Collection)

Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.

---