Breakfast in Toy Town
“singing sweet songs, of melodies pure and true”
It was just a tick past Noon when we descended the tarmac hillocks leading first to Coalbrookdale and then her beautiful sister Ironbridge and as ever, toy town had a little bit of everything glorious on this sunniest and hottest day of our English summer so far. Bob Marley was our musical guide, singing sweet songs and redemption songs as our conversation drifted from film to film, the lad’s excitement for 28 Years Later, my adoration for the original, and after ensuring Bruce the Basset Hound was perfectly at ease with life in the Doggie Day Care (he was sheltering in the shadows on his favourite trampoline) we crossed a bridge we’ve walked over a thousand times and into my spiritual home once more.
Although the bells of St Luke’s Church still refuse to chime her sweet bells of freedom (the clock has been stopped in the albeit very pleasing v shape of a smile and 10 minutes to 1 for some days now) you can’t fail to smile when in Ironbridge and certainly not after having spent time with Jeremy in the sweet shop, and the biggest and most radiant of smiles he always reserves for my beautiful son. We departed from Jeremy’s kingdom to all things sweets with some sour blue skulls and Cherry Cola Bottles and after feeding a loud and noisy array of ravenous ducks and saying hello to Paddington Bear in one of the local museums, it was all business, game faces on, and let battle commence over a bacon sandwich.
“Uno” Result:
Lad 2
Dad 1
More home-made chocolate chip cup cakes (moistening to almost sexual levels of deliciousness beneath today’s glorious sunshine) could not and will not detract from yet another defeat at the hands of the card shark in the Star Wars t-shirt, and who now holds a lifetime lead of 485 wins to 340. Game 1 was a tight affair and up for grabs at 83 points to 86 in my favour until the lad smashed past the winning line with 53 points and a devious smile accompanied his sinister and triumphant laugh. Game 2 was virtually a walkover and contained just 3 hands of cards: a solitary victory of just 4 points for the lad already eyeing his share of those delicious chocolate chip cup cakes, and 2 whopping points hauls of 73 and 27 for me to break the 100 point barrier for a Game win. Game 3? I’d rather not talk about this Game at the moment. It’s still raw. I mean, I won 6 hands, completely doubling my lad’s win total, forever shouting “Uno” on the brink of victory (much to the amusement of the lady reading her book on a bench nearby) and yet, that giggling monster with a face full of melting chocolate chips fell over the winning line with a Game win of 103 points to 79.
Worse was to follow for your humble narrator.
Much worse.
“Yahtzee” Result:
Lad 212
Dad 143
My goodness. What a calamity! There was no magic dust in my spinning fingers today and the result a foregone conclusion long before I gave up, tucked into the Cherry Cola Bottles and stretched out on the picnic blanket like a lizard needing just a touch more sunshine. To even record such a lowly score of 143 was a major achievement considering every second score of mine was crossed off with a big, fat zero whilst the lad (whose nickname when playing Yahtzee should be changed to “Full House” for the amount of times he throws them…) romped to a massive early lead and eased over the finishing line with points aplenty to spare.
“Tri-ominos” Result:
Lad 365
Dad 366
“Yes! I’ve squeezed another win!” the lad did shriek and for a while, a few seconds perhaps beneath our glorious sun, he was right. His second to last tile had stretched his lead by 28 points to 365 plays 341, an almost certain victory and a triumph he celebrated with a satisfied smile. Until that is, he saw the error of his ways and the gap the placing of this tile had opened up for my final tile, a tile containing 3 zeros, and a damned tile I’d had for the entire duration of this marathon game. We’d made jokes throughout the game that I wouldn’t be able to place it anywhere, that all the double zero areas had been covered. The spare tile box was empty, all but 2 tiles had been placed and as the game stood, my son had triumphed by 24 points. But his second to last tile contained a double zero, leaving me the open goal opportunity of placing my triple zero, a game concluding act. Ah, but triple zero surely equates to zero points and still a defeat by 24 points? Well firstly, please stop calling me Shirley and secondly, I placed my triple zero tile as a “Bridge”, the act of which scores you 25 points…
“Shit” was all the lad could muster, and we went down to the river and watched some fellow members of our human family, old and young, lark around in circular coracle boats for which Ironbridge is famous.
The sun was shining on Toy Town today and I left a tiny piece of my heart with her on our departure. If my luck holds, I’ll return tomorrow.
It’s the only place I feel truly alive.
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the sunshine filled images.
My rambling musings on last year’s summer in Ironbridge:
"My Ironbridge Summer" - link to Amazon