Fooling around in Ironbridge
“The man of a thousand voices talking perfectly loud”
With The Beatles on the car stereo and a picnic breakfast fit for champions on the backseat, the Blackford Boys landed in the toy town of Ironbridge exactly on the single bell of one o’clock from St Luke’s Church and a couple of bacon sandwiches, chocolate cup cakes, mint toffees (Dad) and American Hard Gums (Lad) later, our latest Magical Mystery Tour of toy town was at an end, we said Hello Goodbye to my favourite place in all the world and this particular Fool on the Hill was a Rich Man indeed as I was with my son.
Tuesday 8th July 2025, in my son’s own words…
“That’s two days in a row you’ve won at Uno, Dad. What is happening?”
“Uno” Result
Lad 1
Dad 2
As you may have gathered from my son’s opening gambit, a victory at Uno for your humble narrator is as rare as a politician telling the truth and today was all the more sweeter for it came on the back of a 105–7 trouncing in Game 1 and an eventual come from behind victory by 2 Games to 1.
109 points in Game 2 and 106 in Game 3 (against my son’s lowly riposte of 32 and 41 points per Game respectively) and no sooner had the bacon sandwiches been hungrily consumed beneath a glorious sun, the lad was in for yet another defeat on an afternoon full of them…
“HOW HAVE YOU WON THIS DAMN GAME?”
“Yahtzee” Result
Lad 187
Dad 201
A strange game of dice this one as the cheeky chipmunk eyeing the chocolate cupcakes led the way for the entire game until, and without wishing to overegg the chocolate pudding (cupcakes, surely? Editor) I threw 4 beautiful 6’s, secured the all important bonus the lad had missed out on and, well, “Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I knew you’d do that. How have you won this damn game?”
I’d like to say I started singing “Roll of the Dice” by Bruce Springsteen but today was a Beatles day in the sunshine, so I annoyed him further by singing “I am The Walrus” instead!
“Semolina pilchard, climbing up the Eiffel Tower
Elementary penguin singing Hari Krishna
Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar-Allan-Poe
I am the eggman, they are the eggmen
I am the walrus, goo-goo g’joob, g’goo goo g’joob!”
“I’m never going to win now. Great. Brilliant. A clean sweep. Brilliant”
“Tri-Ominos” Result
Lad 212
Dad 344
The above quote is as near as damn it as I recollect it here hours later, but I was busy laughing at the time so I hope you’ll forgive me if I’ve missed (a lot) of expletives out of my son’s frustrated sentence of defeat. The thing is, this was only partway through the game too, following hot on the heels of my scoring a hexagon (maximum points), the second of three I’d score in the game (one hexagon is a rare thing let alone three) and, rather more importantly, the game should have been over well before we tucked into the delicious sweets from the old fashioned sweet shop. I had a fistful of tiles left, my son had just one and was about to place his final tile for victory when I stole his place, he couldn’t go, he collected tile after tile from the waste pile matching my number of tiles, the game continued when it should have been done and dusted, and I romped to eventual victory.
The lad wasn’t best pleased to say the least, so we popped into a local museum, said a quick Hello Goodbye to Paddington Bear, fed the ducks, and this Fool on the Hill was a Rich Man indeed because I was with one of the beautiful people.
Thanks for reading, much appreciated.
My book from last summer in Ironbridge:
"My Ironbridge Summer" - link to Amazon