Giants riding the Storm in Toy Town (redux)
“My Ironbridge Summer” Vol.3
Sunday 28th July 2024 was just another excuse to indulge in a picnic breakfast with the light of my life before watching him take umpteen photographs of an amateur game of baseball on the banks of the River Severn before we fed the swans (named Fred and Mary) and the ducks (too numerous to count or name) in beautiful Ironbridge, and taking the riverside walk we’ve enjoyed many hundreds of times before to and from my favourite toy town and spiritual home where I feel the happiest.
Now, as the year of 2024 nears its end “Giants riding the Storm in Toy Town” is chapter number 24 (of 56) in my December new release and tenth all time self-published book “My Ironbridge Summer” and I proudly showcase this below together with my original article also reposted in full.
I hope you’ll consider taking a chance on this self-published book (it’s reasonably priced in both paperback and hardback) or it’s free to read should you have an Amazon Kindle “Unlimited” membership.
"My Ironbridge Summer" - link to Amazon
Giants riding the Storm in toy town
It was a little after 9.15 when REM’s “What’s the Frequency Kenneth?” boomed from my bedside speakers and within an hour I was informing the light of my life and cheater of card games that we were having breakfast in toy town a…
It was a little after 9.15am when REM’s “What’s the Frequency Kenneth?” boomed from my bedside speakers and within an hour I was informing the light of my life and cheater of card games that we were having breakfast in toy town and if we were lucky, we might even get to watch a little of America’s pastime whilst we relaxed into a brand new day.
And why not?
We’d eat our bacon sandwiches like fucking Kings I reasoned, sat upon mother nature’s earth watching a game of baseball as I allowed him once more to beat me at a game of Uno. My son tolerates me and the sky rocketing my mood turns when the sun promises to have her hat on. I call her the “Great Fire God of the Sky” and for good reasons too, but we don’t have time for that ode to joy today or that dangerous tangent of wishing ill upon the devils who wish to dim mother nature’s natural tonic.
I dominated all 3 Games of Uno, rushing into dominant leads in each and every game yet only once crossing the finishing line victorious. All 3 Games were high scoring affairs and where my son pulled that rabbit from in Game 3 let alone where he found the time to find a top hat too will puzzle historians of the great game of Uno until the end of time. It was wonderful watching him giggle as each high scoring win edged him closer from an impossible mission in Game 3 even the great Tom Cruise would scoff at yet here he was, closing in on his prey, chasing me down, and giggling away on a beautiful Sunday morning in toy town.
We left the home team Telford “Giants” leading the visiting “Storm” of Long Eaton by 3 runs to 1 after 2 innings and after feeding a vast array of ducks and saying hello to Ironbridge’s resident swans Fred and Mary we approached toy town and my word, was there such life and vibrancy running through and around this picture book toy town, and all under the watchful gaze of the “Grand Old Lady”. Ironbridge was humming but then again to us mere mortals lucky enough to call this little piece of heaven on earth our spiritual home, she always does.
Ironbridge has an aura and a vibration all of her own.
The sunniest of days.
The clear bright nights of a full moon.
The bats and the owls in the trees on one side of the river.
The ghosts of a future past on the other.
A sunny Sunday in Ironbridge?
You’d pay good money to experience it.
None of this was under discussion in toy town’s quaint “Old Fashioned Sweet Shop” and Jeremy smiled and beamed and treated my son like a King as always and told tales of (hopefully) a day’s sailing off the coast of Wales tomorrow. Whisper it, but my old friend rarely has the pleasure of a day off and albeit he lives his life in a picture book world from the 18th Century, we all need a break. Fair winds and calm seas my friend.
Fair winds and calm seas.
Sunday is also traditionally known as a hot spot for visiting bikers and today was pleasingly no exception. It was that kind of a sunny Sunday in Ironbridge that you wish with all of your soul could be the norm the world over. Children eating ice cream. Lots of children eating lots of ice cream! Dogs aplenty too, many in the river Severn scattering all but the hardiest of ducks. Fred and Mary never wavered though, hissing their displeasure regularly, and rather loudly too.
You don’t fuck with swans.
Ever.
You keep a respectful distance and secretly hope the ducks sneak the pieces of bread their limited vision clearly can’t compute. Ducks perform quick sortie missions in and around swans for those rogue pieces of bread they can’t quite see and it never fails to raise a smile on my roguishly handsome face.
There were adults of all ages and some who clearly refuse to grow up or grow old along with their two digit age. Every shop wide open for business, afternoon tipples and topples in the sunshine of The Tontine Hotel, queues lining the street for those valued ice creams, queues too in the chip shop and our regular haunt not visited today. For we had breakfast and baseball and a storm fit for Giants and after leaving at the end of the 2nd inning with the home team Giants leading 3–1, we returned at the top of the 4th inning (although in all likelihood it was the 5th) with the teams now tied 7–7 and by the middle of the 4th inning (probably the 5th), the visiting Storm of Long Eaton had overturned a 3–1 early game deficit into a 9–7 lead. A hit, a failed bunt and 2 stolen bases later the 4th inning (it must have been the 5th) ended 9–9 and the “Storm” from Long Eaton and the “Giants” of Telford resumed their sporting battle at the top of the 5th inning (but which by this point we simply must assume it was the 6th), the merry pranksters, a card cheat and a man who refuses to grow up, rode home listening to Bruce Springsteen as I told the light of my life that I’d had the strangest of conversations earlier with a stranger in the supermarket on the declining standards of bananas.
“You can’t get any good bananas any more” she shrieked before vanishing almost completely from my life before she entered it micro seconds before. I also told him my dream last night of dreaming about dreaming a dream. Not strictly speaking a dream within a dream although that case could well be made.
But not by me, and not today.
“Have you seen Bill Murray singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” in the voice of Daffy Duck?” I enquired of that card shark of a son of mine.
Pleasingly he responded no.
Excellent I mused.
“Now, how did you win Game 3 today?”
He smiled and giggled, and made my day again.
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.