My love affair with Ironbridge, then and now
Part 2: Tantrums and Tiaras over Tapas!
Part 2: Tantrums and Tiaras over Tapas!
As stated during Part 1 of this “then and now” trilogy, rather than wax lyrical yet again on the many reasons for my regarding Ironbridge as a very special spiritual home of mine that has a lifelong place in my heart, I’m going to pen three short anecdotal tales that are true, correct and also, especially here, an evening that will live long in both my memory and in my heart. During my time in Ironbridge I’ve been lucky enough to explore every nook and cranny as well as the multitude of tourist and boutique shops and the variety of pubs, hotels, restaurants and eateries that run alongside the river Severn and through the tiny toytown of Ironbridge itself. Establishments come and go (the florist shop opposite where I lived became a hairdressers and is now a shop specialising entirely in donuts!) but here’s a brief pitch map of the pubs and restaurants in particular, and from the top of the High Street all the way through to the shingle beach and duck feeding area as you enter the nearby historic town of Coalbrookdale:
The Police Station building at the top of the High Street has been home to a swanky and pricey Indian restaurant for some time and a few steps away from a family run Indian restaurant with far more realistic prices. No prizes for guessing who I became friendlier with! A garage that used to be a Café and which is now a cocktail bar stands opposite another pub and as you approach the bridge itself you have the option of traditional English Fish n Chips or the Spanish delicacy of tapas before, but only on a Wednesday and a Sunday, you can enjoy a recommended carvery meal in the Tontine Hotel. Three pubs now follow in a short and drunken distance and all have changed their food menus over the years and decades and all come highly recommended. Just keep the river to your left hand side and keep walking. You can’t miss them!
The reason for this brief background is to introduce you to the choices available and the tapas restaurant of choice on the fateful and brilliantly hilarious evening whereby I played tourist guide to my much missed sister and her husband, Steve. During the daytime we agreed this would be the most perfect of settings for our evening meal and I cannot recommend this modest if beautifully and authentically run Spanish restaurant and its owner (Hello Maggie!) enough. Beforehand, I played tourist guide but to my sister only. You see, my brother in law Steve had lived and worked in Ironbridge in the late 1960’s and so felt perfectly at home as he strode purposefully around this little toytown in the English midlands as though he owned the place! This was nothing new for Steve, however he disappeared and reappeared later armed with as many pork pies as he could carry and with no doubt as many tall tales as he could muster too, but both the afternoon and evening was a personal bliss for your humble narrator as I could, with a large degree of pride, escort my older and cherished sister and brother in law around a World Heritage Site I, for a few years at least, proudly called home.
The evening was a riot, a hoot, and a drunken affair that brings a huge smile to my face as I pen these words now. I can see my sister, full of the largest of smiles as we demolished dish after dish of Spanish tapas and my brother in law consuming vast quantities of red wine whilst holding the menu as far as possible from his eyes in an effort to decipher what was on offer! I distinctly remember remarking in jest how old and decrepit he was, unable to read a simple menu without holding it fifteen or twenty feet away from his eyes and, without his glasses, he simply couldn’t read what was available. Here I am now nearly a decade later and forever stumbling around for my glasses and, way more importantly, missing the lifeforce, kindness and beautiful human being that was my sister.
Back to the riot!
For reasons only explainable by vast quantities of alcohol, my normally placid and jovial sister decided this was the perfect opportunity and very evening with which to constantly slap Steve forcibly around the face as we all sat around the dining table! I write this in this manner as there was no anger or violence or retribution or anything nefarious whatsoever, it was simply my sister being as free as a bird, a drunken bird yes, but having the evening of her life! So much laughter. So many smiles. So many tall tales told as the bells of St Luke’s Church chimed merrily in the distance and it truly was a night I’ll remember with a smile for as long as I live. The fly in the alcoholic ointment was a missing ring, a precious ring of huge importance and a ring not known it was missing until the following morning when, my sister white as a hungover ghost, explained that her ring had been missing and now had been found and why are you staring at me Stephen and laughing? What do you mean I was slapping Steve around the face all evening? Don’t be silly, I don’t do things like that!
Do I?
Only on the one night, a glorious night in toytown and a crazy funny evening where surely the missing ring was inside the restaurant and not in your hotel room, the hotel I had to direct you and your drunken husband to even though it was mere yards away from where we were when we parted and not the hundreds and hundreds of yards you two old fools walked the wrong way in the dark!
Keep the river on your left hand side, remember?
A silly memory from a wonderful night of two wonderful human beings, one of whose earthly presence is much, much missed.
For my sister, Viv.
*All images captured by me on Saturday 8th October 2022*
Thanks for reading. My “Summer Project” has taken me to the waterways as well as many local historical and religious ruins as I’ve crisscrossed the border between England and Wales, and my three most recently published travel articles are linked below:
My love affair with Ironbridge, then and now
Part 1: The strange life of a Bayern Munich away shirtmedium.com
A beautiful return to Chirk Castle
14th September 2022medium.com
Two noble fools return to Shakespeare’s Stratford-upon-Avon
15th September 2022medium.com