Witchcraft in Aston Tirrold
Apr. 16th, 2003 01:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaNow that William, my trusty automobile, seems to be up and running again, I drove myself out to my dance practice this evening. Practices are in a hall in a tiny little village, somewhere near Didcot.
As I came to leave, I realised I was a little hazy about the best route home. Leaving the hall one can turn left or right, and I know both roads reasonably well. I took the left, being the road I knew better. Only... I didn't.
It wasn't the correct road. I don't mean it wasn't the right route home, I mean it wasn't the road that's usually there. I know what happens when you turn left - indeed I'd done it not 3 hours previously, having (deliberately) overshot the hall to make a trip to Tesco. And it didn't. Instead I found myself on an utterly unfamiliar road, which headed to Aston Tirrold.
However, that region is arranged such that you can't drive very far in any one direction without hitting a major road, which I guessed would have friendly signposts - it being rather risky to stop on a single track road to interview the atlas. Unfortunately, Aston Tirrold is a messy maze of windy roads, junctions with bizarre priorities, and no signs at all.
Having won out of it eventually, I was most grateful to be sent a sign saying 'Didcot 2 1/2'. A bizarre thing to be grateful for, but on some occasions you take what you can get. A little futher down the road was another sign, 'Didcot 2 1/2'. Not disheartened, I continued to be rewarded with the further information, 'Didcot 2 1/2'. By the time I reached the next sign I was wise to the game, and didn't read the distance. Clearly this was a wise policy; the next sign I came to had reluctantly given up, and conceded that Didcot was a mere mile and a half away.
Although the witchcraft was minimal, and the rest of this story is really just person-with-crap-sense-of-direction-gets-a-bit-lost, there was still some weirdness about. I passed an establishment named 'Sebastopol Wines', which struck me as a little odd - though google suggests they do at least exist. Not quite as odd as the isolated sign, swinging by the side of the road, which simply read 'SAVAGES'. I didn't see any.
After all that excitement, I stuck my head in the Temple Bar on the way home, to try and extort money owed. Which I managed, and played a few games of table football with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
edling, Bob and mr_flay. Initial theories suggested that a team with me on always loses; fortunately it actually just turned out to be the case that a team with edling on always wins.
As I came to leave, I realised I was a little hazy about the best route home. Leaving the hall one can turn left or right, and I know both roads reasonably well. I took the left, being the road I knew better. Only... I didn't.
It wasn't the correct road. I don't mean it wasn't the right route home, I mean it wasn't the road that's usually there. I know what happens when you turn left - indeed I'd done it not 3 hours previously, having (deliberately) overshot the hall to make a trip to Tesco. And it didn't. Instead I found myself on an utterly unfamiliar road, which headed to Aston Tirrold.
However, that region is arranged such that you can't drive very far in any one direction without hitting a major road, which I guessed would have friendly signposts - it being rather risky to stop on a single track road to interview the atlas. Unfortunately, Aston Tirrold is a messy maze of windy roads, junctions with bizarre priorities, and no signs at all.
Having won out of it eventually, I was most grateful to be sent a sign saying 'Didcot 2 1/2'. A bizarre thing to be grateful for, but on some occasions you take what you can get. A little futher down the road was another sign, 'Didcot 2 1/2'. Not disheartened, I continued to be rewarded with the further information, 'Didcot 2 1/2'. By the time I reached the next sign I was wise to the game, and didn't read the distance. Clearly this was a wise policy; the next sign I came to had reluctantly given up, and conceded that Didcot was a mere mile and a half away.
Although the witchcraft was minimal, and the rest of this story is really just person-with-crap-sense-of-direction-gets-a-bit-lost, there was still some weirdness about. I passed an establishment named 'Sebastopol Wines', which struck me as a little odd - though google suggests they do at least exist. Not quite as odd as the isolated sign, swinging by the side of the road, which simply read 'SAVAGES'. I didn't see any.
After all that excitement, I stuck my head in the Temple Bar on the way home, to try and extort money owed. Which I managed, and played a few games of table football with
edling, Bob and mr_flay. Initial theories suggested that a team with me on always loses; fortunately it actually just turned out to be the case that a team with edling on always wins.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-04-15 06:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-04-16 12:54 am (UTC)Not to mention all the times I've driven around Central London, faithfully following the signs for a motorway, or another city, or some area of London I expect to recognise, only to find myself in a residential cul-de-sac, apparently miles from the road I was on a minute ago and with no signposts anywhere.
Geography is strange.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-16 02:16 am (UTC)Geography is strange.
You'll be telling us kettles are black, next.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-16 02:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-04-16 04:09 am (UTC)Exactly which bit of William do you trust? Or should that be a silent t? (although soggy has seemed more appropriate).
As for the business with the signs, either you'd wandered into a Two Ronnies series, or narrowly escaped The League of Gentlemen.
And maybe the SAVAGES sign was supposed to be an invitation? You'll never know now. Unless... you can find it again.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-16 04:18 am (UTC)Actually, he is quite trusty. And not at all rusty, for an H reg car.
Admittedly, things go wrong. But I've never ended up stranded (yet), and they are at least predictable/dealable with things.
You think Didcot is bad?
Windy country roads, no lights, few houses and NO SIGNPOSTS! - all because the MOD didn't want anyone to know where Burghfield Green is)