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.
