I grew up at a place known as the gap of the graves, or the gap of the dead. To some of you, this may conjure up images of Indiana Jones-esque zombies and other spooky horror stories. In fact, history has its own terrific tales to tell. The gap refers to a gap in Offa’s […]
poached eggs isn’t poached eggs unless it’s been stolen in the dead of the night Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory This week I had a golden ticket to stay in Roald Dahl’s house! Roald Dahl was born in Wales, in Llandaff, Cardiff 101 years ago. In 1918, after the family grew larger, they moved […]
GHOTI How would you pronounce that word out loud? Take the GH from ENOUGH The O from WOMEN and the TI from STATION And what do you get? FISH! Last week my (Lancashire) mother-in-law called me a “reet gratley lass”. My (Yorkshire) dad looked distraught when I asked her if that was a good […]
Waterloo- From Eurovision & the World Cup to Sherlock Holmes & Blackadder My my! Waterloo- couldn’t escape if you wanted to… And why would you want to! Today marks the bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo which is an enormous date in our calendar which brings along with it a lot of activity, including fantastic […]
Spital- where do you think of? I love placenames- especially ones which tell you hidden facts about the place itself. And Spital does just that… Today I rode through a ‘Spital’ on the Merseyrail on my way to a conference in Liverpool & pondered what’s in a name. Perhaps the most well known ‘Spital’ is […]