Ironbridge

Making good use of some more nice weather, I took half a day off work again yesterday and went for a ride to Ironbridge and ate some pork pie.







Without boring you too much with a history lesson, Ironbridge Gorge is a World Heritage Site and is universally recognised for its unique role in the development of the Industrial Revolution that originated in Britain in the early years of the 18th century.

To keep things simple here, Ironbridge Gorge consists of a town called Ironbridge and also has, surprise surprise, an iron bridge. Mind you, it's no ordinary iron bridge. It was the first bridge in the world to be constructed of iron. It was designed by Shrewsbury architect Thomas Pritchard and cast at the coalbrookdale ironworks belonging to Abraham Darby III.

There's a lot of interesting museums in the area but probably the most notable is Blists Hill Victorian Town which is well worth a visit.





The town was quiet yesterday, but at weekends, especially during the summer months it can get packed solid. It's a popular destination for bikers, the meeting point being right at the end of the bridge in the centre of town.

You absolutely cannot go to Ironbridge without eating a pork pie from Eley's, apparently a world famous pork pie at that! They're definitely up there with the best of them.



Changing the subject a bit, a couple of years ago Loz, Gaz, Neil and myself entered the Ironbridge to Bridgnorth Raft Regatta. The annual event is to raise money for charities and it's organised by the Bridgnorth Lions. You can find some good photos here. Most people take a lot of time and trouble building elaborate rafts. Not us. We basically got four empty blue oil drums, cut holes into them, made four seats, bolted everything together with planks of wood and Bob's your uncle.



Needless to say, our contraption came under a fair bit of criticism and piss take. Jealous people? Me thinks so!

The day consisted of a large amount of swimming, an even larger amount of fights with water and flour bombs and an heroic act of piracy from Loz whereby he permanently borrowed some beer from another raft. Oh and I mustn't forget to mention a pit stop at a river side pub for a beer and a burger off the barbecue.

Right, I'll get to the point. Along the way down the river we were overtaking this raft of titanic proportion, except to my knowledge it didn't sink. There was a house on this raft! It had a foredeck where there was a barbecue on the go and a large aft deck with garden furniture! For some reason best known to the designers of the raft, the aft deck also doubled up as the toilet.

As we were half way through our overtaking manoeuvre, this guy on the aft deck who was taking a pee over the stern decided to have a dig at our humble raft.

"You call that a raft?" he pipes up.

Loz, not one for being outdone retaliates with the question...... "You call THAT a penis?"