names

Unlike my husband, I’m not a let’s-stop-and-smell-the-roses-several-times-before-we-get-to-the-final-destination person but rather, a let’s-get-to-the-final-destination-right-now! gal. So it’s perfectly fitting that I play the role of map-reader on our weekend road trips. That, and I have yet to sit behind a right-hand drive but my feelings on that issue are slowly changing.

It’s good that during my navigational duty I focus on only one or two pages of our gigantic (this is not an exaggeration!) map book because I definitely get swept away in the fun of learning new town names. Three Legged Cross in the south of the Isle achieves map book cover status but a while ago, I had found Barton-in-the-Beans and we giggled all the way down to Bath. More recently, I found a nearly equal competitor with a disbelieving name of Bitchfield, enroute from Skegness. Can you imagine the bumper stickers (or would they be called car boot stickers)? “Born and raised in Bitchfield” and “100% bitch from Bitchfield”. And who can forget the mouthful, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, in northern Wales?

The names of towns are not only the thing that results in endless entertainment but also the names of the roads and public houses. While most places, except perhaps the country’s capital, seem to have a London Road, there are a plethora of unusual names, such as Cuckoo Lane, which constantly prompts the need to leave a pen and notepad in the car to jot these occurrences down. We also say that if we ever decide to move all our stuff, yet again, one of the front-running criteria will be a place that faces a street with an adorable name, like Stepping Lane, rather than something as common and ancient sounding as ours - but it is definitely a step-up from the numbered street we lived on before.

The names of British pubs are simplistic, on one hand, but can be very repetitive on the other. Seriously, how many pubs named Plough Inn or Barley Mow or The Wagon and Horse are necessary in a country of this size? Definitely at least 3 of each in the East Midlands area.

Most of these public houses have a brightly painted plaque depicting its name. The names usually contain an animal or some (unusual) combination of fauna. Some examples we’ve come across our travels:
The Peacock
The Red Deer
The Beagle and the Partridge
The Swan and the Salmon

And my favourite, Derby’s newest addition to the family of pubs, the appetizing-sounding, The Slug and the Lettuce.