So far so good

durham_rambler's brother maintains a loose contact with the people who were their next-door neighbours when they were all children. Every year or so they pick a destination, and meet there for dinner: sometimes we join them (as we did in 2017 in Derbyshire). This year they have opted for Ironbridge, which works for us mostly as somewhere that allows us to visit other people not too far away, but also as a pleasant place to be...

Today has been all about the rush to get away from home (not as early as I'd have liked, not as late as I feared), and the long drive to get here. After all the cold weather, today was warm and drowsy - or was that just me? I slept much of the way, waking just in time to enjoy the stretch of the M62 across the high Pennines. About an hour from our detination, the satnav decided she was bored with motorways, and brought us cross country - yes, I know, we should know better than to indulge her, but this was not such wild terrain (though we did pass one road sign reading UNSUITABLE FOR HGVs - SAT-NAV ERROR). The route brought us through Eccleshall, which is twinned with Sancerre: it's a while since I've been to Sancerre, but I couldn't see any resemblance (there is a vineyard in Eccleshall, though.

And the last mile or so brought us through Coalbrookdale, which was delightful. We have tomorrow to do a little exploring, and I'm looking forward to it.

This post would have contained more detail, but desperance distracted me by using the expression "[she] is particularly a fiend if she gets her gander up" which I had never met before: dander, yes, gander, no. So I have been down all sorts of rabbit holes, of which this is by far the most entertaining.