What did the Romans ever do for us?

Boring stats update.  645 miles completed.  350 miles to go.  Approx 17000 ft ascended (feels like more) and 57000 calories used.  I'm gonna write about calories and food consumption later cos a few people seem to be concerned that I might not be eating enough.  Ha! Ha! Ha! Almost choked on my scotch egg :-)

I'm taking an English / Welsh border route down the country this time.  Its only 17 miles west of my northerly route on LEJOG some 4 years ago but by God what a difference.  Hardly any traffic.  Roads that I'm positively greasing along and so far nowhere as hilly as I expected.  But littered with monster wildebeest tractors towing their heavily laden trailers full of silage across the freshly cut veldt.

A bit boring though in that there's also lots of lanes with well trimmed hedges at either side of the strip.  Funny how that reminds me of some of my previous girlfriends.  Myfanwy is so so happy to be back near her native lands.  Positively spinning along at an unhealthy speed through village, town and veldt.  

Which also has me thinking about some of the place names in this neck of the woods as I whizz along... 

I understand the Romans have a lot to answer for.  This being about as far west as they got before they were hit by the unusual ARAF road signs.  Which of course is a Welsh secret code for SLOW.  So they did.  Just before they then hit the impassable language barrier.  

There I was cycling over a hump back bridge whereupon I spied a canal beneath it in which there was a canal boat.  Coming towards me.  As it drew near I hailed to its driver 'Which canal is this?' to which the old boy replied with, 'What's that BOYO?'.  'Which CANAL?' I shout.  But no, he twisted his head like an inquisitive dog but could not hear me above the thud of the diesel engine.  

Just as the boat passed under the bridge I looked down on him and tried one more time.  'WHICH CANAL?'.  It took me 10 minutes to wipe the spit and phlegm off my face.  Ewww!  So that's the Shropshire Union Canal - the LLANGOLLEN branch apparently…

So that barrier ended the Romans' march west.  But they did leave loads of bent roads and place names along the border.  Such as the name of today's destination town.  

Shrewsbury.  This is based on the old Roman word for a place where to buy shrews.  And shrocks.  For yer feet innit?  Romans had a problem with the pronunciation of any word beginning with 'S' or 'Sh', only able to pronounce it as a 'Shr' you see.  Therefore I'm in Shropshire, a place in the country where you might go shropping for shrews and shrocks.  They of course learnt how to correct this impediment and implemented the phonetic changes with the locals who used to go to the lavatory for a 'sit' before the Romans got involved. 

I started the day in Chester.  Named by the Romans cos of the number of Welsh women with big boobies that wandered the local hills.  A place twinned with York, my home city.  It's old Roman name is Eboracum which was a bastardisation of the 'Eee by - I've filled me pants man!' noises made by the local men whenever a local lass thrust herself nipples first out of her wet mud hut.  

Coming down the Welsh border I passed Wrexham to the west.  Named of course in celebration of that famous Centurion, Biggus Dickus, who played havoc with the Welsh women.  Later its meaning was changed by the Romans after the untimely passing of Biggus.  The place subsequently became a memorial to Mr Dickus who, whilst celebrating the day of the God of Phalluses at home alone, accidentally choked to death whilst giving himself a blow job.   

Tomorrow I'll be riding to Hereford, a place where the Romans told folk where precicely to cross the river Wye - with their cows.  And so could levvy taxes and ubers upon them.  As you have guessed it's also the origin of the river's name cos the locals did query the Romans about the proposed location of the crossing.  

I will take another day off there and drag my bag of steaming dog slight to a laundrette.  It's also the place where Brad the Lad will now join me to ride with his Uncle Wayne the final legs to Lands End.

Hope that you found today's history lesson enlightening.   I didn't think I was any good at history going by my ungraded 'O' level.  But I seem to have remembered something, eh?  

And so on it goes with many other place names in this beautiful border land.  All the way down to Bristol...

But I see that you're ahead of me with that one...

Ciao for now..