Travels in a Tin Can

'you will now have reached the main road' - and we had, although admittedly
we reached the main road on numerous other occasions when we were not
supposed to - and at the end of the tour the tape ended just as we drove back
onto the campsite. Evidently the tapes are calibrated to take account of wrong
turns and high-speed tourists. Probably Japanese technology.
And so we come to the content of the tour. The first stop on the tour
was at the tourist information centre - which would have been our initial point
of call whether we were following the tour or not. The centre was in a very
picturesque location, in spite of being right beside the main road. A river flows
around the wide veranda of the building and we spent a tranquil few minutes
feeding the ducks and fish. And no, we were not so well prepared that we had
bread with us in anticipation of a duck-feeding opportunity, we were actually
given the food by the staff in the centre, who were so friendly and verbose
that it is a wonder we saw any of the town itself.
Once we did tear ourselves away from the river, and the staff, who
wanted to take us home, adopt us and keep us as swamp-pets because our
accents were so ‘cute’, we drove a few minutes down the road to
Vermillionville. In spite of its name this is not a bright red town, or even a
place populated by vermin (although during our visit we did see a giant beaver
sized rodent that freaked Emma out).
Vermillionville derives its name from the red colour of the river in the
area (well, actually red-brown, hardly bright red but then with artistic
licence...) and is in fact a 'Black Country Museum' type of place. For those of
you that have not been to this famous West Midlands attraction it is a place to
which important period buildings are relocated in order to preserve them, a