When I was younger and we went for day trips in the family Ford Zephyr I used to get confused as to where we were. We'd end up in Penrith and there wouldn't be a welsh hat in sight. It took a good deal of patient explaining that Penrith was in Cumberland and I was probably thinking of Penryn, in Wales.
I still think Penrith sounds too Welsh to be English, even if it is the last outpost of England.
But place names are like that aren't they?
Yesterday we were driving along the A170 from Pickering to Scarborough when we passed a sign for Kirbymoorside.
"That should surely be the other side of the Pennines," exclaimed hubby. "It should be next to Kirby Lonsdale." Indeed it should.
Mockerkin in West Cunbria should be nestling up there on the west coast of Scotland, near the Mull of Kintyre, if not across the pond as a Native American reservation.
Wigton really ought to be near Barnet and the next place you come to after Wimbledon Common should definitely be the small village of Wombleton.
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ianrthorpe
Now I know where you niece gets it from. A few years ago someone told her to look out for "Pontefract" on signs.
"What are they on about, why would I look for somewhere in Wales when I'm going to Yorkshire" she asked me. She also thought Macynlleth was in Scotland and that Kent was "somewhere in Hampshire."
I don't know how she ever manages to drive across France and back.