Staring down the barrel of some massive guns

A few weeks ago I noticed a museum on Twitter which immediately attracted my attention. Why? Because it's called "Explosion!" that's why, now you're interested, see? I especially liked the use of the hard hitting exclamation mark so I had a lot of respect for them straight away. This Portsmouth based museum looked like just the kind of place I love the very best, with dedicated passionate staff and an impressive repertoire of activities and exhibits which chart the history and importance of naval firepower. However, as much as I wanted to pay these guys a visit the 200 mile round trip from London was mildly off-putting. Also my life at the moment is a lot about doing boring but important computer based work with the website so felt I couldn't really take the time out, until.... My parents (being the older traveller) told me they were taking a 2 week cruise departing from Southampton and I was the lucky sole they'd chosen to drive them down there. Ecstatic to be given an excuse to hit the south coast I piled my parents and their luggage into the car (my mum's car that is, and what a joy it was to drive without the terrible my-exhaust's-about-to-fall-off anxiety), deposited them at the extremely windy and rainy Southampton dock 10 and shot straight off to Portsmouth harbour.

I'm a big fan of this brown sign bandwagon

During my extensive research of the brown signed attractions of Britain I have discovered some pretty cool things going on all over the country that are either run or linked up with brown signs. The website I am building (www.thebrownsignway.com) will have an area dedicated to my findings don't you worry but I thought I would share this one with you in the mean time.

www.visitwoods.org.uk is an exciting programme set up by The Woodlands Trust in conjunction with other organisations like The National Trust, the RSPB, the Forestry Commission and The Wildlife Trusts to (you guessed it) encourage people to visit more of our gorgeous woodlands. There is a great search facility which throws up all the woods near you and contains lots of information about our precious woodlands. It's an excellent place to begin your discovery of the natural world around you and will hopefully inspire you to go enjoying woods for a million different reasons. My personal favourite reason: when I'm feeling a bit lonely. My worst reason: training for a marathon. Whatever your reason though they're important and visiting one will enrich your life (and make you feel quite tired if you run around it a lot).

The Woodlands Trust are also running an important campaign at the moment to protect our woodlands from being sold off by the government and you can sign up to their petition here, every name makes a difference http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/en/campaigning/save-ancient-forests/Pages/fc-disposals-act-now.aspx?WT.mc_id=fc

I am always up for getting people to experience all the great places we have around us in Britain, so of course this project gets my hearty seal of approval, but there is another more silly reason why I like it a little too much, follow the link and just look at the logo. Quality, rock on The Woodlands Trust.

http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/en/visit-woods/Pages/visitwoods.aspx

If you can't beat 'em join 'em

Spot the difference...

That's right all you eagled eyed ladies and gentlemen out there, the top brown sign is FAKE!

My visual cortex has more cell space than most dedicated to the colour brown on sign shaped objects, so I'm very good at noticing oddities in brown tourist signs. Over the years I've noticed quite a few fake brown signs but usually I've been on a motorway somewhere when taking a picture would be more dangerous than normal so I've never recorded the event. To my delight I found this brown sign recently in Christchurch, Dorset pointing the way to a little tea room. I told you, brown signs are so good they're getting ripped off, 'mazing.

“When a thing has been said and well said, have no scruple; take it and copy it” - Anatole France (French Writer, won the Nobel Prize for Literature 1921)

Walk, don't run, around Norman Park

Today I felt both fenced in and lethargic. New year's hangovers hang around man. Living in deepest suburbia means it's pretty hard to just skip out of your front door and have a big walk in the countryside to blow away the cobwebs, also unfortunately for me I can't afford to insure the pile of crap that is my car so I couldn't even drive off to the nearest heritage trail.

So my sister and I took a walk around the streets of Bromley. Luckily I could also do some brown signing because this sign directs you to my local park. Wicked.

Beware callers asking questions about brown tourist signs

This morning I've been calling attractions around the country, especially the quirky smaller ones which may not hear about my quest to fill my map of Britain with brown signed attractions. I don't want to leave them out and they're a big part of The Brown Sign Way after all. So I called a small house and garden in Leicestershire (which shall remain nameless) and started the conversation in much the same way as I usually do, encountering the standard confusion I always get when explaining my project, but I couldn't quite pull this conversation back like I normally can: