Ee bah gum!

from the Daily Mail

"As all proud Yorkshiremen will be happy to tell you, they live in God's own country. And so it will come as no surprise to them that the land around the beautiful market town of Skipton has been named Britain's happiest place to live."

Had I not chosen a pedestrian lifestyle, without the mobility afforded by a driving license, I might have been less the devotee of urban flânerie that I became over the decades. I might have decided that the Yorkshire Dales invited my exploration, map in hand. After all, I'd long had a thing about maps!

Happily, my sister still has the book over which my childhood playmate, the girl almost next door, had perused for so long and so often that we felt we were part of the landscape that Ronald Lampitt illustrated so memorably, painting an England which may never have truly existed, but one which certainly shaped the young minds of a generation.

One must wonder if it could have been that England which the Brexiteers had in mind when they made their unfortunate decision.