Follow the brown signs

After a weekend of brown-signing at Britain's oldest brewery (more on that in the next blog) and working all hours at the restaurant I flopped into bed after work last night exhausted with my glass of wine, boyfriend and BBC Horizon on iPlayer (now that's what I call living the dream). I love programmes about all things space, hardcore physics and other mind boggling concepts, I'll never truly understand them but I still find them absolutely fascinating. The episode I was eager to watch was about sun storms. A sun...

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Look at this! Drawn to my attention by a chap called Rob who thought I would appreciate this roundabout (which clearly I do!) it is a true celebration of the humble brown sign if ever I saw one. The roundabout is in Cardiff and was designed by a Frenchman called Pierre Vivant who won a competition in 1992 to exhibit his work in this rather different but at least highly visible urban space. View Larger Map Apparently the sculptures were originally hollow but were later sealed up because a local tramp took to living in one of them....

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So this is me a few weeks ago standing under a brown sign in Vigan, Philippines, after worrying (actually worrying) that my travels this year wouldn't take me by any brown signed attractions. One of my big things about brown signs is that they don't just exist in Britain and Europe but are also scattered around the world sitting quietly, bearing their directions to so many different and cool places, just waiting for everyone to notice and follow them. I always talk about how I love the huge diversity of places with brown...

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In a week I will be jetting off (on a terribly-badly-reviewed-and-cheap-for-a-reason-yes-we're-all-almost-certainly-going-to-die airline) to Singapore and The Philippines. The trip is something I've been thinking about for a long time. After years of working on my brown signs project I decided when my website was finally working and ticking over nicely I'd have a break for a month or so doing something I love but haven't had the chance to do for ages, basically a big pat on the back through the medium of travel. So this morning, after preparing for the trip...

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While I was up in Shropshire before Christmas I was told by my boyfriend's best mate about a farm he did legal work for who were in the process of applying for a brown sign. I'm always particularly interested in new brown signed destinations because when owners are bothering to go through the lengthy process of getting and paying for their own humble brown signs more often than not they're passionate about what they do and want to share it with the world. I went straight onto their website to...

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Richard Gottfried, mini-golf King and spotter of brown signs extraordinare sent me this picture of a brown sign pointing to an overspill car park on what looks like a static caravan park in South Shields (thanks for the pics Richard, keep them coming). I'm pretty sure this wasn't what the designers of brown signs intended when they thought up a great way of helping indicate the way to the great and good attractions and facilities of Britain. Ho hum. Anyway, thought I'd share the most mundane and depressing brown sign...

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This photo was forwarded to me yesterday by a good friend of mine with the subject "!!" and the words "I am speechless!" I, of course, absolutely wet myself and had to get it straight up on the blog. I read about this in the news a while ago but for some reason I didn't post it at the time, so I thought it was time to share. This fake brown sign was erected (see what I did there?) as a tongue in cheek (and there?) poke (and there?!) at the Gloucestershire viewpoint Barrow Wake,...

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After a hectic few weeks at work serving the good customers of Bromley their Christmas party food and being run off my feet doing a million other non-brown-sign related pursuits I was very happy to be able to grab a few days off before Christmas. Rather shockingly I have managed to bag myself a boyfriend (who knew?! I'd actually written myself off there for a while) so I relished the opportunity to jump on the back of his motorbike (I'm not even joking) and head up to Shropshire, where he's...

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I was very surprised but happy to get a call from a journalist yesterday (about 4 minutes before work) asking me some questions about my brown sign related pursuits and asking if it was OK for her to do a piece on me in the Yorkshire Post (I refrained from bellowing "WOO HOO!" and said instead that it would absolutely fine). We had a little chat and the very next day that little chat was in print in the paper, so here it is ladies and gents, enjoy... (OK this...

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This image is taken from a supplement called "Signs of the Times 84" published by the English Tourist Board as part of their "Tourism in Action" project. It was in 1984 that the brown sign as we know it was born. These symbols were first used in Kent as an experiment and were found to be useful for directing tourists to attractions and facilities by owners and motorists alike, so after their success in Kent the Department for Transport then rolled them out across Britain. Me being from Kent and...

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Exciting no? This is a unique brown sign symbol, and I love them (who's surprised?). These symbols are on the tourist signs that want to stand out from the crowd or don't fit into any of the other regular 93 categories. These I find intriguing and make me want to visit even more when they have quirky images like this one. There are more to see later, but let me just tell you how I came to acquire them... OK so this week I have had a hectic one, with less time to...

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In the last few months I've been out and about a lot less visiting brown signed attractions, mainly because I'm working 54 hour weeks at the restaurant but also because I'm trying to pull together a book about the diverse and rich world of the humble brown tourist sign. What always fascinates me is reading up on how all these places actually became attractions in the first place, the more you read the more you uncover all their unique and interesting histories, it's a real eye opener and shows just...

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I love it when people send me pictures of brown signs, it shows they're thinking of my project and know how much I'll appreciate them taking a photo and bothering to show me (you really don't know how happy it makes me, very happy). So when Simon came back from The Grand Canyon he was immediately on the email to share this little gem. Unfortunate really that he knew how much I'd appreciate this one in particular, not just for it's colour but also for it's content. I am such...

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On my way back from Plymouth (once again with my foot to floor just about hitting 60 trying to make it back for my evening shift) I saw this brown sign for Buckfast Abbey on the edge of Dartmoor off the A38. Chris had told me I'd pass the abbey on the way home and when he mentioned it was real life functioning monastery I was extremely excited. I don't think I've ever visited a monastery with actual monks in it outside Asia and I've always been interested in the...

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This week I had two days off work... Woooooooooohhhhhhhhh! Handily I got them next to each other so I could actually do something with my time off (washing my clothes and writing a book don't count as "doing something" with my time off you understand). I'll take any excuse to go down and visit my good pal Chris in Plymouth and as my parents were also holidaying in Teignmouth I made Devon my destination. So, as with all my post evening shift jaunts, I found myself setting off on a...

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This week has been full of weddings and funerals for me, quite literally FULL. I've attended 3 weddings and 1 funeral in 3 different countries in the space of 7 days. I feel (but hopefully don't look very much like) Hugh Grant. These life and death celebrations have taken me far and wide and (you know me) of course I've been screeching to dangerous halts in the road to take pictures of the brown signs I see. So last Saturday it all started in Herefordshire in the intriguingly named little village...

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Sitting in a coffee shop in Cambridge waiting to help my sister shoot a wedding on Saturday I was casually flicking through Twitter (yes people, I have purchased myself an iPhone, eventhough it is totally lost on me and I've only downloaded one app, Historypin) and noticed a retweet calling for geeks to nominate themselves for BBC 6 Music's Geek of the Week. I am such a massive geek that I nominated myself and got interviewed on the show. I think I worked out the audioboo, here it is (I think...

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This photo was sent to me by mini-golfer and brown sign spotter extraordinare Richard Gottfried. What I love most about this scene is that clearly the sign has come down with an almightly crash and more than likely didn't land standing upright in the position we see it in now. I can just imagine some well meaning individual going over and propping it up the best they could so it's still doing it's job despite the damage inflicted upon it. Or maybe it's just good fortune that it's still half standing, either...

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After quite a lot of research around camping and caravanning sites recently as part of my brown sign discovery of Britain I started reading more and more about "glamping" (or "glamourous camping" where "glampers" get things like hot running water and solid structures to sleep in but still have a holiday in a field), so I decided to write a blog on the subject. But it was a blog I was not going to finish; for 2 reasons: 1) I hadn't completed it by the time I had to leave...

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I've been having virtual chats via Facebook/Twitter/Email recently with a chap about brown signs and mini-golf (what a combination - I know, can you just imagine our conversations?!). This man is Richard Gottfried and he's a pretty cool guy... why? Because he spends his time travelling around the UK playing mini and adventure golf tournaments that's why, and frankly that's something you and I can only but wish we were doing with our lives (you love a bit of mini golf and you're as jealous as I am, admit it)....

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