Round the bend

 so this piece of innuendo and double entres, smut and fun was written for a friend who has just had root canal work to give her a giggle. 

You have been warned, do not drink while reading.  

This should be read out loud in a plummy Roedean sort of accent like a 1950s travellogue. 

Round the Bend

 

The River Bend is one of those typically beautiful English rivers, wending its meandering way through quintessentially English countryside, and past villages practising the many country customs so paradigmatic of the English.

Rising in chalk uplands, as a spring in the valley known by the quaint local nomenclature after the river as Bendy Bottom, a series of rills and waterfalls takes the nascent river to the lowlands, where it is fed by watercourses from other chalk bottoms like Saggy Bottom, Scratchy Bottom, Stretchy Bottom, Spanky Bottom and Much Bottom. Here it leaves Ffondelleshire and enters Ruttingshire.

 

One of the first settlements passed is the gracious country home of the Close family. The lawn stretches from the manor down to the water, providing the family with a vista so fair they feel no need to leave home. So close, indeed, are the Close family that their receding chins merge with their necks, and their protuberant eyes and webbed hands and feet lead the locals to affectionately nickname Close Manor as ‘Toad Hall.’ But in such an idyllic setting, one might indeed imagine oneself to be in a world like ‘Wind in the Willows.’ Lord Algernon Close’s acknowledged lady is Lady Augusta Close. She was the Honourable August Close until there was an unfortunate accident involving a silken rope and a sash window, but Lord Algernon did not seem to mind.

 

Below Close Manor is the village of Frotting-on-the-Bend, closely associated with Upper Frotting and by going via a lane known as Rear Approach, one might approach Lower Frotting, at some distance from the river. A little further on, where the river fills a marshy region, full of wild birds and rare flowers, one might find Frotting-in-the-Bog, and its prestigious girls’ school, Lipswell Hall, whose prospectus offers a full and stimulating education. 

 

The region of marsh is surrounded by reed beds, once used to make tallow candles, which doubtless gave the name to the village of Dipwick.  The candles still made there have always been popular in all the Frottings. Dipwick is known for its growing population, extending across the River Licking, a tributary to the Bend, to the village of Sackville, making a vast difference to the region.

 

Running past the marsh, Nob Hill is visible, a lookout post since earliest times, and associated with a village grown from the one-time vicus, or service-town to a Roman camp, and believed to be derived from its Roman name, Koytus Parva. The camp once known as Koytus Magna suffered an interruption to its development when the Roman Empire was falling and everyone withdrew.

Koytus Parva turned down the invitation to be twinned with the German town of Fucking, considering this urban marriage to be too vulgar.  The people of Koytus Parva are very conscious of their classical roots, and indeed the Verpa, Cauda and Priapus families are still prominent.

Not far downriver, the river has been managed somewhat, and a weir built, the village formerly known as Goldenford now called Goldenshower.

 

Across from Nob Hill is Bell End Hill, which accommodates the new town, Blowhard, doubtless named for its location, which has as yet only 69 inhabitants.

 

The River Bend slows down greatly now and meanders back and forth across its flood plain, serving small towns like Bendfordward, and Backford, and the canal which joins them known as the Back Passage. The lowest bridging point is occupied by the town of Much Sucking and its swallowed suburb, Spunklee, at the apex of the estuary, with estuarine villages of Cumoffen and Spray.

 

This pretty river encompasses all that is best in England, and as the valley inhabitants always say to visitors, come again soon!