Ye Olde Numerology

Since arriving here,  I have learned that if you ask a local how far it is to any place in particular, the answer is invariably, "Twelve miles."  Seriously.  We have been told it is twelve miles from RAF Lakenheath to RAF Feltwell.  It is twelve miles from RAF Feltwell (where the elementary school my kids will attend is located) to the village where we will live.  It is also twelve miles from the village to Brandon- the closest bigger town with amenities.  I haven't actually measured any of these distances, it is just what I have been told.

I suspected that "twelve miles" was just a standard guesstimate.  That way, they aren't lying to you- they want you to know it is more than ten miles, but don't want to put you off by having you think it is as far away as fifteen miles.

Today, we were in the middle of Newmarket and after running our errand there, we decided to find a place to go visit.  I pulled out the GPS and searched under "attractions/historical" and found three pages of items listed in various directions as, you guessed it, twelve miles away.  So, even the GPS is in on the little joke.  Cheeky little electronic device.

 (It is hard to take a picture with your phone while riding down bumpy, windy English roads, so the picture is blurry, but this was just one page of three full pages all with the same distance)

We finally decided to go a bit farther and picked Framlingham Castle, which was actually forty-six miles away.  Even the wiliest of GPS devices could not pull off the twelve mile rule here, so it just gave up and told us the truth: that while only forty-six miles away, it was going to take us over an hour to get there.  And it did.

The twelve mile conversation forgotten, we thoroughly enjoyed Framilingham Castle- especially me and my history-loving, nerdy self.  I was walking around reading all the plaques regarding the history of the place when I wandered upon this little gem:

I tried googling to see if there was some significance to this- you know, some sort of Roman conspiracy or something, but found nothing.  Am I the only one to notice this?

And so, after only three weeks here, I feel that "twelve miles" is going to be our running gag while we are here.  It has become my mission to take a photo or log every time someone tells me or I see a sign indicating that something is "twelve miles away".

Until next time- if you need me, I will be hanging out in the pub in the next village over.

It is twelve miles away.

 

  **linking up with Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop- prompt #3 "What makes you smile?"  The answer would be, "finding the humor in all situations, especially considering this move has been very difficult on us"