It is always a peculiar feeling going back to somewhere you spent time at as a child. It's like visiting a parallel universe, where things often look similar, but don't seem quite the same. Possibly because you are twice the size and your viewpoint has a few extra years of baggage and cynicism clouding your view. Or maybe just because things change. Last weekend I returned to Shropshire, with my family, unusual in itself for us all to be away together, but even more unorthodox in that this was a weekend of manual labour. No strolling across Ironbridge back and forth marvelling at the divets, pointing at the severn river and commenting whimsically on the currents, slurping on an ice cream whilst perusing over novelty keyrings in the shape of the Ironbridge with the words "oh the irony (bridge)". No this was manual labour. Helping out the family. We had to put fences up, and get scrammed by thick brambles. Holes are often dug on family get-togethers, but usually by insu...