Tripes and Earwig Pasty: Tottie's Travels, #4

By Tottie Limejuice

Join Tottie Limejuice as she saddles up for another of her travel adventures.

 

Short, sweet and sure to make you smile, this little travelogue is a frank and funny account of Tottie's two holidays on horseback on the Isle of Beauty, Corsica, with its wild and stunning mountain scenery.

 

Sleeping under canvas or in sometimes basic mountain hostels, Tottie and her friends ride through some of the most remote parts of Haute Corse, dining on the local food, which can unexpectedly come with added extras.

 

Even if you don't fancy the riding or the Spartan accommodation, this travelogue will surely make you want to see the island for yourself.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Livres LEMAS
• Release date: Mar 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9782901773542

Tottie Limejuice

Tottie Limejuice is the pen name of former journalist and freelance copywriter, Lesley Tither. Writing as Tottie Limejuice, she has authored the Sell the Pig Series of personal travel memoirs, as well as Tottie's Travels, a series of humorous mini travelogues. Lesley also writes crime fiction, the Ted Darling Crime Series,  as L M Krier and children’s fiction as L M Kay.

Book preview

To Maureen

and to Manuel

great friends, sadly missed

Tottie Limejuice is a pen-name of Lesley Krier Tither, a former journalist and freelance copywriter,  author of the Sell the Pig travel memoir series, the Ted Darling Crime Series (crime fiction, writing as L M Krier) and children's fiction books (writing as L M Kay)

The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

© L M KRIER TITHER

Author’s Note

If you’ve read the Ted Darling Crime Series, you will know that Ted and his partner Trevor go off on a trail riding holiday in Corsica. Here is the story of my adventures there when I twice did the same thing.

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If you’ve not yet discovered the Ted Darling Crime Series find out more at https://www.teddarlingcrimeseries.uk/

Table of Contents

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PART ONE 1991

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Chapter 1  A load of old tripe   

Chapter 2  Here’s your horse, whoopee   

Chapter 3  Bad news – good news

Chapter 4  Waiter, there’s an earwig in my pasty

Chapter 5  You’re nicked, mate

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PART TWO 1994 

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Chapter 6  The wanderers return  

Chapter 7  Beware low-flying ducks

Chapter 8  Don’t bite my boobs  

Chapter 9  Venusia’s revenge 

Chapter 1

A load of old tripe

1991

Receiving an unsolicited video tape in a plain brown envelope was always a risky business. Even more intriguing when it came bearing an unfamiliar Corsica postmark.

I was a thousand feet up a windy Welsh plateau, having my morning cuppa in the kitchen of my holiday riding centre. The post had been delivered early, for once, so I was sorting through various bills and bookings – too many of the former, not enough of the latter - when I found the intriguing and unexpected envelope.

Where was Corsica, anyway? I wasn’t entirely sure. No home computers back then. No Google on which to look things up in an instant. I had to do it the old fashioned way, with an atlas.

Even more intriguing. A smallish island to the south of mainland France, and off the western coast of Italy. Was it a porn haven, sending out titillating samples of their productions? If so, why and how had I been singled out as a recipient, as that was not my usual choice in films.

Time to look inside the envelope for some sort of explanation. Somewhat gingerly, I pulled out the object inside first, before looking at the covering letter. A VHS tape.

It was the early 1990s. Videotapes were still very much the thing. There were not yet any DVD players, let alone DVDs to put in them. Blu-ray hadn’t even been conceived. And the internet? What on earth was that? It was still unheard of. I didn’t have my first computer, on painfully slow dial-up, until several years later.

So how in the world did enterprising businesses contact potential customers to tell them of the wonders they had to offer?

Some, it seemed, went to the trouble and expense of sending out unsolicited videos. Like the one at which I was now looking.

The next question, that of how on earth had they finished up sending it all the way from their small island – my memory was dredging up long-forgotten bits of history and coming up with the fact that it was the birthplace of the Emperor Napoleon – to my equally remote and little known place, Blue Well Riding Centre, on top of windswept Llanllwni Mountain in West Wales,