1. What's in a blog name?

Image: www.hometreeatlas.com

When the fifth or sixth person who heard about my solo Interrail trip asked me if I was going to write a blog, the idea somehow started to grow legs and even make some sense. "It will give us ideas for our own retirement" said one; "it will brighten up our dull and dark October" said another; "it will save you sending us photos" said another ... and so on. 

On a personal level, I just felt that it would be a nice way to record all the different people, places, foods, drinks and experiences on the journey, and would give me something to do on the many train trips if the scenery proves boring. 

I tried to be clever and come up with a catchy title for this blog, so I did the usual thing of opening up of the thesaurus (well the online version!) and searching for words to do with travel - train travel in particular, but I gave up after 10 mins as nothing I saw grabbed my attention. So I just left it and went on to do something else, but certain words and phrases kept running through my head - 'wander', 'wanderer' and 'wandering' were three words that my mind kept coming back to. 

And then a phrase came into my head, which seemed to cover all bases ... Wandering by Wagon ... and while I had never watched the RTÉ children's TV show Wanderly Wagon, as we were unable to receive an RTÉ signal in our house in north Donegal until well into the 1980s,  I was aware of its broad appeal in the rest of the country. 

Image: www.rte.ie

 

My wife who grew up in one-channel land in Galway was a big fan, basically as there was nothing else for kids to watch. The show has a nostalgic 7.4 approval rating on IMDB !

"Wanderly Wagon followed human and puppet characters as they travelled around Ireland visiting interesting locations, rescuing princesses and generally doing good" - Wikipedia/IMDB

So there you have it - a 1970s Irish TV show that I have never watched, somehow provided the inspiration for the blog's title. And while my wagons are of a different type, I hope the name will resonate with Irish people of a certain age ... and who knows, maybe I will even rescue some princesses en route.