Anyone fancy a few days in Donkey Town?

TRAVEL has never been so difficult as during lockdown with even Barnard Castle off limits. Restrictions will stay in place into next year as the world tries to regain normality through safe practice and vaccination.

Perhaps it’s time to consider home destinations for a spring break, rather than risk a fortnight in quarantine after a week in Corfu.

Rental company LeaseCar.uk have listed alternative and unlikely destinations in the UK, with the quirky sort of names that might arouse anyone’s curiosity. Scotland is the place to find Brawl, an area in the Highlands so sparse of population, you might have to take someone to fall out with, or you could get lost in Lost in the Cairngorm Mountains that has a population less than 24, according

Hto Wikipedia, before moving on to Brokenwind in Aberdeenshire, where you might wish to hold your breath as you drive through, just to be on the safe side.

Down south, there is Donkey Town, Curry Mallet, Brown Willy and Loose Bottom, which sounds like a distant relative of Brokenwind, while Wales has Mumbles and Plwmp, which is a village that is part of a community called Llandysiliogogo, which sounds like a retirement plot for discotheques.

County Tyrone in Northern Ireland is replete with odd names, from Stranagalwilly (locals suggest pronouncing it whilst drunk), whilst the very funny ulsterfry.com website says: “Not content with naming a townland Strangalawilly, the natives of this part of Tyrone also decided to have Balix Lower and Balix Upper just around the corner. A pair of Balixes, with a Balix Hill to go with them.” Yorkshire has its fair share too, from Crackpot to Giggleswick,

Booze to The Land of Nod.

A company spokesperson said: “We’re not sure how residents of Nasty (Hertfordshire) and Crapstone (Devon) convince people they’re nice places to live, but Bunny in Nottinghamshire sounds much better.”

And they’ve not even mentioned Ugley in Essex, Tiddlywink in Wiltshire, Velvet Bottom in Somerset and Happy Bottom in Dorset. Best not to mention at all Shitterton in Dorset, whose name dates back 1,000 years and is said to mean “farmstead on the stream used as an open sewer”.

And Wetwang in Yorkshire thinks they have problems. (It means a wet field).