Ever since I made a habit of walking into walls as a five-year-old I’ve had a pair of glasses perched on the end of my face, writes Rural Affairs editor Nathan Rous.

I even slept in them for a few months under the illusion that my dreams would be clearer.

There was a brief dalliance with contact lenses as I reached adulthood but a poor rinsing routine and a rather dogged corneal fungus ensured my two eyes would always be more comfortable as four.

Yet this weekend I feel like I am looking through a new pair of spectacles. In fact, for fear of being over-dramatic, I feel like I have been re-born with everything around me suddenly switched from grey to technicolour.

Okay, you’re right, it was over-dramatic, but simply saying you feel “a trifle different” isn’t going to get anyone’s juices flowing.

To most true Salopians my nine years in the county is nothing more than passing through.

To me, it is the longest I have ever spent in any one place. Yet after the initial thrill of wanting to explore every nook and cranny you somewhat inevitably settle down to the daily rigours of working life.

But this weekend has been a real eye-opener and it was all down to some great friends who decided to ditch the Big Smoke for our green and pleasant county.

Although I was some way short of buying a pink umbrella and leading our little group on a whistle-stop tour of Shropshire’s best bits, I felt tremendously proud as they ooohed and aaahed their way around.

Chiswick is certainly one of London’s finest locations, yet you could see them yearning for their own slice of the country.

So how do you impress an uber-glamorous city couple who have the best of everything on their doorstep?

Well, while they were certainly taken with the pre-dinner cocktails at Mad Jack’s and the exquisite nosh at Draper’s Hall, the fact that we could park in the centre of town without hassle and without charge was enough to have them foaming at their congestion-charged mouths.

When we returned and they saw that it hadn’t been keyed by vandals . . . well, they were an electric shock treatment short of the funny farm.

A good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast put the colour back in their cheeks and we pointed ourselves in the direction of Bridgnorth.

“Look at those bales of hay,” Dan said dreamily as we sauntered past the Hundred House at Norton.

“And are those cows?” his wife Toni didn’t add, for fear of me gilding this particular countryside lily.

As they looked I looked. And as I looked I saw what they saw: Shropshire in all its normal jaw-dropping splendour.

Admittedly the belly-dancers wobbling at the Bridgnorth Music Fest did their best to bring us back down to earth, but this bubble wasn’t for bursting.

There were more ooohs and aaahs as we made an ascent of the Cliff Railway, and the good people of Wolverhampton appeared to be in hiding as we strolled along the high street without the serenity punctured by the usual “ay there Day-eev, fan-soy a tray-ee o’ cheeeps?”.

Although our friends made the journey back to London on Sunday evening they left behind a tourist who has lived in the county for nine years but now has a proper pair of glasses on.