Now we all know the trick answer to this riddle - only one! [ie The speaker himself, because in order for him to meet them the others had to be going the other way.] but that is not what I'm about here. What I want has no trick to it; We are to assume that speaker, man wives, cats, rats and flies are indeed all off to St Ives [been there myself many times - highly recommend it], and further more that each wife had seven cats, each cat seven rats etc [rather than all the wives possessing seven cats in total, etc]. So with these points nailed down here's the question:- How many were going to St Ives? The proviso to doing this puzzle is this - that you do it in your head, without recourse to pencil and paper or calculator. You may record your answer on paper prior to posting it but may not check whether it is correct or not prior to posting!. Once having posted your answer you are not to post again indicating whether it was correct or not - we'll all know if it was!
I was once able [during a particularly bad bout of insomnia] to work out the speed of the earths motion around the sun to a fair approximation of the correct value - but this, I think, is a much harder ask.
Hope some of you will join in; don't expect this thread to fly fast - it'll take me for ever to come up with an answer and it goes without saying that I expect a Haruchai style level of honour in abiding by the rules!
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/wink.gif)
[Maybe this should be in Mallory's Hashi? I put it here because it involved maths but only thought afterward that it may be wrongly sited. By all means shift it if you think it appropriate - and apologies for the inconvenience
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)