Day 5 : Dudley

On Wednesday we drove to the Black Country Living Museum near Birmingham.
I have to rave about this place!
It was the favorite of the kids. I highly recommend a visit with this age group.
Loved how the kids were complimented in so many places for listening to guides and behaving well.

This is an open air museum of the region in victorian times.
A coal mining community that got the name Black Country from the black cloud of smoke and soot that hung over the area due to coal burning 24/7.
All the buildings have been moved to the museum grounds brick by brick.



We first headed to the boats for a visit to the Dudley Tunnel and limestone mines.



Our guides, dressed in Victorian clothes, watched us leave. They were good humored men these two...






Our skipper Nigel.
Told us all about limestone mining.
And that the "dangerous" liquid substance dripping on us was commonly known as water :)
We had some girlie girls on that boat...


This is Saara and Oskari trying "legging".
The way these boats, filled with a limestone cargo mind you, were moved in, through and out these tunnels. Hard work usually done by a husband and wife team.

After all that hard work lunch sounded like an excellent idea.
Off to the fish and chips shop.



Yummmmmm.....

We visited the chainmaker's home where his wife told about family life.
(a note to my Finnish readers: this lady reminded me very much of Justiina, only the rolling pin was missing).
She took her role seriously, I was eager to head out the door...


Time for school!


But first our guide John sang us a song about a school kid with a dirty face.

Then it was time to line up.

Girls in one line, boys in another.

Straight line... so the schoolmaster hollered from inside.

He sounded intimidating.

He was too.

We all had to sit on narrow benches with our backs straight and hands behind our backs.

Saara's teacher Steve trying not to crack up :)

Nails were inspected.

You should have seen the horror and disgust on our teacher's face when two girls had on nail polish.

"Painted ladies!"

Kalle was caught talking in class...

and was promptly sent to stand in the corner with his hands on his head memorizing the items on the table.

We recited the multiplication table.

And did quite well too.

It got a bit more challenging when it was time for the alphabet...

Did you know the Victorians thought it was easier to learn it backwards?

I didn't.

zyx and wv, uts and rqp, onm and lkj, ihg and fed and cba

You try that... not so easy is it?

We tried some writing on slate boards.

And then... oh dear.

Turned out that James spent his 2 pence on sweets rather than paying the schoolmaster for the week.

The funny bit was of course that James just had been to the sweets store and eaten a hard candy that left his tongue bright red.

Only he didn't realize that himself.

(he was not actually caned, it was just for show)

The culprit sweets...

Finally we took a tram to the coalmine.

We were down in the narrow pitchblack tunnels for a while.

It was a hard life those days.

The average male only had abour a 35 year life expectancy.

The day made me grateful to be born in this era, I can tell you that.

That evening was field day again.

Goals were scored...

...and penalty shots missed.

*grin*

As you can clearly see we took life very seriously.

Oh and Karen... thanks for pointing out the typo.. meant to write scones, not sconces...

Heheee...

I've now cut my nails, and I'm proofreading this ten times.

Ha!

Day 4: Bath & Cheddar Gorge

Another glorious sunny day.
Everything was so fresh and green.
Blooming.
I love England in spring, the gardens are so beautiful.

Our day started with a drive to the city of Bath, a World Heritage City.

The city is surrounded by seven hills.
I remember that well from my last visit to Bath in 1989.
The hostel we stayed in was on top of one of those hills....

The city has lovely Georgian architecture in local limestone.
Just look at how wide this street is!

We had a great guide called Caroline, who knew just about everything.

The famous Pulteney Bridge.
Looks like a covered bridge doesn't it?
It isn't.
It has shops lined on both sides.


At the bus parking we found the most Star Trek-like sinks in the ladies' toilet.

Push one button for soap, one for water and the third to blow-dry your hands.
I was waiting for it to beam me up....

This is the Royal Crescent.
The first crescent shaped building in England.
We had our group photo taken in front of it.


Another crescent. This one called The Circus.




Guess who just bought this one?

Nicholas Cage.
Apparently there are rumors of Johnny Depp looking for a house here too.
(insert some eager oooh's and "I'm so coming here to stalk" comments from the girls)

This to me is so English.
Shops on ground level and apartments above.

Right about here Maija and I abandoned the group to do some emergency shopping.
One of us forgot to put on deodorant in the morning and the other had only two tampons left.
Fun times.. hehee.

Our main stop in Bath was naturally the Roman Baths.
The city is built in an old volcano crater and has hot springs.


We were not allowed to touch the water.
Didn't look that tempting really...



All the glittering is coins thrown in.

Once we got out we had a tiny amount of free time, so I, Saara and another miniature enthusiast speedwalked to Pulteney Bridge to visit a sweet little dollshouse shop. We had, if I remember right, 16 minutes. Talk about power shopping as the place was crammed with treasures.

Once back it was time to spend some class money on ice cream.

We invaded the local Ben & Jerry's.
Two girls worked hard to get all of us cooled down.
All 42 in the group :)
You can see my new stripey purse I bought for the trip on the counter, cute isn't it?
Although bigger than I'm accustomed to.
I kept losing my stuff in it.
Frustrated me to no end.

From Bath we drove to Cheddar Gorge and Caves.
This shot of the sightseeing bus gives you an idea of the height of the gorge.


Inside the caves we went...

Yes, that is cheese.
Cheddar in fact.
It got it's name because it was matured in these caves.





I enjoyed the caves.
And then walking around in the very quiet little village.


But this little fellow made my day.
Couldn't say it better myself.
That after just three days on a bus filled with teenagers.

And yes, there is some Cheddar cheddar in our fridge. It's good.

We got back about 7pm and since it was the only evening we'd have time to make a run to the local grocery store (I always like to browse a local supermarket if possible), we annoyed our host by shoving our bags in, and kindly telling her we'd be happy to eat our dinner cold once we got back.

So all four of us (myself, teacher Päivi and two parents Kaarina and Arto) walked 10 minutes to Waitrose supermarket. Got some goodies to take home and most importantly a few cans of cider ;)
Once back at the house we got to take our own portions (yippee!) and this sparked the already mentioned eating-on-the-sly comment from Mrs. C.
After dinner we retreated to my room, drank cider, laughed and made the world better.
Until Kaarina (our trip nurse) got a call that one of the boys now had the tummy bug..