Bartimaeus

We got good news on Monday. A friend contacted to say she would be near us at the weekend and could we arrange a visit. Having been a bit short of things to look forward to, having just cancelled our trip abroad, I was delighted to able to say that yes we would be still here at the weekend. So we have arranged to be in Kinver, rather than Donostia on Saturday. That should be an easier journey.

We had been to Hartlebury Castle on my birthday but not visited the attached museum on that occasion, so we made a return visit. The museum had quite a few children's activities and a room of 1950s living, kitchen appliances, twin tub washing machines, juke box and a description of some favourite fifties foods.

I had thought of the upside down cake as a seventies thing, perhaps that's just when I first learned about it. Strangely the day I had been at Hartlebury Castle before Nye had sent me a photo of a peach upside down cake he had made. Other popular foods mentioned  were Spam, chow mein, hamburgers, black forest gateau and coronation chicken, of course. The coronation was being shown on a  1950s TV too.

 Beside the mockup of a milk bar with its interesting menu was a display of vinyl records and juke box choices. 

A section on local country life was made very interesting and with video footage of asparagus and hop harvests, giant stilts that hop growers wore, audio descriptions of enjoying hop picking and jigsaws of locally grown vegetables and hand tools with their standard names and Worcestershire terms for each.

There was further child oriented interest with a Victorian classroom - it wasn't clear that school days were the happiest days of your life but the day in the life of a scullery maid looked no fun either.

Even before school age the recommended routine life was quite regimented according to Mrs Beeton. It was interesting to hear the recommendation that children benefit from an hour or so with their mother each day. I hope the mothers benefitted too. I don't know where or when fathers saw (or heard) their children.

Lots of toys were on display and two embroidered pictures from a nursery rhyme I knew. Shane was born on a Saturday but I am not sure it was that apt a description having worked part time most of his life.

Both Bryn and Nye were born on a Sunday morning. That is the luckiest day to be born, according to the nursery rhyme, though the maker seems to have made a mistake with blithe

I was born on Wednesday and that is no fun... "Wednesday's child is full of woe" - my mum was not bearing that in mind when she had baths and took castor oil when she was trying to hurry me along. Or perhaps she was aiming for Tuesday's child is full of grace, and just missed since I was born just after midnight. I definitely wouldn't have lived up to Tuesday's child.

I enjoyed looking at the fashion section. Not much fun even for rich women in some of the rigid, tight, heavy outfits.  Select an ImageVictorian dresses with heavy bustles and tight lacing

We ended up in The Black Star for a slap up lunch that I couldn't have fitted into with that dress on, luckily I was in a stretch outfit. I ordered a couple of half pints and realised after that there was a local beer, the Worcestershire Sway, available and wished I had got it, then remembered I had bought it at Bridgnorth station shop along with an array of local beers so I look forward to the day we sample them.

The date we first thought would be the final "heat pump commissioning day" had been my birthday. But by the time it was confirmed the dates available were 5th August onwards. So on the day we thought we'd be leaving for France, I was in stead making coffee, offering biscuits and making good headway on my knitting while Nick, Rob, Brett (on speaker phone) and Shane discussed the heating and water systems and programming. The commissioning worked so a successful day, from that point of view. 

In the afternoon we started towards Kinver ending in a pretty rural spot, enjoying the wildlife near a lock. There were plenty of dog walkers around too.

I also received sad news that the lamb I had adopted for Nye had died of kidney and liver failure. The adoption won't have covered the vet fees.

This morning there was a lot of coming and going at the lock and a few people getting grounded in unexpected places, so I was a bit taken aback when Shane went forward to set the lock leaving me to cast off and drive on a windy day. I got through the grounding danger zone on the way in, and I hopped off to see a painted stone at the side of the lock to find another bit of local vernacular. 

On the way out there was another boat coming and a boat moored beyond that they were trying to pass, so there was a minor grounding after they went past us. There are surprise shallows along the way. 

I volunteered to do the next lock at Wolverley, which had a stile to cross on to the road to walk round - still quicker than walking all the way round to open the double gates-  and a pub garden full of eager spectators at The Lock Inn. 

Shane did the next one which had very old traditional features in approach, a very mossy wall and a cave at the side. I rather liked this one. Shane had a bit of company as there was a boat coming the other way.