Our first residential home ed trip - part 3.

On Wednesday we went to the Jackfield Tile Museum.  Fortuitously we happened to arrive in time for the guided tour of the factory, which at this time of year is only once a week.  We were shown round the factory, which was quite interesting.

Most tiles are pressed from a powder.

More shaped ones are made from liquid poured into moulds.

After looking round the factory, we went into the museum, which in the first section told the story of the village of Jackfield, where the factory was situated.  There was an incredible new video clip of the awful destruction caused by the abandonned clay mines, which was flooded.  The subsidence caused as a result was in the order of a foot every two days and it is still a problem in the area, despite works to try to prevent it.

Upstairs there were many, many tiles to look at!

Some individual examples.

K was particularly taken with two of the Shakespeare scenes that were there.

As You Like It

A Midsummer Night's Dream

 For the afternoon we moved on to the Coalport China Museum.  The children enjoyed doing the trail, answering questions around the place, finishing by finding the bear that the clue pointed towards.

The bear!

K got rather frustrated, as she wanted to do the trail without any help, but didn't want to get left behind on her own.  Since M did want help and consequently managed rather faster than K and rushed on ahead.  The tiredness caused by two very late nights certainly didn't help either.

After looking round the museum, we returned to watch the glassblowers, who had been on their lunch break when we first came to their workshop.  It was fascinating.

Seeing all the stages it takes to get to the finished product, not to mention the fact that gold leaf was involved, it's not surprising that the beautiful vase is so expensive.

Then we returned to the watch a woman making clay flowers - very clever!

Making a daffodil.

The result!

And some more that she'd made earlier.

Finally we finished off with some painting.

Concentration!

And from K too.

M & I painted mugs, which we had to leave there to be fired before posted on to us, while K chose a money box, which she could take home with her.

K's cat, Peggy.

M's mug with Christopher on it (3 times).

And my mug, back...

...and front.

After finishing our painting, it was a bit of a rush to get to the bus stop to drop A off to get the bus to Telford, to get the train home.  He had a meeting in London on the Thursday and was then going straight to Brussels for another one on Friday.  As it turned out we needn't have hurried because the bus was 15 minutes late, but not so late that he missed his train fortunately.

The girls and I then joined most of the rest of the folks in having fish 'n' chips for tea.  Later on, K & M joined in a game of Uno with the French children, the fact that some of them speak little or none of the others' language not seemed to pose a problem at all.  This was followed by a game of Carcassonne, with a mixture of seasoned veterans (K & M), novices and absolute beginners.  I think everyone enjoyed it though, and given that at least one of the beginners has since bought their own game, I think it's fair to say that it worked well!

After a fair amount of stropping from M on the Tuesday and a really rather tearful K at the China museum on theWednesday, due, I'm pretty confident, in no small part to overtiredness, I insisted on K & M sleeping in with me for the final night.  They did protest somewhat and hardly had an early night, but I think it was a good idea, so that we could make the most of the final day of our trip.