We finally made it to May Fest.

Yesterday, after having told A that we didn't need the car, so he could have it to go to cricket, I remembered that it was May Fest at Nottingham Uni.  Various friends have recommended going to this for several years, but we've always been away or already had things planned.  Fortunately A's cricket match was at home, which is walkable (a bit of a trek with a heavy cricket bag though), so we went and fortuitously arrived just as A's team took a wicket, so he dashed into the pavilion to get us the key.

It was very busy, and a huge amount to see and do, far more than we could manage to see.  We did get round a few things though and we also bumped into about half a dozen families we know from the HE community.  We started off looking at Viking riddles, which we managed to come up with some good answers for, and then the girls translated some runes using a key and they each wrote their own names in runes too.  We then remembered that a neighbour was there, so we found him and had a look at some fluorescent liquids under different lights with him, before looking at the skulls and other bones of various animals, including among others an elephant's jaw, a velociraptor's skull and a T-Rex's forearm.

We then moved on to a different building, where M had a go at shooting netball goals (and did pretty well) and both girls cycled as fast as they could for 200m on an exercise bike.  We then looked at some slides of lungs through a microscope: healthy, from someone with cystic lung disease and a from a smoker.  M labelled a skeleton using the scientific names of the bones, which we looked at as part of our (protracted on/off) human body project about 18 months ago and did a pretty good job, managing probably about half without any help and being in the right area with most of the rest.  We then got to see x-rays of the knee, of a 2, 5, 10 & 18 year old, which again tied in with what we'd read about when we were finding out about bones.  The patella (K's favourite bone!) wasn't visible at all in the x-ray of the 2 year old's knee, and barely in the 5 year old's, as it was still cartilage then, but by 10 year's old it was clearly bone.  The other thing that we'd read about that we could see was the growth plates in the bone, that again, were clearly visible in all the x-ray's except the 18 year old's, the man there explained very clearly what we could see each time.  We then moved on to see a model of a knee, this time with the ligaments and tendon's too.

We then moved on to one final building where we looked at some philosophical questions, including:  If a baby is in a river and will drown if you don't jump in to save it, but you don't because you'll get your brand new clothes wet, is this morally wrong and: If you are asked to give £5 to charity that will probably save a child's life and you don't even though you have a lot of money, is this morally wrong and: Are these two situations different and if so why?  Then there was a veterinary area, where K & M dressed up as vets.

M ready to stick her arm up a cow's bum!

K ready for surgery.

They also had a go at bandaging a (toy) dog's leg, identifying the contents of some socks just from feel and listening to a real dogs heartbeat.  After that it was time to head home, where we had tea before going to pick A up from cricket, where we watched the last few overs of a very close match, which happily A's team won with a ball to spare (although unfortunately he didn't contribute much to the score, having got out first ball!)

Today, we went out for Sunday lunch, which was very nice (and an escape from the kitchen!).  Then this afternoon my Uncle B & Aunty R called for a tea, as they're having a mini-break around these parts.  It was lovely to catch up with them and when we told them about what we're up to at the moment and our plans, including our return trip to Kentwell Hall, K & M quickly disappeared to get into their Tudor costumes.  We thought that M's hat suited Uncle B particularly well.

Uncle B the Tudor?

It looked more like an mob cap on Aunty R!

We've also arranged that we're going to go down and stay with them in October for a weekend and while we're there, we're going to meet up with one of my oldest 'computer mummy friends'.  We found out last year, that she and my cousin have known each other for years and her husband and my cousin even went travelling and stayed with another aunt and uncle of mine in Australia.  It's also uncanny how alike her son, S and my K looked when they were babies and toddlers!  I'm really looking forward to meeting her and her family.