Death By National Trust

Big gap in blogging.  Time passes so quickly as I lurch from crisis with Gorgeous Girl, more maths demands from Special Boy and, of course, his school October Week.  Thank God for the National Trust (my words, not his).  We kicked off by visiting the David Livingstone Centre in Blantyre.  Oh, how he moaned when I told him about the planned outing!  Oh, how his friend joined in and whined about their preferences for Xscape, Laser Planet and so on!  These suggestions fell on deaf ears and we set off anyway.  Fantastic!  It's always amazing that something so low-tech can be such fun for two twelve-year-olds.  I really did think they took some of it in, especially seeing where David Livingstone grew up - a single room shared with umpteen other family members. 

Apparently kiddies from the age of five worked in the mill.  The boys would rise at 5.30am and start work at 6am.  The girls had to get up half an hour earlier because they had the added chore of fetching water for the family from the well.  They had to carry it back up all the stairs in two pails held with a yoke behind their necks like something an ox would wear.   (Special Boy, who can make a song and dance when asked to unload the dishwasher, got to try this out with the pails weighted down to represent the water and, when pressed, admitted it wasn't easy.)

If all this wasn't bad enough, after they finished work at 8pm the kiddies then went to school! Until 10pm!  And in his spare time (whenever that was) David Livingstone would sketch, expertly, insects and plants he found.  When I think of what Special Boy does in his spare time I could weep! 

During the week we made our first ever trip to Bristol to visit a friend and her son near Wells and fitted in three more National Trust properties.  Thanks to an old aunty I've got a lifetime membership card and I love producing it.  Makes me feel rich.  We visited Barrington Court, Lytes Cary and Stourhead.  By the end of the day I couldn't tell which was which and had more than my fill of tea, cakes and quizzes.  Still, it's much better than Xscape.

What can I say about Revitalift trial?  After the October week I think I've regressed facially so I'm now applying it extra-thickly.  My friend suggested taking collagen capsules which are sold in health shop.  I will be investigating.