Back to School!!!!

As my friends could testify, I love a good day trip. Today Al, Fran and I drove to Dudley in the Midlands to the Black Country Museum. After a very elegant Tesco lunch in the car park, we took advantage of our 2 for 1 entry tickets. It usually costs £11 for an adult which I actually think is pretty steep, why is it so expensive for education?

We first went to a cast iron house, the entire building was made from iron but deemed too expensive to carry on this method of building. The Black Country Museum (www.bclm.co.uk/) is a 'living museum' so you can go inside houses, engine rooms, the staff are in traditional dress. We were given hard hats to go into a mine that was 5 foot in parts (not good for two people that are almost 6 foot). We visited a tilted house that had subsided.

School started at 3pm, we arrived on time and sat on the back row on little wooden benches. Our school head mistress inspected the cleanliness of our hands and our schools. If they were dirty, we would be sent home. We wrote on slate and recited our timestable. Al has to sit on her left hand as she wasn't allowed to write with it. Some students were caned but Fran and I were good pupils (the same cannot be said for Al who didn't recite her times table, I almost told the head mistress).

We visited a town and played with a metal hoop. I'm not sure the point of this game but a hoop is attached to a stick with a hoop on it. You basically run as fast as you can becuase otherwise the hoop won't roll. It amused us for a few seconds becuase it's one of those things that looks easier than it is. A skipping rope was attached to a lampost so Fran and I jumped and turned around while Al span the rope (btw, it's not easy in older life).

We watched a silent movie in the cinema. The film was 10 minutes long, in that time the heroin found 3 men, fell in love and eloped...all becuase she had something in her eye and winked at everybody...this is whre I'm going wrong.