just another morning here

We’ve had a really nice day today. I can’t quite decide what the educational bits were, but the children were all very well behaved and interested in the things they were seeing and doing so they must have learnt something!

We met Mel & Helen and family at Cardews Teapottery (btw, click that link, it’s a nice one!) this morning. We looked round the pottery and managed not to break anything at all on the way round – a major achievement! We ended up in the craft area painting some pottery items – Josiah did a bowl, Abbie did a teapot, and Anna did a mug, and this kept the children occupied for ages! They did some really nice painting, all three of them. They stay at the pottery to be glazed and fired so we’ll have to go and pick them up at the end of the month.

Flouting all the rules, we sat at a picnic table in the cafe and ate our picnic … well, we did buy a cup of tea, does that make it okay?

Then after lunch we drove round the corner (!!) to the House of Marbles. I’d been there before, but somehow managed to miss all the interesting bits (I was obviously too busy watching children to fully appreciate what was there!!). We spent ages watching the biggest marble run – with billiard ball marbles, it took up one whole big wall of the building and was a mechanical masterpiece. The children also enjoyed seeing the three smaller marble runs in one of the exhibitions. Joe and Abbie went for a wander and found a snoring teddy, and a moose who moved! The historical part of the visit included seeing old marble toys and games in one museum, and the old kilns from the pottery that used to be in Bovey Tracey, as well as a scale model of the site as it was.

Home now and we’re concentrating on preparations for Joe’s big day tomorrow, the girls are meant to be tidying their rooms but it sounds more like a herd of elephants playing upstairs! By the way for anyone who is interested, the gingerbread cake has turned out fine, I’ve iced it, but I’m resisting decorating it too soon because I don’t want the colours to run! Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have lots of pictures.