Southwell Workhouse

Today we went to Southwell Workhouse. A workhouse is a place where the poor would go in Victorian times in England. Inside of the Southwell Workhouse there were on average 158 people. People entered work houses because either they were too old or too poor to take care of themselves. Families were separated at the work houses. If families tried to talk to each other or even look at one another they would get a punishment. The reason for workhouses was the government didn’t want people to get money for being poor, so they made workhouses instead and they made the conditions not feel good inside. They didn’t want too many people to use the workhouses. The only time people in the Southwell Workhouse had Roast Beef it would be Christmas. Men made the bread. Men would break stones and turn grinders even if there wasn’t anything to grind! Woman unpicked ropes until their fingers started to bleed. For children dinner was usually bread and butter, milk and water. For the woman’s work there is a muddy yard with a pump in the middle to get water to wash clothes. During school for the kids, if you slouched there would be something to stop it and that would be a wooden thing that is almost the shape of your shoe and you would put it behind your back and sit there the whole day and not do any school work. When we sat on the beds my mum and I hurt. There was wood for the beds! By the time the people that lived in Southwell Workhouse were 14 or 15, they were allowed to leave the Workhouse but many times they didn’t have any place to go so it was sad and they had to come back. If you click on the photos we took, you can see the pictures clearer and one shows how much food a kid close to my age would get each day. It is a very low amount. The other picture is of the yard area where the women washed clothes. I got to try the pump and it really pumps water.

Ginger's Quilt

If you looked at my blog post last month about Ginger’s quilt scraps (it was posted on January 13, 2012), they have now turned in to the squares of the quilt! Poem and I have sewed all of the squares together into one giant piece. A few of the squares already have a design on them that we didn’t do, and others we sewed. The ones we made were the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, the Tower Bridge, a flower, and a pencil and ruler. We are finished! It was so super fun.  

York

As you probably know we have New York in the U.S. We did not go there but we went to the first York. It was really cool. As we went around we went up into Clifford’s Tower. There was a man named William the Conqueror who fought against York and he built the earth mound that Clifford’s Tower ended up being put on. After the fun of going in Clifford’s Tower we went across the Roman wall. It had a really good view. One of my favorite parts was a Viking Museum. We went on a ride that showed us what it would be like. The children had cool popular games just like chess! Every Viking adult had a job. It could making shoes and clothes or something else. The funny thing was, that night we went out to an Indian restaurant for dinner and they gave us “York” Chocolate at the end!! So funny, right?

Horses and Denton

Neiggggghhhhhhhhhh! We are in the English countryside! There are many farms in the countryside and the farm that I am talking about is not that bad of a walking distance. There are a lot of horses in it too. There is a really neat and shaggy horse that I think is the cutest thing. I have named him Mr. Shagball, and there are others too! There are a mummy and baby and the mummy is silk cream with a touch of brown (I have named her Cream Clover) and she loves it when you pet her. The baby has rough brown skin with a touch of cream and nips at our coats (I have named him Night Bite). Through our walk we went to Denton Reservoir inside of Denton, a very quaint town next to Harlaxton. Denton Reservoir is a beautiful lake and we think we might even have a picnic there. When we reached the townish part of Denton we went to collect sheep wool. It was so cool!

Grantham

Since Grantham is so close to Harlaxton Village, Brock, mum and I end up visiting it quite some amount of time. Isaac Newton is famous in Grantham because he went to school there as a boy! The school he went to is called “Kings” and still gets taught in. Margaret Thatcher was also famous from Grantham but in a different way. She was born in Grantham and ended up as a Prime Minister of the U.K. from 1979 to 1990. In Grantham mummy signed me up for a really cool clay making session. I am so glad that my wonderful mum did it! I made some really cool stuff and so did Brock. Brock made a clay Messi (a really great Barcelona player) with a soccer ball! The place we went to is called the Guildhall Arts Centre. Here is a photo we took of the Isaac Newton statue with the Guildhall behind it. What fun!

London

It is great to be in England and get to go to London so much! On our way out of the underground we decided we couldn’t go without riding the London Eye, you have a good eye sight from inside of the huge jars that you are in. The London Eye is a humongous ferris wheel and it moves so slow that sometimes I even forgot we were moving. We got a good sight see of Big Ben. There is a giant penguin statue that I thought was neat. A little bit of the London Eye is right above the water way so you either see a giant penguin under you or you see the water way! After that we took a good chilled walk to Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth the thirds home. It was also the place where the big wedding reception of Princess Kate and Prince William took place. Last but totally not least we went to Shrek the musical. All of the scenes had one funny thing at least. The way they made the dragon fly was amazing. Donkey was a hoot!

Origami

I went to the Bistro with a lady named Julie. She taught me how to make origami boxes! It was super fun, especially with a hot cocoa on the side! There was a really fun story that goes along with making the boxes and if you watch the video you will find out what it is. After the video is over will you please try and see if you can make one so I can see!! P.S. Get a piece of good strong paper ready.

Brussels

This week I went to Brussels which is inside of Belgium. It is known for its chocolate and I will tell you what, I had a good amount! The chocolate store we went to is super close to the Grand Place, the way I always say it is wrong and I call it the Grand Palace on mistake! It is super beautiful. Brussels is also known for comics and we went to a really neat museum about that stuff. It had a lot of Smurf things in it because the man who created the Smurf comics was from Belgium. All texts in the museum are in French, Dutch and a few were in English. The coolest thing that we went to was the Atomium. It is made of tubes and 9 spheres, but giant ones. I had a really good dish of spaghetti with fresh parmesan cheese that was in a really neat bowl like a medieval pot, my brother had the same and my mummy had duck breast. After lunch we took a tour of the different spheres. In one of the spheres kids can sleep overnight in there! They sleep in mini spheres that are inside the big sphere! To get out of all of the rooms you would have to go through the tubes! On a whole separate thing we decided to go to the E.U. (European Union) Parliament. It was really huge and had some really neat chairs in it that were pink, green, yellow, blue and maybe a few more that I didn’t realize were even there. But that is not all, because they had a really neat area that looked like a disco room with all the lights and colors and it was awesome! The European Union is practically like a giant government and there are many buildings of the European Union in Brussels. Even though we now have had the trip gone by, we still have speculoos to eat that we bought in Belgium to remind us of our wonderful trip we took with good friends.

Waterloo

We went to Waterloo in Belgium! Waterloo is famous for the battle of Waterloo. There was a really neat Wax Museum and inside of it we saw what the soldiers would have looked like. Hut two three four! It was super cool and I think that whoever is reading this would have loved how neat it was. The people who worked there dug up artifacts from the war. There were skulls and things. Before we went through the Wax Museum we went out to “Lion Hill”, and to get to it we had to climb up 226 stairs! Climbing up to the lion was awesome and it was really cool on the forty-second step because it said Canon. It was in a booklet that taught you more about the battle. So if you ever go anywhere close to it please just count up till you get to the 42 step and look to your left, I shouldn’t tell you anymore!

Snow Day

We have snow! It is so fun to sled in the snow here especially on the steep hills in the gardens. One time whenever I was going down really fast I almost ran into the bushes. Another time I really will admit it I just toppled. Whenever Brock and I stepped out into the snow we worked on a fort. It looked really awesome. On the front lawn of Harlaxton, Brock made a snowman and he named it Billy Bob Joe. I’m also posting a picture of where I live. This is the Carriage House.

War Horse

Brock, Mum and I took turns reading pages out of the book War Horse. After we finished the book (that was really exciting) we went and saw the movie. Then we saw the play in London. It was awesome looking at the horses on the stage. They were not real but looked like they were. The horses were made out of wood! It was really good whenever Joey (the horse) got raised by Albert (the boy). They showed Joey growing up and the horse sculpture was broken in two and out came a new horse that was larger like Joey had grown up. Once he was about to go to war he met up with a horse named Topthorn.

Wales

Blue whales are the largest mammal on Earth. But we saw a different type of Wales! We went to Cardiff Castle and the Animal Wall. The iron doors that we walked through to get inside were huge. Inside of Cardiff Castle we saw a huge catapult called a Trebuchet. It was right next to a tunnel that Brock and I ran up to get inside of and see it. Whenever we did we walked a little. Then we passed what the kitchen would have looked like, nothing like what we have now. It was neat to look out of tower holes that the soldiers would have shot through. Whenever we were about to climb the tower Brock saw something that looked totally creepy, or at least to walk up! It was a rocky and very bumpy staircase as you might assume. It would have been useful though if you wanted a good shot. When we walked out from the really ‘cool’ Cardiff Castle we headed toward the Animal Wall. It had a vulture, bear, kitten and much more.