Trip to Manchester

On Tuesday we headed down South to Manchester to visit Karen, Leia and Rosa.  First stop was Ikea in Warrington as we need another shelving unit.  I treated Tom to meatballs, chips and jam as you have to when visiting and then we headed into the shop.  It was a bit of a trauma for Tom "Mummy we are never going to leave", "Mummy I need fresh air", "Mummy I think we are going around again!".  He wasn't impressed but I did try to go round as quickly as I could.  Typical, when we finally got to the place to pick up our shelves they were out of stock!  Not great, but Tom was happy to see the sky again!

In bed with a girl!

We then headed to Karen's and as usual when I drive to her, we got lost.  Not once, but twice, with the sat nav!  In the end she had to talk me in.  There are just too many roads in Manchester!!!!!  Anyway, we got there in one piece.  It was lovely to see them all - Rosa is as cute as ever, Leia has grown up loads and Karen was Karen - straight talking funny girl.

It took the children a little while to warm up to each other but within an hour they were playing together.  Karen had a roast dinner on so we were very well looked after.  Leia got a double bed for her birthday this year and asked if Tom could sleep with her.  We said yes as long as he was asleep within an hour (it was 8pm).  We sneaked up at 8.30 - both of them were pretending to be asleep.  At 9pm Tom was fast asleep and Leia pretending.  We left them to it.  So Tom has had his first night in bed with a girl!!!!!

Nurse singing to a soldier

On Wednesday we decided to go to Dunham Massey - a National Trust property just south of Manchester.  I followed Karen, so didn't get lost - hurray!  Dunham Massey was turned into a hospital during the first world war, and as it was the centenary last year, they have set it up again.

Solemn children

2 x broken arms!

Wow!  It was brilliant.  One of the rooms was a ward full of beds and quotes from soldiers diaries written on pillows, pyjamas, ties etc.  Each bed had a patient card at the end of it - telling you who the patient was and treatment he needed.

AND there were actors walking around.  When we walked in a nurse was singing Keep the Home Fires burning to a patient to help him sleep.

Then we saw two nurses talking about politics of the day - one used to be a maid in the big house, the other a lady of the big house, now both were nurses.  Then we saw two soldiers talking about how scared they were about going back to the front whilst playing chess.  It was really really well done.  I would happily have stayed there a couple of hours reading everything and enjoying the acting, but children don't allow you to do that!  However, to be fair Tom did understand quite a bit and he was very serious whilst in the ward - he knew it was a significant place and had a serious face on the whole time.

Rolling up the bandages

There was also a room set up with the nurses uniform to try on, bandages to wear and roll back up (did you know there was a machine that did that in 1917?).  Anyway we had fun and I think the children learnt something.

Running children

We had a quick look around the rest of the house, which was your usual National Trust house - full of four poster beds, paintings, silverware etc.  There was a room with records of all the soldiers that had passed through and made interesting reading - but once again the children only had limited concentration spans here.

Pregnant children?

We had a quick look around the kitchens which were huge and then gave in to the children and went to the restaurant for food.  The afternoon was then spent outside - the children running around.  In the grounds they had an area called the log pile which was full of things to play with, dens to find, trails to follow, trees to climb etc.  It was ace.  With Leia now being 8, we could let her and Tom run off to play.  Rosa decided to stay with us which was great and the sun came out.  We were in heaven.  Non stressful parenting where everyone is happy.  It was a shame when we finally had to return to the cars so we could head home.

I think it is the best National Trust place I've been to and hope to get there again before the WWI re-enactment ends in November this year.