July 15, Tuesday

Today we visited Cadbury World in Birmingham.  It was an excellent tour.  We expected something rather small that would take about 20 minutes, but it’s actually a very involved, thorough tour through the factory that takes on average 2 1/2 hours.

The kids loved every minute of it.  Part of Cadbury’s genius is that each person gets two full-sized candy bars upon entering.  If you’re just a wee bit bored by any of the information, you can entertain yourself by eating chocolate.  The kids were ecstatic because I never let them have full-size candy bars, and their joy couldn’t be contained when we left the museum portion and entered the actual factory — another candy bar upon entering the factory floor!  They couldn’t believe their good fortune.

And it didn’t end there … at the end of the factory tour, they have a tasting room.  Each person gets a dixie cup full of “chocolate liquor,” which is the liquid chocolate they use as the base for the solid candy bars.  The chocolate liquor comes with your choice of toppings, too.  You can pick marshmallows, jellybabies (what we call gummi bears), white chocolate chips, chocolate-flavored pop rocks, etc.

By this time, Adam and I had each eaten a whole candy bar so the cup of chocolate liquor didn’t seem appetizing, but we wanted to taste it anyway.  We left this area a little green around the gills, but the kids handled it just fine.  We ended the day with 15 candy bars.

They also gave the kids a little quiz to take, which usually the kids hate, but this one had scratch-off answer selections (like a lottery ticket.)  Just that small difference made the kids interested in getting the answers correct.  They paid a lot more attention to the reading material than they have at any other venue, and actually listened to the narrator in the historical movie.  The idea of scratching off the wrong box is unappealing, and the idea of not scratching off any boxes seems like a wasted opportunity.

We don’t have many photos because they didn’t allow them on the actual factory floor.

This guy is showing how they make the hand-moulded chocolate art pieces.

Display of Cadbury products from long ago.

In a separate building, they have a little 4D movie.  It’s basically just a long commercial for Cadbury and wasn’t anything very special, but still a nice way to end the afternoon.

Something Adam and I have both been surprised by is how small and automated these factories are.  We’ve toured several on this trip.

In the Cadbury plant, we only saw 3 employees working on the line … every other employee was working the tour itself, handling the visitors.  This is a working factory that produces millions of candy bars each day, and they have practically nobody working the floor.  It’s amazing.  Adam knows quite a bit about manufacturing, but all the plants he deals with are ones that need a lot more employees on the line … which is why they are all in Mexico and China.  I guess the manufacturing left in the First World nations are for products for which the production process can be almost completely automated.

July 16, Wednesday

Today we left Birmingham and headed to Manchester … home of Daphne Moon from Frasier.

On the way, we happened upon a sign pointing out the Wedgwood Museum.  We stopped on a lark and ended up having a really nice time.  The kids were bored during the first part, which is a history of the Wedgwood family and company, as well as a history of the importance pottery has played in world civilization.  (In a nutshell, the invention of pottery changed the way humans were able to cook and eat food.  It was a game-changer.)

The part the kids liked was a demonstration at the end of how the pottery is actually made.  They had artists working on each of the different stages so you could see how everything is done.  They were good, too.

There was an area where people could paint their own little clay flower.  The flowers were impressive in their intricacy and detail.  Whoever made them knew what they were doing.  Anyway, the kids were all keen to paint one (even Holden!) so we spent quite a long time at this station.

The photos don’t do justice to the flowers.  They are really special.

Holden finished painting his first and went back to watch the guy throwing pots.  The guy was really friendly and answered Holden’s million questions without seeming annoyed, which is quite a feat.  Once Holden gets interested in something, his line of questioning can quickly go from being neat (“hey, a kid is actually interested!”) to feeling like a police interrogation.

In the end, we had to drag the kids out of here.  We had an appointment with the person renting us the house (for key exchange, etc.) and needed to get going.  This guy gave Holden a little clay vase as a souvenir.  It’s wet clay, so maybe we can stick it in the oven when we get home and harden it up.  I don’t have access to a kiln.  But it’s really cool that we now have a piece of Wedgwood pottery made on-site by one of their artists.

And for a random bit of news, Adam and Isabella walked to a nearby grocery store this evening because they were both feeling stir-crazy and wanted to get out of the apartment.  They came back triumphantly with Jammie Dodgers, a shortbread biscuit treat that is the 11th Doctor’s (Matt Smith) favorite snack.  We all tried one and judged them to be kind of terrible.  Sorry, Doctor …. bad dessert choice.  Jammie Dodgers are not cool.

July 17, Thursday

Manchester.  Today’s itinerary had the kids groaning:  two old libraries and an art museum.  Luckily for them, there was also a big shopping mall in the vicinity.

View of Manchester city center.

Old building … it’s an Oyster Bar.

In the mall, one of the first shops we came upon was a Lego store.  They had a kiosk in the center filled with character bits.  For £4.99, you could create three of your own characters with mix-and-match faces, hair, bodies, legs, and accessories.  The kids were all over that.  The Lego people got some of their hard-earned money.

Our kids have actually been pretty stingy with their funds this whole trip.  It takes a lot for them to decide to part with it, and Lego has what it takes.  We spent a lot of time in here.  In the end, I had to force them out because I needed to go potty and couldn’t handle waiting any longer.  It’s the only time I can remember Adam ever being thankful for my tiny bladder.

On to the first of the old libraries:  Chetham’s Library, a favorite hangout of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Isabella didn’t have time to wash her hair this morning, so she asked if she could borrow one of my hats.  I said yes, and lo and behold, she came out wearing this one. [photo below]

I bought it a few weeks ago in Scotland at the Robert Burns Museum and she begged me not to get it because it was so ugly.  For weeks she’s been saying things like, “Please don’t wear that hat, Mama, I don’t want to be seen with you.  It’s so embarrassing.”  When she came out of my room this morning with it on her head, I burst out laughing.  She just smiled and said, “It is an ugly hat, but I make it look cute. I’m workin’ it.”  And she’s right, she does look really cute in it.

Here we are in the Chetham’s Library, the oldest free public reference library in the United Kingdom.  The kids trudging through the library groaning, “It’s summer vacation and we’re in a library.”

Here they are sitting on benches.  No learning will be done!

I, on the other hand, read everything I could.  I had to speed-read most of it because Adam and the kids go through places like this at lighting speed.  I’m hoping that somehow I’ll magically absorb information through osmosis, just by being in the environment.

The bookcase in front of me in this photo is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, called “chained libraries.”  The books were all chained to the bookcase so nobody could steal them, but anyone who wanted was allowed to read them.  You just had to stand there while you read.  The front of the bookcase folded down to form a table to make it a little easier.  These are the original books, but they are so fragile now that nobody is allowed to touch them.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles used to sit in this very booth! discussing deep thoughts together.  Manchester is where the idea of communism was born, and was also at the forefront of the modern Industrial Revolution (modern capitalism).  As my dad would say, “Stuff happened here!!”  Considering how much suffering the ideas dreamed up in this alcove caused, perhaps it would have been better if not quite so much stuff had happened here.

These were the very halls and the very books Marx and Engels used.

Book halls leading to the Reading Room …. the window alcove in the back is where Marx and Engles liked to sit and study together.

The same window from the outside.  When Marx was alive, it had stained glass.  The stained glass was destroyed by a storm and replaced with clear glass in 1875.

On to the second old library:  The John Rylands Library.

It has absolutely magnificent architecture, described as “late-Victorian Neo-Gothic.”  Mrs. Rylands founded the library in memory of her husband John, and intended it to be primarily a theological library.  It “has the appearance of a church, although the concept was of an Oxford college library on a larger scale.”

They have a vast collection of theological texts, including a Gutenberg Bible, and the oldest known piece of the New Testament written on papyrus.  (Pictured below: Papyrus P52, the earliest fragment of the text of the canonical Gospel of John.)

In the main hall of the John Rylands Library, you can see me in the center (with the straw hat) and right behind me you can see Waldo.  Not only did we find him, he photobombed our picture.

Kids waiting for us to finally be done.  At least they were very quiet and respectful.

Lastly, we visited the Manchester Art Gallery.  They have a nice collection of post-impressionist paintings, as well as a gorgeous collection of Dutch paintings.

I am in the back trying to absorb all the beauty and masterwork in at top speed … Holden has a slightly different opinion of the artwork.

“Oh good.  Benches we can lay down on.  Is Mama done yet?  She’s taking forever.”

Aside from the Lego store, today was really boring for the kids.  I know this because they said so … many, many times.  But they are in luck … tomorrow will be much more to their liking.  We’ve booked a session at Breakout Manchester, a “real life Escape Room Game.”