Iron Bridge and Boscabel House

First thing on our agenda this morning was to start an industrial revolution. It was either Legend or Lonely Planet that indicates that the Derby family started some iron smelting operations, and made some of the largest pieces that had ever been made. Someone designed them a bridge, and they built it. I'm not sure that it's implicitly fantastic, but the fact that it was the first iron bridge in the whole world, and that every one said it couldn't be done does add some interest. There are ten museums within about 5 miles, all devoted to some aspect of the iron industry. After looking at the bridge, walking over it, walking under it, photographing it, touching it, and walking over it again, we (Steph, Helen, and I) went to the "Enginuity" hands on engineering museum. (Berenice, Christopher, and Joanna walked around the valley for a while.) Inside, we played with some virtual x-rays, gravel mining operations, hydroelectricity systems, pneumatic robots, and some internal combustion engines. It seems the gravel mining scored highest for the girls.

Afterwards, we went on (by a surprisingly direct route) to Boscobel House and the "original" Royal Oak. My historical interest neurons failed to fire sufficiently on this occasion. The only reason that people pay money to see this particular house is that some scallywag recently-ex-king hid there for a day or two, some of it up a tree, while avoiding soldiers of the revolution, on his way to relative freedom in that place where French Fries come from. This must be why the Americans decided to call them Freedom Fries. We were shown some various bedrooms, sitting rooms, priest-holes where the dodgy catholic monsignors could hide. Christopher slept through most of the guided tour, but really enjoyed chasing the chickens and geese. The visit turned out to be a good excuse to make another Keynesian attempt to revive the UK Hot Chocolate industry.

Now at this point, I want to talk about fuel economy. We found a cheapish diesel place (97.9p/L) and filled up with 32L after travelling 341 miles (546 km). That's 5.8 L/100km, which is better than my little Mazda 121, and about half what the Magna gets, and the Zafira's been carrying 6 people & stuff for much of that time! Admittedly there's been a good proportion of motorway driving, but I'm still very pleased. It makes me think that maybe we should try to bring the Zafira home with us. I don't know whether there are any diesel ones available in Australia. Not sure what the servicing implications are, although it only requires one service each year or 20,000 miles.


I've discovered an entertaining show on Classic FM called "Tony Robinson's Friendly Guide to Music" - a humerous introduction to classical music. It's definitely not highbrow (like BBC Radio 3, which I do also listen to), but it's lots of fun. We've heard about Chopin, Liszt, and Bizet tonight. It was interesting to hear his characterisation of Baroque, Classical, and Romantic. Baroque is about rules, and who can be the biggest control freak; Classical is pushing rules to their limits; and Romantic is proving that you know the rules so well that you can break them for effect. It's times like this that I wish I'd studied such things more academically.

Tomorrow's plan is to visit Gloucester and Hereford for Communion and Evensong (although not necessarily respectively). The music lists will help me make that decision.