Chris decided he’d take Our Sidekick to some of the Ironbridge museums then they’d come to have lunch and collect me. It was easier said that done as Our Sidekick couldn’t get his head around why I was allowed to stay at the hostel and he had to go (also why I got the wifi code while they were out even though it wasn’t my turn).
Due to the noisy people upstairs I did more reading that sleeping but I mainly just needed to relax. At one point I had managed to get two bars of signal and my Mum tried to call through with some family news. I said to her “if you can hear this I will call you back via FaceTime” then hung up and called back. She switched on the camera but it was the back camera rather than the front so I could see the bannister and carpet rather than my Mum – she could see me though and could see my reaction to the news.
When I got off the phone I had a little dance round the room as it was good news and then texted Chris and Our Sidekick – figured one of them should gain some signal along the way and get the message.
I finished my reading book, it actually wouldn’t have been my first choice but as I had bought a book from the Kindle store I had a money off voucher thing so downloaded a sample and was gripped by the end of the sample so downloaded the full book. The book was Coming Clean by Kimberley Rae Miller. As she was growing up her father was a hoarder (to the extreme), it’s about how she deals with it as it happens but then also how she deals with the emotional scars that she didn’t necessarily realise were there until she was in her twenties.
A quote that stuck with me in a way was:
In my reading I found that many hoarders have similar stories to my dad.
Maybe they weren’t the children of abusive alcoholics, but they were emotionally neglected at some point in their development. One of the more popular theories behind the triggers for hoarding indicates that people who were neglected emotionally as children learn to form attachments to objects instead of people. When they do connect with others, they then keep any object that reminds them of that person as a way of holding on to those attachments.
The boys came back and we had lunch. Following lunch we went to Enginuity, which is a science museum of sorts that is part of the Ironbridge Gorge museums. Some bits were really good and really interesting but had it not have been included in our museum pass for all the Ironbridge museums it would have been a bit of a waste I think (I could be wrong lol).
There was a big display about hydro electricity. The idea was to try and raise the water level high enough at the start so that there was enough power to supply the “town”. I could get the lights to flicker on and off but not get them to stay on all the time.
I ended up sitting and watching the boys chatting their way through the other displays. The centre has wifi (I guess as Ironbridge area seems to be a black spot lol) so I uploaded pictures to Instagram and could up with bits.
One of the hands on displays that I liked was the one shown in the picture below. The idea was to attempt to build a building that could withstand an earthquake. There was a lever to make the table shake either fast or slow. I’d almost finished my building when I caught my bump on the lever which meant it started a slow earthquake oops!
Another display that I really enjoyed me there was this one of how sewing machines have developed. At the bottom was the oldest and the newest was at the top.
My first sewing machine was a hand driven Singer machine – we’d seen a similar one at Blist’s Hill and I’d told Chris all about it so decided to keep my sewing machine information to myself rather than boring the boys even more lol.
Following the museum we headed to Ironbridge itself so that we could see the bridge. I grabbed a drink on our way up to the bridge – haven’t drank a can of cola that quick in a while – the shop had bottles but they were obviously cashing in on the location – it was nearly £2 for a 500ml bottle – that’s like London prices.
We stood on the bridge and Our Sidekick took a photo of Chris and I for me. We then wandered along to have a look at the toll house. I was struggling so spent most of the time sat downstairs waiting for Chris to finish. At one point Our Sidekick and I went outside to eat a snack. He’d got Hot Cross Buns with him – I had a half and he had some. As I was eating my bit a dog went past being walked by his owner, he decided that he wanted my hot cross bun so tried to grab it out my hand and snapped my thumb too. I was okay and no blood was drawn but my hand hurt for a little bit.
For dinner we headed back to the hostel and Our Sidekick made Hunter’s Chicken. It’s a favourite in our house. Our Sidekick loves chicken and it’s has BBQ sauce and bacon what more could you like lol. Chris does a version of it that’s low sun when I’m 100% on plan. It’s pretty much bacon with the fat cut off, the chicken breast is free food and he uses BBQ Sauce which I think he carefully measures out how many syns are in the tablespoon that he does put on my chicken lol.
Following dinner, we played pool. It was Chris and I against Our Sidekick. It was very funny as some shots I couldn’t reach because of my bump. Thankfully Chris could help too.
Read about our other adventures while on this trip here.
