Thursday, April 12, 2018

The Big Man and the Little Train

What do you do with children on a grey day? 

Take the bus to Mumbles, eat pizza in the castle field, find a knife (ancient dagger?) at the back of the castle, have ice cream in Joe's, take the train back to Blackpill waving like crazy things at passers-by, play in the park, collect plastic and shells from the beach, watch Boss Baby on television. 



Granddad takes them home while Granny gets ready for weigh-in and exercise class though it's the last thing in the world she feels like doing. Gets home to pizza cooked by Granddad and stays awake until it's time for bed.

What do you do with children on a sunny day?

Take them to see Man Engine awakening.

The largest mechanical puppet ever made in Britain. Made in Cornwall and touring historic industrial sites. The Vivian family owned smelting works in Swansea valley and copper was brought across the sea from Cornwall. South Wales had the coal and the industrialists  realised it was more economical to bring copper here than take coal there.

The other requirement for smelting copper was ammonia. A woman would walk the streets of Swansea collecting urine to sell to the smelting works. I didn't know that!

5 comments:

Ole Phat Stu said...

That's where the expression "Taking the Piss" came from ;-)

Although usually it was used for tanning leather.

Liz Hinds said...

Oh I see. Interesting. Smelly job though.

SmitoniusAndSonata said...

Used in printing patterns on chintz, too.

Liz Hinds said...

That sort of puts me off chintz ...

Furtheron said...

Love the robot brilliant