We decided on the spur of the moment to use our return tickets to the Black Country Living History Museum with some friends yesterday.
Here are the kids playing on a pile of waste coal bits, which has a little track and train on it.
A lovely horse. Apparently he’s famous and has been on TV quite a few times (apparently a few of the horses there have been)
I was listening to the lady with him tell us about how he was actually nearly asleep when I was taking this photo. If you look at his back legs he has them braced, and that’s why it seems like one of them is on tip toes. Apparently the one slightly lifted and the front diagonal are resting, and the other two legs are taking all his weight. Some horses learn how to do this to stop themselves falling over when they doze off.
Just before I took this photo, they were holding hands. Missed it! gah!
Sitting down for some lunch.
A shop window. I thought all the stuff was really interesting. 
Especially this little stuffed elephant.
Another lovely horse. Apparently this one was in a show with “Dick and Dom”. Something to do with transport. He was really hungry and finished off his hay, then couldn’t reach the stuff on the floor because he was tied to the wall, and kept clawing at it with his hoof. We just finished The Horse and His Boy the other night, and I asked Eve if she thought Bree would be about the same size, but she thinks Bree would be “much bigger”.
Messing around outside the yard (no sweets allowed!)
We watched a school party play with the hoops and sticks and the cup and balls.
Then we hitched a ride on a tram. The kids on the tram already (school party) were quite rude and didn’t actually want to move up to allow us to sit down. One girl maintained a whole seating placement for her (very plastic looking, but obviously pride and joy) One Direction shoulder bag. Bleugh. 
This is us coming out of the mines, which all three of mine managaged, although Isaac got pretty bored towards the end… AND I ended up carrying him all the way around. Willow got a little scared of the dark too, but only when she remembered! I wish I had taken a photo of the entrance to the mines, because it was pretty cool.
Willow on one of the streets
The grocery store.
Here you can see the upper part of the town – the chip shop and the tailors, the motorcycle shop and the tobacconist. And the bridge WIllow is crossing goes over the canal. 
The pub at the end of the road (still haven’t been in there!) and a hardware store.
The inside of one of the houses we didn’t get to see last time because it was packed out with school kids every time we walked past.
This is one of the more posh and more modern houses for the time, Not only is there an organ in the front room, but thy also have electricity in the back room here.
My mum would point out the “poor mans lace” on the shelf edges in the picture above, which is just cut up newspaper. They’ve done the same in the photo below, but to a different design.
The tiling around the fire-place here is also far from basic.
Here are the kids investigating one of the yards. It has a sharpening stone right at the back!
I think this is the black smiths place?
The school parties finally left and we got a chance to play with the equipment. (There was no girls vs boys in our games either!)
Isaac got bored so we went off to have a look at some of the boats while the older children kept playing.
Can you see the shed in the back… it’s made out of the prow of a boat. How cool is that?! Talk about not letting anything go to waste!
One of the ladies came out and brought my smalls the remnants of a loaf of bread to feed to the ducks. The stood on the canal bank and nearly gave me a heart attack several times when it looked like the momentum of their throw might have them end up in there with the ducks and the bread! (Yes, I kept making them move back!)
By the time we were ready to go back, the fish and chip shop was shut. Sensing the disappointment, this lovely man who runs the tailor shop invited us in to tell us about the history of the place and about the clothes and a few other bits. Apparently when they investigated the building (All the buildings here have been donated, carefully demolished and rebuilt on the site) they found that instead of being the Victorian tailors building it looked like (with the chip shop next door) it had originally been a Georgian mansion! Some previous owner had put bricks over the front to keep up with the times! 
Guess how much this suit cost? 5 pounds in old money. Apparently that’s around £750 in todays money! Can you imagine spending that much on a suit?!
He even showed the kids some of the old money he had in his wallet.
He had a special treat for the girls, he let them wear these hats. According to him, this style of hat was originally designed and made for women.
Eve was still grieving the loss of chips…
David tried on a really cool hat.
Another tram ride back to the exit.
The perfect way to end a tiring day.
I really need a new camera. My phone camera is so blurry at times. Sorry about that! Oh, and yes, Isaac breastfed in at least one of the buildings, and guess what – no one really was bothered. Complete non event, as it should be.
