Friday, September 01, 2006

Boats and biggots


The boat museum at Ellesmere is an interesting place if you are into canals and narrow boats. It's not badly priced either and as they were doing 2 for the price of 1 vouchers on their web site it was even better value for money.
http://www.boatmuseum.org.uk/

My Hi-light was looking around the porters houses. There are only 4 left and one of them was furnished in 50's style. The other three are furnished in 30's, victorian and as they were built style. I Love this range, it reminds me of one my aunt used to have in her house when I was a child. She only used it as a fire as she had a cooker in the kitchen, but I have been told by my sister that before she could afford a cooker, she had one in the kitchen too.

There are a few old working boats that have been renovated, some ready to be renovated and some in the middle of renovation.

There is a large building that houses their collection of table flaps, plates, models and best of all
a childrens play area where they can rebuild a boat made of large covered soft blocks. This area unfortunately was the lo-light of my trip.

Kai is mixed race and 3 years old, he saw the boat being built by some older kids along with their Granny and Mum and ran over enthusiasticly. He picked up a huge block and asked the Granny if he could help and was told really rudely to 'wait a minute' At first I took no notice and sat down. Granny was just putting the finishing touches to the boat when Kai then asked her if he could get in it and this time she almost shouted at him to 'wait a minute' At this point a little girl of about the same age, belonging to someone else, walked up and asked if she could get in the boat, to which the woman picked her up, placed her in the boat and told her to hold onto her dolly tightly. Now I am not a paranoid person, but it seemed quite obvious to me that she had a problem with Kai's 'ethnicity'. I wasn't about to make a scene, but I then made it very clear that Kai was with me and told him quite plainly so she could hear, to wait until 'they have gone away' I gave her the most evil look and it was then she realised there was no black Mummy or Daddy who hadn't heard or seen how she had been towards a 3 year old but me, and that I knew exactly what her problem was. I was really fuming, and luckily for Granny and Mummy, my daughter was in the toilet. She has a lot shorter fuse than me, but she could see I was furious and so could the 2 witches from Liverpool. Thankfully they made a really quick exit not long after that and then Kai and I had the satisfaction of demolishing all their hard work, although that's the whole point of the thing anyway.

Anyway, onto important things. We took a little trip on the canal from the museum. The area is grotty and I am glad I have never made the journey from Chester by boat to the museum. I love canals but that part was too depressing. I think the area is about to get some revamping, and it could really do with it. It's by the Manchester ship canal too and apparently there is still quite a lot of ship traffic on it. And I know cos I saw one!! Yippy doo!!!

They have a great shop. It was like heaven to me as they have a biggish book area. They also have a very nice cafe and I strongly recommend the bakewell tart!

5 comments:

Pete said...

Sounds Lovely, shame it was spoiled by that awful woman

Anonymous said...

I'm afraid my fuse would have been somewhat shorter if I'd heard it, too. Where was I? In the loo?

I've gotta get to grips with an Aga (the proper old coal fired type) when I go to stay at Claypit next month. Somehow I think there are going to be a lot of take-aways! LOL.

Unknown said...

Sharon
I am sure that if you go on line you will find an instruction manual for an aga. Surely R's mum will show you anyway?

Unknown said...

Knowley
I wouldn't let a person of such biggotry spoil my day. Besides Kai's smile makes up for those type of people.

Anonymous said...

She'll show me, yes. But according to Jennie, his sister, it's a monster that should have been shot years ago. She grew up with it but still won't go near the thing!