Holly 18, 24th June

Our outing today was a coal mining tour with a man called Tony and he used to work the coal mine. He started when he was 17.  We didn't really go in the real mine because it was too far down. Our tour started in a room called the Winding room for the Bertie mine. The other mine was called Trevor.  The Winding room was where a man would pull a big cage up from the mine.  The cage would come up at 30 feet per second.  Tony said it was very fast and scary. The next room was the lantern room that they all kept their helmets and lanterns in.  They had a special way of seeing if there was poisonous gas in the mine.  They got a lantern that had a special cover over it that the flame could not get out of. They could tell what gas there was by the size of the blue haze around the flame.

We went down a mine shaft and tony said that they used dynamite to blow holes in the mines to make the tunnels bigger. Children and women also worked in mines.  They pulled carts and opened doors for the carts. They had to work in the dark.  The children started working in the mines when they were only 6 years old.  In the mines there were ponies that also pulled the carts. The ponies stayed in the mines all the time except for 2 weeks holiday.

Holly 17, 23rd June

On our last day in London we all went to a market where there were some street shows oh. The first one was a man that first swallowed a balloon, but I don't think he actually swallowed it.  Then he got himself wrapped up in a chain and a straight jacket and got himself out.  He was also very funny.

We also saw a lady who could hang upside down on a ladder and juggle knives. She did lots of other cool things as well.

Now we are in a really cool house that is 600 years old. It has 3 cats that we are looking after. They are all boys. Tinker is the ginger one and he is very friendly.  Beau is a grey blue colour and is very shy. Ben is black and is so shy we have never seen him but Mum and Dad have.

The house has 2 bird feeds and lots of birds come and they are all quite small. Some of them are called blue tits.  There are also some squirrels that come to the window.

The milk gets delivered in a wooden box at the front door and it comes in glass bottles. They had a garage with a tricycle in it that Aidan pushes me on. It is really fun.

Aidan 18, 24 June

It has been a while since I last posted. We are in a really nice house sit. It is in Wales. Here a lot of the people speak Welsh as well as English. The road signs are in English and Welsh.  To say Hello in Welsh you can say,  shamae

http://www.omniglot.com/soundfiles/welsh/hello3_cy.mp3

One of the places we have been is a castle. It was called Castell Caerffili.

We walked around and listened to a man telling other kids about the castle.

In castles they had toilets that were above the moats so everything would wash away.  Sometimes instead they would pour it on their enemies if they were trying to break into the castle.

The castle was really big and it had a dragon.

Our outing today was going to a coal mine where we went of a tour with a man whose name was Tony.  He took us into room. It was called the winding room

because it was where they would wind up the chain that carried up the cage that the men would go in to get down into the mine.  The mine shaft was very deep and dark.  Even kids had to go down the mines to work. When they were about 6 their job was to open and close the doors to let the trams come through with the coal.  It was very dark and they had no lights. It would have been very scary.

We also got to feel how scary explosions would be. Tony showed us how they would put dynamite into holes to keep building the mine shaft. He pushed a button then a sound came out of speakers and the ground shook a little bit.

Holly 16, Saturday and Sunday London

Today Mum took Aidan & I to to the market. We tried lots of different food and we smelt some truffles that were really disgusting.

We went to Trafalgar Square where there was a big concert and we got photos with spiderman and a stormtrooper. There were heaps of people there.

At 4 o'clock we went to the dismounting ceremony at the Horse Guards. First seven guards come out and stand in a ine and then two guards that are on guard on horseback come in to the courtyard. Then the sergeant comes out and does the inspection and then they have to dismount their horses like this. First one hits the saddle really hard and they both get off half way, then then he hits it again and they jump all the way off and lead them away.

Aidan 17, London to Wales

 Saturday 18th June

Today we went to a market. We bought a baguette and a big pretzel and tried samples of some of the other things in the market. The market was big, much bigger than the market back at home. 

giant english muffins 

Then we got on a bus to go the Trafalgar Square to have a look at a concert called West End Live 2016. We got a photo with  spiderman and a Stormtrooper and listened to some music for a while. 

We then walked down to horse guards

then back up to west end live for a bit.

At ten to four went to horse guards to watch the dismounting ceremony that started at 4:00. The guards came out a bit early to wait for the inspector to come out and inspect them. This all started when Queen Victoria found the guards partying in the afternoon so she said they have to be inspected at 4 o'clock for the next 100 years.  When the 00 years was up Queen Elizabeth said they had to keep doing it because it is now a tradition. 

When the guards on the horse dismount the boss will shout dismount and one of the guards on the horse will be the leader and he will hit the saddle to tell the others it is time to dismount. They swing their leg over and stand on the left stirrup then the lead guard hit the saddle again and they jump off the horse together.  

Holly 15, Natural History Museum

At the Natural History Museum we found out that when there is an earthquake sometimes there would be a really really big wave called a Tsunami that wrecks all the towns.  Did you know that if a building is made from stiff things then it is most likely to fall over but if it was made from something more flexible it was less likely to fall over in an earthquake? We got to wobble a model of a building and see which would fall down.  The earth is made up of plates and when they move or crash together it can make an earthquake.  Hills and mountains can be made from when the plates push together.

To get into the museum we went up an escalator that went into the inside of a planet or something from space.

There was a simulator that shook and wobbled like a real earthquake. Earthquakes are scary.

We saw a heat suit that scientists wear when they are collecting things from volcanos. It was silver. I learnt that the stuff inside a volcano is called magma and when it comes out it is called lava.

We saw some dinosaur skeletons and one was a stegasaurous.

 We also saw a giant sloth skeleton. They are extinct now.  I got to hold some dinosaur poo.

Outside the museum was a man playing an instrument and he was making flames come out of it.

Aidan 16, Natural History Museum

Today we went to the Natural History Museum.  

We learnt about earthquakes and volcanos. One of the things we learnt was that earthquakes that happen under the ocean can make tsunamis which are huge waves that wash away all the buildings and other things in its way.

We learnt  that there are four different types of volcanos. one of them is called a Stratovolcano.  We got to see the different types of eruptions that would happen if a volcano had lots of gas and thick lava or not a lot of gas and thin lava.

 There was a model that showed that if you make a building made out of bricks and concrete it will probably fall down in an earthquake. If you make a building that is flexible it might not fall down. 

There was a fake supermarket that moved from side to side, it was an earthquake simulator. It had a tv showing a it has mine tv showing the real supermarket in an earthquake in Japan

There were some big dinosaur skeletons and at a stand a man told us about dinosaur poo. Holly and I got to hold the poo, it was as hard as a rock and heavy.  

Aidan 15, 15th & 16th June, London

Wednesday 15th June

Today I got up and Leo was letting me pat him. When Mum, Dad and Holly got up, Mum asked if we wanted to go to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham palace. So we went on two trains to get to the city of London,

 then we walked to St James's Palance and saw the Irish guards band inside the gates, and then a policeman opened it and the guards came out and so did the band. 

The band played while the guard were getting inspected. The other part of the Irish guards were guarding the Queen at the Palace so then the band and the guards marched down the mall to the Palace. We followed them and then the new regiment marched from the other side.

We had to wait for them to do the changing inside the Palace gates then they marched back to St James's Palace.  We saw the horseguards ride past too. We went to the park and fed some squirrels and we had hamburgers for lunch at a pub.

We then got a bus to go see some lemurs at one of the zoos.  

Thursday 16th June

Today we went to see tower bridge open. It opens if a boat that is too big to go under it needs to go through. Today there were three boats going through. To get the bridge open the operators inside have to open it and you have to book a time. The traffic that is going across the bridge had to wait for it to go back down. When it goes up the operators probabley press a button and the bridge will go up slowly.

 After seeing that we went to the museum of London Docklands.  In the museum were things they would have had in the docks. It was in an old warehouse. They would weigh the goods when they came in and weigh them again when they go out. They do this so they know how much came and in they will record it so they know if any of the workers had stolen any of it. 

Somewhere in the ware house they found a mummified cat and rat stuck behind some bottles.

Dad said they probably died because they were stuck for a long time. We left and went to get some lunch and went to a park for an hour and a half after that we got a a bus and came back home.