"National Canal Museum" Gloucester by grandmaR

Our daughter walked in to work again (as she did on Tuesday because the buses don't run that early in the a.m.), and we took the car and went to the Gloucester Waterway Museum with our grandson. The museum is one of our grandson's favorites (he is 8 years old), and we also thought it would be good preparation for the narrowboat trip we were taking starting on the next day.

Our daughter gave us directions for the Shop Mobility place where we could have parked free (my mother used it), but I didn't feel as disabled as that. So we paid £3.00 for parking.

We left late because I was writing up our previous days for the homefolks
(see London, Greenwich, Salisbury, Stonehenge and Avebury

We got to our goal (the National Waterways Museum) about noon after getting lost a couple of times. I was still very nervous about how close Bob was to the left (he was driving the Rover which is RHD), but I think it was pretty much unnecessary - I was just nervous. He did hit another curb, but managed to miss a child of about 3 who jumped out into the street in front of him, causing the mother to yell (loud enough that I could hear her) "You stupid child.. " etc. I would have said she was the stupid one to let a toddler that age be close enough to the road when her mom was far enough away for that to happen.

After we parked, I saw a huge gaggle of middle school kids about ready to go into the museum, so we stopped and ate lunch at the museum shop first. Our grandson had a milkshake (which is a bottled drink and not ice cream) and chips, I had tea (85p), quiche and a jacket potato, and Bob had a tuna sandwich and Sprite (lemonade). The bill was £8.55 ($13.60).

Then we went to the museum £12 for 2 seniors and one child. We did all the interactive things. This included investing in a canal company (I lost all my money), designing a canal (I did this with my grandson - the first time we did it the computer came back and said something to the effect of "I can't believe that they are allowing you to be in charge of this project - you need to go back and work under an engineer as an apprentice", working a lock (on the computer) by doing things in the correct sequence, and designing your own canal boat.

Grandson marking his answer sheet

Our grandson also had a list of things to look for and write down the answers to questions about them, which he turned in at the gift shop to be eligible for a drawing. It was sponsored by a chocolate company.

There were also exhibits on the canal navvies (some boys went to work as young as 8), cargos, a speeon dredger, a coal hoist, a lock gate (a real one - unfortunately so dark that it was hard to take a picture of it - see http://www12.virtualtourist.com/m/4a9c6/4a44a/ for pictures of real ones), information about leggers (when the canal boats couldn't be pulled by the horses through tunnels, the men lay on their backs and walked the boat through - was called legging), and a painted ware gallery (something like Pennsylvania Dutch work). There were also cruises available, but we didn't take one.

After we got home (we are getting better at finding our way back to the house), Bob walked up to the store.