Jo'ville upon Mersey Pt.II

On Saturday I went to this famous city and seaport in the North-west of England for the day by coach from our town along the motorway network with Daddy, to which I don't enjoy the best of relationships with although today did prove to be pretty good on that front.

When we set out from our town in the North-west Midlands, it has raining quite hard continuing in a rainbelt from West Bromwich  in the south of Staffordshire to the outskirts of Newton Le Willows, Lancashire.
I won two prizes on the coach raffle!
Strangle enough as we got toward the turnings for Prescot and Liverpool it got suddenly very sunny as it was also on the North wales coast.
That picture is of the Three Graces , taken from the Albert Dock on the banks of the river Mersey which means I was in.....Liverpool! Yay!!!

 Above are a couple of pictures of the vessel Glaciere built in 1899

 I noticed today was a really good day for observing reflections  and this picture summed up just how much they really help make a picture.

I spend most of the day inside the Merseyside Maritime  Museum seeing the exhibits on the RMS Lusitania that was sunk during the First World War and RMS Titanic than sunk memorably on April 12, 1912 which is something Daddy is interested in heaps.
I was more interested in the exhibits that looked at Slavery, which as port, Liverpool like Bristol was involved in heavily until its abolition and using an interactive display I discovered how many of Liverpool's famous streets and building were built very much on the profits from that trade.
As well, there was a series of exhibits looking at racism and racist attitudes over the centuries  both in the UK and across the Americas. I shuddered when I encountered a  KKK robe and conical hat.
There also was a moving set of exhibits about migration to Canada as well as Australia of British school-age children from the cities and the appalling treatment some received and how immigration has changed the UK over the centuries.

I visited the HMV store in L1, the newish shopping precinct and bought two lps as I had some pre-payed cards for the store and coming back saw several of these Swan vessels some rowed, with children making traversing the Mersey.
I had a good time and for once I felt comfortable, safe even being around Daddy.

Pushing the boat out

One of the memorable events of the Diamond Jubilee was the Thames pageant on Sunday last which, notwithstanding the god awful weather, continues pretty much to plan bar the air flypast and here's one image I like from it for anyone that missed the tv and newspaper coverage.
I quite like boats having sailed in my youth and this was a great colourful spectacular two years in the planning showing the man powered boats making their way down the Thames.

Today I've been sorting some stuff out for Goodwill as one side effect of running around and playing  is some of my BG clothes no longer fit as I've lost some weight which may mean more space for my LG stuff as most of that is either stretchy or has elasticated waists so fits even better (yay!)and making space for a new item that Taffy would wholeheartedly approve of (shh).

The Adventurous Four

I don't know about you but adventure stories have always had an appeal and two wonderful books in the series The Adventurous Four set off the Scottish West coast where four children with the oldest Andy aged 14 who's acquired already a good knowledge of the sea, islands and sealife is  helping his Dad,  encounter Nazi's thieves and gunrunners.
The series is very much set in Wartime arguably more so than any other of Enid Blyton's work and sees them taken prisoner by the Nazi's resolving to show them what Scots are made of.

These are my copies in the Deans Rewards series from 1973 where as with a few other series such as the Famous Five, the skirts and shorts worn by the children in the original  covers are replaced with Jeans although we all know children during the War never had Jeans!