As I cycled to the Castle this morning, I was greeted by a sweet smell floating across the park. A large inhale... yes, it was probably the nearby McVitie's factory cooking biscuits. We often get visitors at the Museum who ask what the smell is. We pop outside the building, take a deep breath and reply 'custard creams today' before explaining about McVitie's. Still known locally as Carrs, the factory stands on a major road junction near a large Sainsbury's supermarket, which probably sells many of the range of biscuits produced in the factory. It is one of the oldest and biggest biscuit factories in the world, opening in 1831. Started by Jonathon Dodgson Carr, a baker, who built a flour mill, bread and biscuit bakery before gaining a Royal Warrant for his biscuits in 1841. By 1881, Carr was employing 222 men, 36 women and 53 boys at his factory. Not bad for the son of a Kendal grocer. McVitie's is still a major employer in the city, with staff producing 250,000 ...
The Adaptable Knitted Rabbit Trail... As a Military Museum, we are not normally associated with these cottontail creatures. Especially the knitted variety. But what we do pride ourselves in is engaging with our visitors. And at this time of year our woolly friends like to make an appearance for our younger audience. Our original Easter holiday activity was a quiz and trail around the Museum but we soon found that our younger visitors over the holidays tended to be under ten years old, with many even younger. So our trail was not suitable. What the youngsters really wanted to do was something a little bit more basic. Welcome to our annual Easter trail. The wee bunnies were created by my mum (thanks mum! x) after we decided that looking for things for a younger audience would be fun. We first trialled the idea, and it proved to be an immediate success. Plus the 12 little rabbits could easily slip into our display cases and the trail can be changed each year to offer ...
T onight is another night out in the garden camping. Tonight we are having a Ranger Guide campout with all the girls either camping in their garden or inside their house. We have arranged a call at 7pm and may even burst into song with a virtual campfire. We have all arranged to photograph the evidence of our group sleep out and post it in our WhatsApp group. Luckily the weather is good and it is set to be a warm night so we shouldn't have many mishaps. We were due to go camping as a unit in July but this is unlikely to happen. It is good to encourage the girls to enjoy the great outdoors and camping is an excellent way to introduce them to this primitive way of living outside. I have camped since I was a Guide enjoying weekends, weeks and even longer camps all across the Country from Cornwall to Scotland, Yorkshire to Norfolk. Obviously the weather is a factor in making camp a wonderful experience but it is good to teach the girls that you can still have a great time in the wind a...
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