Day 3
DAY 3 - Wednesday 5th June 2024
Today was a much more relaxed and dry day here in Keswick. We split into two smaller groups. The first group headed off to the pencil museum with the second going to the puzzle museum. We then alternated the activities after meeting up back at the centre to make and eat our lunch. After the two museums the two groups met on the park to play and we also enjoyed an ice-cream.
The puzzle museum had an array of illusions and tricks of the mind that got all our brains ticking. Some of the most mind-boggling features were the anti-gravity water, a room in which balls rolled uphill instead of down and a room which changed people’s height. All the children really enjoyed working out all the illusions. They then had the opportunity to spend their money in the puzzle shop and sweet shop. There was plenty to choose from but everybody made sensible choices with their money.
The pencil museum was much more exciting than it sounds. We had a tour round learning the process for combining graphite with cedar wood to create pencils. We saw the world’s longest colouring pencil and a spy pencil that was invented during WWII by Charles Fraser Smith, the man who inspired the James Bond character ‘Q’. The smart gadget contained a map and a compass that was cleverly concealed inside the middle of a pencil. The Derwent Pencil factory have since created a replica which can be bought in their shop. The museum also had on display a special pencil they designed and made two of for the King’s coronation. One sits proudly in the museum and the other is in Buckingham Palace, maybe the king uses it to complete his crosswords. We followed our tour of the museum by completing a landscape art picture by carefully folding and decorating paper to create a scene.
Following a relaxed but fun-filled day we enjoyed a fantastic meal of pizza, wedges and salad followed by Jelly and ice cream.
After dinner we played party games. Despite their best efforts nobody managed to get their hat, scarf and gloves on before using a knife and fork to eat a bar of chocolate, although the screams might have been heard back in Mansfield. We also played pin the microphone on the masked singer and four corners.