Hey Blog! This week I want to give you an insight to a typical Wednesday out for me. This Wednesday we went to Derby, my local city.
For about a year, we have been meeting two other families nearly every Wednesday. We visit places, such as parks and nature reserves. This week, we decided to go to Derby for two reasons: first, to see the Peregrines, which nest on Derby Cathedral, and the second to visit the “peace doves” exhibit in the Cathedral. The morning began early.
As we go out for the latter half of the day, Wednesdays are usually lighter on bookwork than the other days of the week. I only had to do maths (45’) and piano (40’). In this maths unit we are learning about directed, or negative, numbers, and I was doing ‘algebraic equations with directed number’. As I’m rather a lazy moo because I take a while to start lessons after getting up and having breakfast, I only just finished the little video before it was time to leave, and had to do half the worksheet on the train there. I did get almost all of them right, so I must be able to work just as well on the train! However, I did do my piano, which included making notation of a new piece of music for my practice, called “The playful puppy”. We got into Derby quickly, and then walked from the station to the Cathedral, to find our friends. There was already a small group of DWT (Derbyshire Wildlife Trust) people with scopes up, which they let passers-by use to look at the peregrines. And to all those wondering, they do not only eat peri peri sauce, and smile all the time, they are falcons which eat pigeons and other birds. In the ’70s they were very rare, because of persecution, pesticides, and other nasty things. Now they’re back, nesting on many tall buildings around the country; one of these buildings is Derby Cathedral. By now, the chicks are well grown, and getting ready to fly, mostly by wing flaps to warm them up. I saw all three of them at the same time, and the ‘falcon’ or female sitting on the edge! We also saw the tiercel, or male peregrine, flying around.
After watching the peregrines, we went into the cathedral to have a look at the peace doves. These are about 8000 white paper doves suspended by ribbon, each of which has messages of peace, hope and love on it. They are accompanied by music and colour-changing lights, which makes it a really stunning display. If you live nearby, I recommend going to see it. Then, after admiring the doves for a time, we went over to the silk mill. It was built in the 1700s, and predates the cotton mills at Cromford. At the time we visited it, there was a model railway going, which was quite cool. Shortly afterwards it was time to go home, as I had a cricket match in the evening. This one was an away-from-home game, and we won! Then, yesterday, we played another match and… WON AGAIN!
I am going away this week, so my next post shall be all about where we’re going – Stonehenge and London! Look out for further posts!