Hey Blog! Sorry it’s been so long since the last instalment, but here it is – the next chapter of the story of the box!

The seaman’s treasure box

The seaman who had bought the box was an able-seaman on the ship Fortunus in the Royal Navy. He had bought the box for his sea-chest, as he was borrowing his grandfather’s, who had been a great friend of one of Nelson’s best commander’s relatives. When he got to the ship, he exchanged all the belongings from his grandfather’s chest into his new one, gave back the borrowed chest and made it so that he could sit on the new one if he wanted to. This was a thing most of the sailors did, as it saved stool space. He played checkers on it when the sea was calm enough, and once or twice singed it when dropping a match. His scrimshaw knife slipped a few times, and marked it. The box rounded the Horn a fair few times, and the sailor, who was soon promoted to 4^th lieutenant, transferred ship many times. Then, one day, a ship flying a flag not usually seen in those waters seemed to follow them. When it had got within hailing distance, it suddenly opened gun-ports and laid bullets in the planking. Some of the men on board were terrified, and let the pirates come on board, despite the other’s efforts to stop them.

The only money found on the ship was collectively 86 silver pieces. So these were taken, and the ship was also taken, along with some of the crew, for deck hands. The 4^th lieutenant was one. He was kept on deck, and had to man the ship and while he did this, he had a plan. Two other members of the crew were kept on deck with him, and together they agreed to turn the ship’s course towards somewhere they wanted her to go, namely, South Africa. But next day, the pirate captain turned the ship south, which was actually their original heading. The next night they couldn’t do it, and it was three days before the captain was not on deck, so they decide to head for Australia. But when they did it was a success. The ship ran aground just south of Perth, and the prisoners could easily break free. The lieutenant’s life was saved, in fact, by the box, for he floated to shore on it. They were welcomed in the manner shipwrecked sailors usually are, and most chose to go home. However, the box’s owner chose to stay, deciding to settle in Australia and live near the coast. Over the course of a few years, he married and found himself with a family, and decided he would give his children the box for their toys. This family were one of the last that this box would know, as they passed things down through the generations.

Hey Blog! This post is about the news and where we find it.

There are many ways to find out what is going on in the world: the radio in my bedroom, the newspaper through the front door, friends you meet, magazines, social media, (antisocial media?), the internet, local chit-chat, gossip and conversation. They all have different benefits, different downsides, etc. but it could be said that there are two main branches of information sourcing. News from primary sources is generally at a national level, formally expressed, covering a wide range of topics with little speculation, and very detailed; and the social secondary sourced is generally passed person to person, at a community-level, informally presented, containing lots of speculation and often quite vague.

Though I am mostly aware of the news from national sources, be it what presenters eat for breakfast or the current state of the economy, during the recent bout of flooding a few weeks ago in the local area, I saw the local-level side as there was a lot of random information being thrown about as to the extent of the floodwater. This was very inexact and you could mostly only trust what you knew and saw. However, there are some places where trust in media at all is very low, mostly when the media of that place is controlled, censored, or biased. Propaganda, misinformation and disinformation, all under the infamous heading “Fake News”, run riot and harm the trustworthy news sources. Ultimately, it’s all down to how people react. Some truths are not very pleasant, but they are the truth, and we need to accept and move on. The news is linked to us, the people, as we are the ones who make the choices and determine what happens. It’s up to us.

Of course, the most important news you need to catch up with is this blog, so keep looking out for posts!

Hey Blog! This post is all about science.

I’m not your typical mad scientist; I don’t have crazy white hair, a secret lab and a bunch of test tubes stuck into a pocket; but all the same I do like a little bit of science. A lot, actually. E=mc², s=d/t, etc. are all very interesting to me; I like condensing a lot of knowledge into a simple formula and discovering the laws of the universe. There are apparently three basic sciences: biology, chemistry and physics. I am not doing a science class for any single one of these at the moment, but we have discussed them, and of the classes I am doing, physics is probably my favourite, followed by chemistry. However, science as a whole is more interesting to me, as one area relates to all the others – studying biology is useless without knowing biological processes, which means you need to learn chemistry, and studying chemical elements is useless without knowing how they react, which means you need to learn physics. However, what defines a science?

All knowledge is learning and almost all academic learning (there are other kinds) is either arts, language, humanities, maths or science. Physics is reputedly “maths with toys” according to Mum’s old maths teacher, though! As such, science is one of the largest branches of learning, and one of the very few where there are ‘right answers’. This is because science explains things in consistent patterns, with rules that cannot be broken, and if a we are given a statement produced by science it is either correct, however unlikely, or the scientist has made a mistake. You can’t break the law of gravity, for example; even if you’re flying on a broomstick, you must be producing drag which the broomstick is countering by magical lift. And the energy for that lift must be coming from somewhere, as we are in a closed system, being in the universe, and as Newton said, “within a closed system nothing can be created or destroyed, only change state” – including energy. As I said above, I love the idea of discovering these little gems which demonstrate all the info in one package, which could be why I like the next thing on the list.

The Periodic Table is The Essential Tool in chemistry. Someone I know was asking for help with some homework questions on her WhatsApp status, so I sent her a message saying “Check your periodic table!”. That’s how useful it is; it will explain almost every chemical question as the arrangement of the elements within will show patterns you wouldn’t have suspected. The most amazing thing about it was that it was constructed before half the elements were discovered. Scientists had long wanted to put all the elements in a table to show how they worked, but there was no pattern to follow. Then Dimitri Mendeleev had a dream, and came up with the idea of leaving gaps for elements that might not be discovered yet. It worked. Every single element discovered since has been predicted by Mendeleev, and he has never been proved wrong…

On to the science classes I am doing now. For a few weeks I have been doing online sessions with Sparking Stem, which must be really good as they have been able to get me to write up my experiments afterwards, of my own choosing – which nothing else has been able to get me to do. They have a lot of information, and an experiment or two, the most recent one has been on the different forms of energy, for example. However, this is not the only thing I do for science. There is Theatre of Science; free science lessons with crazy experiments run by someone with the proper eclectic scientist personality, with the Science Alliance, Theatre of Science’s following, of which I am automatically a member. Both of these have a different vibe, but both are awesome!

Finally, what future do I have with science? Well, it is on my list of things I would consider doing.  I may already be too tall for an astronaut; though there are many kinds of science, so I don’t know which kind would interest me most. Science will always remain intriguing to me, whatever happens, and I hope never to stop exploring its possibilities.

Hey Blog! Last Thursday I went to an amazing event which is only the start of what looks to be a very interesting project!

The Midlands Makers Challenge is an initiative which has run for a few years now, with the aim of getting young people to think about climate (in)action and come up with solutions for problems. Of course, this is something that sounded absolutely great for me, and so Mum managed to orchestrate two teams to get together. Mum has a lot of experience at doing this – she set up the Eco Group a few years ago, and this is a new opportunity for the members, and also a few new people. It will take a long time, as it has a lot of aspects to it, but to start, we had a day out to get to know the brief, the challenge, and some more about everything.

There are hopefully two home ed teams, I don’t know which team I am in yet due to people dropping out at the last minute. Both teams came to the event in Derby, one of the places where the challenge is based. Unfortunately, the Silk Mill (or Museum of Making) where it is being run from, got flooded in the latest episode of flooding, along with Dad’s work and some of the rest of Derby. This has resulted in the first day with the project organisers being in the Museum and Art Gallery. Still, it was a very enjoyable day.

We had to go in early because there was not enough time after my Environmental Management class to get into Derby on time. Therefore, I had to do the class in Derby. The one remotely interesting outcome of this was that I decided I am never going to wear ear buds again! But after this it was quick march to the Museum. Almost everyone else was there, so we then went round to the room it was happening in. There were three tables, for the two teams and the parents, and after sitting down we did the first thing on the list. This was to make an animal out of plasticine. The team I was in made a creature with a Peregrine Falcon head, Cheetah body, Pig tail, and Pangolin feet. If you’ve never heard of a pangolin, it isn’t because it’s a made-up creature, the pangolin is the only scaled mammal in the world, the most illegally trafficked mammal in the world (their scales are sold for traditional medicine) and one of the cutest animals on the planet! They’re one of my favourite animals, but a friend who also likes them suggested the feet idea, not me. The animal challenge was just a warm up, so we soon got into the thick of things…

After a very nice lunch, we got to the brief. We were told the background for the challenge and further information, and were asked to try and design something to solve a water-related problem. My team made an entire river valley, with a beaver dam at the top, a water diverter, a reservoir and a pump to lift the water – all out of a few random materials on a table. This was a representation, not a prototype. One team made a sponge, out of a single square block, which would be put into pavements to soak up the water when it rained, then release it slowly when the flood went down. Quite clever – they didn’t have to make anything at all!

After this step, we put down what we thought about climate change. For some reason, most of my friends don’t like speaking out at events like this, so I was left to explain everything we did. This wasn’t a problem for me, and I did quite a good speech at this point, on climate change. Afterwards, I regretted not recording it, but perhaps I’m not quite as eloquent as Chris Packham yet! Once we had done this, we had a think about the UN sustainable development goals, and then reworked our former designs. There are 17 of the goals in total, of which two directly relate to water and most of the others are in some way linked to it. ‘Life Below Water’ and ‘Clean Water and Sanitation’ both were contemplated, and while we do not yet know what we are doing for our final project, as this will take time and thought to complete, we have got some ideas. For example, giant dehumidifiers, water-recycling showers, astronaut toilets and a water-powered car were all discussed. My team added a water-recycling shower in a small house along the valley we had made earlier. This might be our final design, or it could be something else entirely. Either way, I know this project is going to be fun!

Hey Blog! Woooooo, it’s the Hallowe’en special!

We all know this slightly creepy and dangerous time of year. The one where pumpkins are highly priced in shops, sweets for trick-or-treaters are at a premium, and piles of single-use plastic tat in the shape of skulls, bones, spiders, assorted undead and other evil creatures fill the shelves… Oh, so you don’t think of it like that? Well, all festivals have these piles of tat during them – most of which are only used for one year. It’s very wasteful. And fake cobwebs snare birds, and pollutes if it flies away in an October gale. But the other side of Hallowe’en is spooky and mysterious.

Few people continue to use the apostrophe which reveals its past – as All Hallow’s Eve, the eve of All Saints’ Day. But this Christian festival is only one in a long line of festivals of this type that have been going on in October for a very long time. The Dia de los Muertos, better known as the Day of the Dead, is a Mexican festival where the ancestors rise again. Samhain is a pagan festival where fires are lit, also at this time of year. There are Indian festivals as well at this time. The Chinese have a ghost month (though it’s in August – still, there’s only September between them). Why do all these celebrations happen at the similar times? Is it something that happened before we spread across the planet and all the different ones used to be the same? Or is it that we all as humans felt the same things at the point in the year? Christmas & midwinter have associate happenings across cultures with it too. So has midsummer. Your guess is as good as mine.

Hallowe’en traditions include putting out pumpkins and revering the dead. The latter is more international, but the former is definitely a western culture. It comes from the jack-o-lanterns which scared away evil spirits. However, if you go on the theory that the gates to the land of the dead are open, there are good ghosts as well as bad ghosts there, so don’t get too scared. However, if it’s the gates of hell, as in the Chinese folklore, then yes there’s only bad ghosts in there!

More recently, it’s changed a lot. From a veiled, ghostly day, it’s now commercialised and is all about the parties. There are occasional reminders of the spooky side. For example, famous conjuror Harry Houdini died on Hallowe’en and has reportedly been trying to send a message from the dead ever since, if it’s possible. He hasn’t managed it yet. You-know-who (at least, if you’ve read Harry Potter you know) killed Harry’s parents on the 31^st of October. Nearly everything has a Hallowe’en special around this time – including, it seems, Home Ed in a Shed!

Which is a good way to round off this post. Watch out for witches, warlocks, flying gremlins, pumpkins, scarecrows, ghosts, skeletons, vampires, etc. and have a happy Hallowe’en!

Hey Blog! This week I’m going to try not to tie you all up in knots!

A not is knot just – sorry, restart – a knot is not just any old twist of rope. Knotsmithing is an art. You have to have the knowledge of what secures the rope to something else, and while most people can do the overhand and reef, that’s about as far as it gets. All Scouts should be able to do the reef knot at least, considering it features on the World Scout Badge. However, some people take it a little further, and learn more advanced knots. Then you get on to really top-class knots, which I’m still working on. I have a small but effective knot vocabulary, to which I occasionally add new ones. Last week I learnt the Turk’s Head and the Rolling Hitch, for example.

As for why I like knots, it’s because it’s versatile, being both a crucial survival skill and a decorative pastime; it’s a good way to show a bit of skill; and most of all, it’s really fun!

A collection of my knots – what kind of knot and what they’re used for:

Beginner’s level

• Reef knot – one of the most basic and yet useful. Used when safety is not paramount but you need to tie something up (parcels, etc.). Named by sailors because they used it for reefing sails.
• Sheet bend – another useful bend, or joining knot. Another one with a nautical name – sailors tied sheets (ropes attached to sails) with it. Use in similar circumstances to reef, but maybe more secure and more show-off.
• Clove hitch – a simple hitch (attachment knot). Not vital safety, but good for lashing sticks together over the campfire.
• Round turn and two half-hitches – another hitch, also useful, for tying boats up among other things.
• Figure-of-8 – an elegant stopper knot. Generally nice to know.
• Shoe bow – you tie your shoelaces loads of times over your life – unless you’re a Velcro person. I’m a shoelace person. I also found a better way to tie, with two bands instead of one over the two loops. This has prevented me from having to retie them five times on one walk.

Intermediate level

• Carrick bend – a more decorative and secure ‘bend’ knot. Again, can be used as a substitute for reef knot situations.
• Bowline – indispensable, lifesaver, non-binding noose, and top knot to know. Use for clifftop rescues, poaching, tree climbing, and more.
• Poacher’s noose – a knot for capturing things. Not necessary unless you’re hunting for survival, but good for pranking trick-or-treaters!
• Fisherman’s knot – a bend that joins two ropes in a knot that will outlast the rope itself. Mostly used in climbing as a Prusik knot.
• Slip knot – Binding noose. Similar to Hangman’s noose, but I won’t go into that. More sedately used in casting on while knitting.
• Square & Tripod Lashings – knots to join poles together. One forms a cross (Square), the other joins three side-by-side. Good for picture frames, or cooking pots.
• Various types of quick-releasing hitch – all for quickly untying any horse, boat, or other suspect getaway vehicle, or releasing traps from the ceiling.
• Rolling hitch – a knot that doesn’t slide along another rope. I learnt this one today and am rather proud of it. Used when towing boats, etc.

Advanced level

• Monkey’s Fist – one of the top knots for bragger’s rights, used in keyrings, heave-lines, stoppers, and for whacking things with a rope ball. Takes a while to tighten. Much easier with large, stiffer rope.
• Turk’s Head – used for woggles, paracord poppies and decorative bands. Rather complex but really beautiful and obvious once you get it.
• Alpine Butterfly Loop – a climber’s knot for ziplines, harness attachments, and highwire antics. Maybe a bit tricky, but very elegant.

Clockwise from top left: Sheet bend, Figure of 8, Carrick Bend, Poacher’s Noose, Bowline, Monkey’s Fist, Turk’s Head, Reef Knot, Alpine Butterfly Loop, Rolling Hitch, Fisherman’s Knot.

Now that I’ve informed you about a few knots, you might like to try your own – it’s remarkably satisfying. And who knows, if you get yourself in a situation when the Air Ambulance has to rescue you, at least you know how to tie yourself onto the winch. I recommend 50 knots you need to know, by Marty Allen – this book has taught me a good few. It’s one of the most valuable life skills, and one of the most enjoyable.

Hey Blog! It’s time for another book review, and this one is about a trilogy that might just be one of the best I’ve ever read!

The His Dark Materials series, by Philip Pullman, is, to put it mildly, absolutely brilliant. Very few books I’ve read make it to the top list instantly. These did. They are an incredible mix of sci-fi, fantasy, philosophy, religion, and growing up. I don’t think you could get another story like it. It is set in a multiverse, with “as many [worlds] as there are, no one would have time to find out”, and covers a prophesy heard in the northern lights of a girl whose destiny would be to bring an end to destiny; the culmination of the war in heaven; and the second play of the Garden of Eden. One of the protagonists, Lyra, is in fact, the second Eve. But here, temptation, which created the mysterious particle of Dust and all thoughts after puberty, is a good thing, as adult emotions, consciousness and above all, love, are created by and are the only things which keep the Dust alive. Dust, I feel, is a bit like the Force from Star Wars, as it is created by and sustains living things; in this world we know it as Dark Matter, a particle nigh-impossible to detect which is probably responsible for the universe staying in one piece. Of course, in the multiverse, time splits the universes by different choices being made, which is why we don’t all live in Lyra’s world.

The plot of the first book, Northern Lights starts in an Oxford college in another world, like this, but very different. The biggest difference is that every human has an animal-shaped soul, or dæmon, who is linked to them; during childhood their dæmon can change shape but settles when they grow up. There are a lot more differences between the worlds in the multiverse, and it is later said “perhaps there was only one world after all, which spent its time dreaming of all the others,” and that “when … different things happen the two worlds split apart.” Lyra, a girl who has spent her life living in the college, and her dæmon Pantalaimon, decides to spy on a meeting between the master and her uncle Asriel, manging to save her uncle’s life by stopping him being poisoned. After some even more complicated circumstances, it becomes apparent that children are being abducted, slowly, all over the country. Lyra also meets the glamorous lady Mrs. Coulter, who invites her to stay. One of Lyra’s friends gets kidnaped, and the master secretly gives her an alethiometer – one of six, a golden device that answers your questions. This is one of those things without which the rest of the story wouldn’t exist, as only through reading it does Lyra know what to do. Soon after coming to stay with Mrs. Coulter, she realises she is actually staying with the very lady who leads the kidnapers, and runs away.

At this point, Lyra encounters the canal-boaters, or gyptians, who take her in, before they decide what to do. She discovers she is the daughter of her ‘uncle’ Asriel and Mrs. Coulter – totally to her surprise (WHY do all of these books start with a child who doesn’t know who their parents are?!), and also realises she can read the alethiometer automatically. Not long after this, she and a few of her newfound friends set sail to the north to rescue the captive children – from a fate unthought of and far more horrible than any they could have expected.

If you’re wondering what happens, (chorus please) read the book. However, I can assure you she does survive into book two, The Subtle Knife. This one starts with Will, from our world, who wanders through a window in the multiverse and ends up meeting Lyra and bearing the Subtle Knife, which can cut anything and everything and open windows between worlds. It is really unparalleled. I would describe it as what would happen if god was evil, dark matter was conscious, you could find the truth by asking an instrument, and a knife could create portals. It’s one of the best series I’ve ever read, with one of the most detailed and complex plots; seriously, it is a GOOD BOOK!

Hey Blog! This post seems to have unexpectedly linked with last week’s – it’s also about cotton, but this time I’m introducing the mills in which it was spun!

Cotton is a plant. The seeds exude a white, fluffy substance which is the cotton. This can be picked, baled, and shipped to the mill. In the mill, it goes through a long line of conveyor belts and noisy machines, and comes out the other end as nice clean cotton thread. After another journey and an even noisier loom, you get a roll of cloth, and that fabric can be made into anything. Most people don’t think much more than that – it’s all done automatically in a factory nowadays, right? Well, yes; but in the 1700s when Sir Arkwright was doing his business, no. He and some other entrepreneurs built several mills along the Derwent Valley, which now form the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site – as seen in the last week’s post, this is one of the supporters of the poetry session.

One of those mills is known as Masson Mills, and is Arkwright’s show mill, different to the others – if you have seen them – as Masson is the only one to be built entirely of red brick (brick was more expensive than stone, so it was used to show off). It used to run on water power, from the river Derwent at the back door, but later it was made to run on steam power – another status symbol! The process was to transform bales of rough lumpy cotton into fine, thin threads. First, you put the cotton into a large turning machine nicknamed “the devil”. It had a lot of large iron teeth, and losing limbs in it was not unheard of. This split the cotton into small bits. The next stage was the shredder, which combed it finer, and then the carder. This would make the cotton into thin, wispy strands, which were rolled up around a drum and put into the next part of the process. The frame of drums and spinning rollers both stretched and spun the strands into thread, which was sent to the weavers. All that under one roof. The noise must have been deafening – no soft whirring, but clank-clank-clank of chains and cogs. For 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, every week, from age 9. Not exactly the most pleasant work, but it made a lot of money for the factory owners, whereas the pay was only a few shillings a week for the workers. After the thread had been made, it was taken to a weaving shed. Here, with a lot of even noisier clanking, and a flying shuttle, it makes cloth. Which you could do from age 6…

Masson Mills has both weaving and spinning in it, but originally it only had the spinning stage. The machines are very large – one is 70ft. long! The building is powered by hydroelectricity from the river, so after all these years waterpower is coming back (maybe in a different design, but still renewable!). Since it shut last century, it has been turned into a visitor centre, and makes string for the shop upstairs. We bought a ball of this – it’s very nice. Many of the machines can still be run, even if they don’t do things commercially any more. For the real experience you need to see the mill (I don’t want to put the tour guides out of a job), and it’s well worth a visit!

Hey Blog! Last Saturday I went into Derby to take part in a unique writing opportunity I’m thrilled to share with you!

The workshop was run by the Standing in this Place team, in association with the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage site and Legacy Makers, from Nottingham. Standing in this Place is a group highlighting historical comparisons between black enslaved women in the Americas and white mill-worker women in this country. Noting that less than 5% of statues in this country show non-royal women, the final product of the partnership is to erect a statue of one of each of these two groups of women, showing new connections between the two sides of history. Another aspect of the programme is to use young people’s creative writing talent on a podcast – and for this they ran a workshop. Through Mum’s intricate net of spies and contacts, we already knew one of the organisers of the workshop – she has helped out the Watch Group in the past when we need a poetry session – and she offered me a place. I accepted, and took part!

To start with, only four people attended. Too bad for the five others who dropped out. However, this was good as it meant we each had a chance to write, read our own and listen to other’s poems, which is infinitely better than rushing to write and hardly hearing anyone else. There were two separate sessions, run by different people, and in both the quality was fantastic – but I could hold my own and write equally well, just in a different (that is, MY) style. I said as I came in, “If I get the right inspiration, it’ll be amazing – but I can’t do anything without the inspiration,” to which one of the workshop leaders replied he was there to provide that inspiration. Consequently I wrote very well!

First, we met each other in one of the upstairs rooms, to get to know who each other was (I happened to be the youngest person in the room, but no problem!), and then went around the Standing in this Place exhibition. Here we saw the design for the final statue, which worked its way into all the poems, and after tea and biscuits we had the first session, with Tamika Steadman. To start with, we each wrote a word or two which described the sculpture to us. Then we explained why we had chosen that word. Next, we tried to incorporate a few of these words into a piece of writing. All of us either wrote a poem or poetic prose, all of which were brilliant. After reading them out, we had another short tea break and then went on to the other session, led by Quinton Green. This one was started with a quick-write based on prompts from a large prompt book. I wrote another poem at this stage. Everyone’s first four lines were then transformed into a chant – interspersed with question words and repeated lines.

A note here on prompt books and ‘inspiration’ – this is something I might need – if inspiration strikes suddenly, the best thing is to write it quickly in a little book and come back to it later. If you read Winnie-the-Pooh, you’ll understand! (As an aside, I have a friend who came up with the concept of ‘thought-men’, who run through the computer-like mind; and while writing this I had a vision of something like a little cupid who shoots arrows of inspiration – perhaps these are the same thing!) I am also a firm believer that you do not write because someone tells you to or to make money – you write because you have an idea and to let it go would be a waste. If you have to write ‘on command’ your work will be dull, boring and generally not worth reading. This is why I said in a previous paragraph you need to wait for the ‘inspiration’!

You might have noticed that I haven’t included the poems I wrote. Well, there are a few reasons for this. One reason is that the poem is fairly long, but you may get to hear it – for another is that, as I have told you, there is a podcast on which the poems will be performed, and I plan to send mine in. If and when I get news that they plan to air mine, I will add a link to the podcast on this blog. Keep checking it out!

Hey Blog! On Tuesday I took a day off normal studies and instead went to help with the harvest at our local vineyard!

The Amber Valley Vinyard is a very nice place – we hadn’t even heard of it till a couple of years ago, which is surprising for someone whose family drinks a fair bit (that is, my parents, combined – I have a taster now and again!); but it is more than a vineyard. It has a large collection of local apple tree varieties, from which they make cider; a large field of grapes, from which they make wine, and markets a few times a year. We have been there twice before: once for a market last year and once for the wassailing January this. I wrote about the wassailing on Home Ed in a Shed, for more look for “Here we come a-wassailing”, Jan 23.

Recently, we found out that there was going to be a day when they were inviting volunteers to come and pick grapes. Mum voluntold us we were going, so we did! Dad even got the day off to come, as this was too good an experience to miss! It’s rather enjoyable – the only downside is the wasps. Apparently, the vineyard lost ⅕ – ¼ of the crop this year to wasps; these grapes go brown, shrivelled, and have a hole in the side. I counted a maximum of 17 wasps on one bunch of grapes, at one point, and although most of the bunches on one side of the field were only mildly affected, the other side had barely any whole undamaged grapes left! Unfortunately I have an online science class which isn’t recorded on Tuesday afternoons, so I had to skip part of the grape-picking to come home for an hour. Still, the day was very fun, and in the end the group managed to pick about a ton of grapes, which will make a lot of wine! I don’t think we’ll get quite as much from our own vines, which my big brother gave Dad a few years ago, but we got some useful tips on pruning them! We also bought a bottle of a previous batch, so we can test out what it will likely taste like. I hope to continue to visit – I know it’s still 4½ years till I can have a taster there, but it’s enjoyable to participate in this kind of thing. And who knows, maybe we’ll get to the next lot of grape picking in a couple of weeks’ time!