We all slept fairly well although at around 3.30am Al did have to get up and tell Robert it was not yet morning and to turn off his light and put down his book! Our first stop today was Denbigh castle, we managed to find some appropriately large parking spaces in a shopping centre then it was a steep walk to the top.

There wasn’t too much of the castle left but they did have some Easter activities which made it much more enjoyable for the kids starting off with crafting which my two love.

Next they were given an Easter trail where they had to find 20 wooden rabbits that were hidden around the remains. The promise of a chocolate egg at the end was all the incentive they needed and it kept them entertained whilst exploring all the nooks and crannies with Robert finding way more secretive places he would be hiding the rabbits.

There were several people dressed in olden days costumes and a couple of them were doing archery. Robert and I had a go which was quite fun.

Finally for the kids (and Al as there were a couple of spaces left) they had sword training where they were given wooden swords and shown various moves ending in them mounting their pretend horse, making their battle cry and attacking one of the ‘actors’.

It was way past lunch and I was amazed at how we’d not yet been bothered about where the snacks were and how they were so hungry but I knew we couldn’t push it much longer so we retreated back to the moho to get lunch then drove to the 1950s museum Al had seen advertised whilst looking for things to do in the area. I had visions of Beamish, Milestones, the Black Country museum and thought we wouldn’t have much time to explore, I had even pre warned the kids that if there was an old fashioned sweet shop that they wouldn’t be getting anything as they’d already had plenty of sweet treats today.

I needn’t have worried about that as when we turned up it was literally an old shed at the bottom of a lane that someone had spent the last several years kitting out with things from that era, don’t get me wrong there was so much of interest inside but it really didn’t have the external wow factor.

We rang the bell as instructed by the sign of no one was around but after a good 5 minutes we just wandered inside the museum to see if anyone was about. Eventually an old man came walking up so we headed back to reception. He was 85 years young and I can imagine lived the most interesting life. As we were walking around the museum he came over and shared stories from his own life and how he came into possession of some of the items. It had a slight feeling of the antiques store we’d visited yesterday. Most items were well used and had a real charm to them.

He’d done a good job of sorting them into different theme whether that was about various policital scandals, famous crooks like the Kray twins, pin up girls, musicians then household objects organised by rooms.

We got the chance to have a good discussion with the children about sensitive topics such as racism, sexism and same sex relationships as there were some very cringy articles about these topics on display. I think for me the section on race was by far the most eye opening seeing adverts depicting small children - a white child asking a black child why their mum didn’t wash them with a particular brand of soap and even mecanno toys featuring the N word! Robert has been learning a lot about inclusion at school recently so it was good to get his take on things and see how far we’ve come for the better. I couldn’t help but laugh at the posters for how to be a good wife either, don’t think I would have done so well 70 years ago!

The chap had an extensive collection of match boxes and cigarette packets and he shared with us some of his stories about how they stopped being allowed to add cards that children would collect so one company started adding them to the insides of the packet and they all begged their parents to change to smoking that brand.

There were adverts for smoking to cure asthma and special cigarettes for pregnant women. Liliya really enjoyed looking at all the old fancy ladies clothes although was shocked by some of the hairdryers and make up they had on display and how big they were.

We said our goodbyes then made our way back to the campsite. Before cooking Al took us for a walk in the woods, the site were staying at is at the end of an airfield so we saw a small plane take off and apparently through the woods we could see a selection of sculptures.

There wasn’t any more information on how many and we only saw 3 so still not sure if that was them all or if we’d have carried on further we’d have seen many more.

What we did find was plenty of muddy paths and puddles which Liliya for all her girlie girl traits loved jumping in.

Al started cooking whilst I took the kids for a shower, when we returned Al had bad news, I had visions of more major moho issues but we’d just forgot to pack gravy to go with our corned beef hash so it was a quick drive back to the shops for more supplies before eating Robert’s third favourite meal (behind, sushi and stuffed crust pizza). Sounds like tomorrow there’s another castle in store for us plus a visit to the cinema.