Visitors!

Best. Day. Ever. 

I've been looking forward to this, well--for nearly six months. And my expectations were exceeded. 

We went mudlarking! (We went on a guided tour of the Thames foreshore where we were allowed to pick up stuff from the ground, which the archeologist on the tour helped identify.)

There were just oodles of roof tiles from all times from Roman (thicker) to the present and every time in between. And oodles of bones from animals (some really old) and animal teeth, some fossilized. 

The chains on the wall are for if the tide comes in quickly and you need to swim over to save yourself--the tide comes in to the top of the green on the wall. 

It was a lovely, warm, sunny day. 

There were tons of clay pipe stems (you can see them in the picture above)--and we found a couple of clay pipe bowls, which the archeologist helped us date by the size of the bowl--as tobacco gets cheaper, the bowl gets bigger. 

We all had fun finding stuff--you don't dig--you just pick from what you can see. Blaze picked up dozens of clay pipe stems, for instance. He was so proud that our haul was the biggest of anyone's (of course a bigger haul is not better, but Blaze does not know that--you should have seen him presiding over that enormous pile, as the archeologist told us what was what--medieval and Tudor and Victorian pottery in that pile--porcelain and Delft and German pottery.) It was so fun to get our hands (well, our latex gloves) on history. (There is rat urine in the water that can give you a disease that can kill you without antibiotics. Q promptly put a clay pipe up to his lips and blew on it after we got home.)

I really can't tell you how much fun we had--a delightful activity for 5-65 years old. 

Oh, the rocks were slippery, so from time to time each boy wiped out. And ended coated with rat-urine disease-filled mud. I was admirably totally calm.  

At prayer time tonight, Blaze prayed for "the archeologist," even delightfully mispronouncing it a bit. 

We got the boys McDonalds for a cheap treat. 

Then we headed to the Barbican Conservatory, so Q could show his grandparents one of his favorite parts of London. 

We paused for tea, including popping boba tea, a first for all of us. 

Then we met up with Francisco for the Oxford/Cambridge boat race. Nana and Papa want to know if you participated in this Stearns?

We stumbled home, totally exhausted. Francisco got leftovers on the table. We watched the Famous Five that just came out (we love this!). And we are going to bed early. 

Oh--Q has not been eating normally and has been grumpy. Turns out he has a little fever. Poor, poor kid--I dragged him through a long, tiring day, bribing him to hang in there, only to discover I should have let him rest. 

We've been delighting in Blaze's accent. According to Francisco, the other day he said, "I'm tired. I need to have a lie down with my teddy." Amazing.