Miscellaneous items:

Irish dance is a big deal at the kids' school. Once I was waiting in the school office with two other moms who were trying to figure out how they were connected in the intricate web of that world. "You know G-?", said one mom. "My sister has a daughter to her son."

I worked the toy tombola at the school fair. A line of toys is arranged on a table, each labeled with a number ending in 0 or 5. You pay to pick a certain number of chances to pick numbered tickets from a grab bag, and if one of your tickets has the same number as the label in front of one of the toys, you get that toy. It was one of the most popular stalls and the line moved slowly when parents plunked down enough change for 30 chances or preschoolers fumbled with the folded tickets. Lots of kids ended up with nothing, and even the winners rarely won the toy they wanted, and there was a lot of crying. We had to be ruthless about not allowing switches. "It is important for them to understand rules!" said the German mother when I said the tears were starting to get to me. The table next door was doing the same thing but with various kinds of alcohol as the prizes, and there didn't seem to be any tears over there. "Do you have a parent with you?" said the volunteer doubtfully when a kid of about 11 won a bottle of wine. "Hm well make sure you give it to them!".

I went to the Salford Art Gallery, which has a model of a Victorian street you can wander through. We went to a museum in York that had something similar but in this one "it is always tea-time on a winter’s evening" and you get to carry a little lantern.

I'm at the Victorian swimming pool. I'm at the event space. I'm at the combination Victorian swimming pool-event space.

On the walk home from school a few weeks ago, N saw a hedgehog stuck in a hole in someone's driveway. The driveway was gated so the next day, T and the kids went back and asked the homeowner if they could rescue it. T had to lie flat on his stomach on the driveway and got pricked through his gardening gloves, but he got it out. It nibbled some dog food offered by the guy who lived there and had some water, then scurried into a bush.

In closing, here is an ad for funeral services on a milk bottle.