It's half term and our friends and their son are staying no more than fifteen miles away from us. Yesterday we arranged to spend the day together and because it was cold and wet we suggested the Lakeland Motor Museum which is under cover, dry, warm, and fascinating to boot.
The five of us spent a good couple of hours crawling all over the cars, fire engines, motorbikes, pedal cars etc and had a whale of a time. Unlike many museums this one constantly updates its exhibits and this time there were new features on the Womens' Land Army, and on a 1930s car showroom complete with 'contemporary' write-ups on the 'brand new' cars and a on-the-road price - of about £200!
As well as all the vehicles and associated stuff (driving fashions through the ages; car themed crockery; motoring posters etc), the museum houses a small but separate section on the making of ultramarine 'blue' for the laundry industry. My Mum still had a little 'bag blue' hidden away under the sink and I suspect many people remember their parents or grandparents using them in the wash. The museum is housed in an old building that used to be a 'blue' factory - in both senses of the phrase since the powder got everywhere, inside and out, and dyed the walls bright blue. You can still see this in places inside as they've left one or two walls untouched to show how it would have looked.
All in all it's a fascinating place to poke round and our friends thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Just as well since the previous day they'd done the Bond Car museum at Keswick which they said was utterly disappointing.
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