Rural Life Centre

Because Alex's tennis camp was finished Thursday, and because the weather didn't look too dire for the day, he and Grandma and I headed out to the Rural Life Centre for the day. 

The kids and I have been there before - it's a funny old place, full of buildings salvaged from various (mostly local) locations, old items and loads and loads of farm machinery. The idea is to have a museum of different aspects of rural life in the past - and it's a great place for gentle, low-key, poking around, especially if you are into old things.   The top photo is a granary, and this is a little non-conformist chapel.  

There are lots of other buildings, including a shepherd's hut, a post-war pre-fab house, a gypsy caravan (these two photos both from the caravan, which, unfortunately, you can only view the outside of), a cricket pavillion, a Victorian schoolhouse (interior) and so on. And lots of other exhibits as well.

I like looking at all the old items in the various exhibits - for instance a coffee grinder in the pre-fab kitchen, 

 a shelf full of keys

or a basket of old clothes pegs.

There are various activities for the kids to do as well - like helping to hook this rag rug 

or making a rubbing from various plates and signs.

The outsides of the buildings are often as interesting as the insides...

and there's the occasional bonus exhibit - though we didn't see any birds actually using this nest, so I don't know if it's new to this spring or not...

I think this was my favourite thing I saw, though - I love the idea of an egg vending machine!