Nina's Blog - Wednesday 6th August 2025

Wednesday 6th August 2025, 14:07

As usual I'm posting in more or less reverse chronological order.

Before the café I visited the local museum. It's very small but no less interesting for that.

Had a long chat with one of the volunteers which started as a question about one of the items, veered into how mechanical engineering is so much more photogenic than electronics and software and ended with a long discussion about electric cars.

They had several mangles on display with the makers name and Market Drayton cast into the frame. At least that's what I thought but my guide said that they had recently discovered that they were an early example of outsourcing and that they were in fact made in Newcastle by a completely unrelated foundry!

Only took one picture in the museum. It was of a clock, or at least a clockwork mechanism,that was not running.

The face is marked in 60 divisions in anticlockwise order. There is only one hand but I'm not sure if that is simply because another is missing. It was difficult to really get close enough to examine it closely. I asked what it was but my guide knew no more about it than I did and when she asked the other volunteers they had no idea either. She did remark that it took ages to run down so they didn't let run. The more I repeat that the stranger it sounds.

I said to my guide that I thought it was a shame that most clocks in most museums and galleries aren't running. She countered with a remark that not everyone likes the noise they make and I argued that in a typical exhibition space they would be inaudible. When I visited the Jagellonian University in Krakow some years ago all of the clocks were running and telling the right time. When I mentioned to the guide there that this was unusual he looked at me in astonishment.


https://draytoncivicsociety.co.uk/market-drayton-museum/

Edit: The Newcastle mentioned here by the museum guide is presumably the nearby Newcastle-under-Lyme rather than much more distant Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Wednesday 6th August 2025, 19:32

After the old timber framed buildings I headed towards the church. Almost every settlement in the UK has a church and regardless of one's religious convictions, or lack thereof in my case, they are almost always of some interest even if only for being a peaceful place to sit.



And here is a reason to visit this particular churchyard



Now I'm starting to feel in need of a snack so I head back towards the centre. On the way i pass the old fire station

and Joules Brewery

and catch sight of more timber framed buildings

And then the Buttercross Cafe where I had coffee and cake

After coffee it was time to return home but I took a sinuous route and saw this:

And then it was time to find my car and head for Aldi in Crewe to buy food for this evening.

Wednesday 6th August 2025, 21:00

I've just read an article in The Guardian by Gordon Brown in which he wrote this paragraph:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/06/gambling-industry-profitable-tax-fight-child-poverty

In the form of a bulleted list

- 1 million children in the UK try to sleep without a bed of their own.
- 2 million households live without cookers, fridges or washing machines,
- many are without toothpaste, soap or shampoo.
- 3 million children go without meals because their families run out of food.
- Britain is now enduring the worst levels of child poverty since modern records began, even worse than in the Thatcher-Major years,
- without action to improve family incomes, the numbers will rise to 4.8 million children by 2029.

To see what the millions mean we can convert them to fractions of the population:
- 1 million children is more than 1 in a 70 of the whole UK population,
- 2 million is more than 1 in 35,
- 3 million is more than 1 in 26,
- 4.8 million is 1 in 14.

But of course the population in question is children not the whole population. Restricting our numbers to children, that is people under 18, of which there are about 15 million the numbers become:

- 1 million children is 1 in a 15 of the UK child population,
- 2 million is more than 1 in 8
- 3 million is 1 in 5,
- 4.8 million is 1 almost 1 in 3

To me this sounds like a national emergency, an engine of disaffection, a coming existential crisis.

Wednesday 6th August 2025, 10:22

At Keele Southbound Services charging my car. I actually have plenty to get to Market Drayton and back and on to a charger but I prefer to have it topped up so that I can make spur of the moment decisions about where to go.]

Today's outfit is mostly red.
I'd prefer the skirt to be shorter but rolling the waistband doesn't work very well because it has a zip in the middle of the back.

Wednesday 6th August 2025, 18:45

Miscellaneous pictures of Market Drayton.

As I walked from where I parked my car a little way from the centre I passed some modern terraced houses:

A little further on I came across a map of the centre. I rarely consult them but often take a picture of them simply as a reminder of where the pictures were taken

The war memorial is well kept

it turns out that Wednesday is street market day in Market Drayton

The town hall is a very modest modern building

The route to the museum goes past the town hall and along the way I saw this little park

where angels play

Almost there as I pass the King's Arms

The museum

After the museum I just wandered the streets. I cam across a florist with a most unusual and un-floral window display

It seems that the proprietor is a dedicated festival goer.

There are lost of old buildings that are still in use


Around the corner is plaque commemorating a building

And here is the building

And the one on the opposite side of the road

Wednesday 6th August 2025, 18:22

Why are hotels and similar accommodations always so badly lit? I've got so fed up with lighting being so poor for reading, especially reading in bed, that I've invested in a 280 lumen rechargeable work light to use as a reading lamp.

Got it in Aldi. It is labelled with IP20. I presume that this is an attempt at misleading marketing because the 2 in IP20 simply means that it is proof against the ingress of fingers which is not a very important feature of something that contains only 3.7 V, 2Ah battery and no high voltage components at all. The 0 means that it has no protection against liquids at all.

Wednesday 6th August 2025, 17:15

On the way from Keel Southbound Services I passed through Baldwin's Gate. Just before the sign I saw a small building with interesting panels:











Edit: How odd! This triggered the SW "Does this post contain nudity?" question!

That’s a lot of interesting information on very old town. Thanks for sharing

Wednesday 6th August 2025, 13:53

In the Buttercross Café in Market Drayton having a nice mocha and a slice of Squidgy Lemon Traycake

Such a great question to have to ask
Haha

Is that near the long mynd?