Before my children decided I was too ancient and senile to do anything at all, I planned trips to further their knowledge of what is happening in the world.
First, I planned trips to Ethiopia, and we went to the sweet factory in Addis Ababa to see what they were doing and how they made sweets. We got given a bag full of the sweets they made, probably lemon and coffee sweets. So many that we could not possibly eat them all, so we used to throw handfuls out to the children who lived beside the dry weather route when we could drive out across the countryside. The children used to wait for us and rush up to the track shouting out caramela repeatedly, and we would throw out handfuls of those really quite revolting sweets.
We also visited the glass factory which was fascinating, and we were allowed to blow out the glass into bowls which we were allowed to take away with us. I can remember blowing out beautiful blue bubbles that we kept and hung in the house at Mulu.
I did this again many years later, on the island of Murillo in the Mediterranean Sea and was allowed to take a glass away with me. (I think it must have got broken in the various moves we made but it is still vivid in my memory.
Audrey and I visited these islands again many years later and I think I may have written about it.
But sadly, I do not still have that beautiful bowl with me today in the year 2023.