Nottingham

We're in Nottingham visiting my daughter Jess and her boyfriend James.  In part it's been an early birthday celebration for Jess, as we won't be able to be with her on her birthday.  The day after her birthday, she flies to Russia to continue her PhD research and we won't get to see her for many months.  We will really miss her.

It has been a very convivial time, and this morning we explored the caves that honeycomb the sandstone ridge upon which the city is built.  Some of the history is truly quite horrible - we learned about the ancient profession of "gong farmer", probably one of the worst jobs ever - these poor devils had the job of digging our pits of human excrement once they were full.  I'll gloss over the details, but death from asphyxiation was not uncommon...