I’m getting there eventually, although Katy will have to write part 2 or it will be very short.
What seems like ages ago, but is only just over a week ago, we went off to the Festival of History for the 3rd time. It was sort of in lieu of a Muddle Puddle camp, which wasn’t happening this year (and will be in abeyance until someone organises it), but we did the mini one day version rather than the 3 days that other people did.
The weather couldn’t make up its mind between sunny and raining. J was a bit mopish because of his arm, but liked having the other J around. They could quite happily have stayed all day with Heuristics playing their old games. He also could have happily taken part in all the BZents things, but great though they are I’ve seen them soooo many times now that I could tell all their jokes for them. L enjoyed having J’s sister E to play with (making sandcastles at the Victorian sea-side for instance).
K I think had most fun. He had a go and a half at the junior pike drill under Master Will who was my head of station at Kentwell last year and so knows K well. They had third-sized pikes with wooden blades, and did about 4 of the commands, ending up with attacking some parents who had made the mistake of sitting down in front of them. He also had a go at the WW2 assault course, run by an amazingly patient sergeant major who still knew how to control the rowdy ones. (At one point they had to scramble under a net that was pinned down at the sides. He let them get almost to the end, and then stood on the end of the net and stopped them getting out while they had a little chat.) K had to wait ages in the queue, but enjoyed it when he got his turn.
We were dog-sitting a lovely labrador, so took her along as English Heritage let you. This added an extra burden to the day, so I’d be in two minds about repeating it. She enjoyed herself, but maybe not as much as e.g. we’d gone to the sea. Nic showed her amazing new putting-up-with-dogs skills by getting within biting distance (I don’t believe those rumours Nic 😉 ). We watched some Morris dancers, and had some expert opinion from Gina and Dave. For instance, I said I really liked the way that the dancers weren’t roped off in a special area but were in among the visitors and she said that as Morris was street dancing, EH would have found it hard to get a Morris group to perform like that.
I wish I’d listened to Katy earlier and agreed to do more wandering around rather than just going to place X at time Y to see big thing Z. Most of the big things involved war in some way, and many of them we’ve seen before. The things, or more importantly, people you met just wandering around were much more likely to be ordinary life things and very interesting. I got to chat to a group of men making a medieval thatched loo – wooden frame made by some carpenters, roof by the thatcher, floor tiles by a potter. An arrow maker had a very impressive collection of arrow heads and liked to share his knowledge and enthusiasm with you. There was a blacksmith making a reed holder – a candlestick that had an extra bit to hold a reed dipped in oil for burning, so you could save candles for special occasions.
I dimly remember quite a few grumpy moments that my brain’s trying to draw a veil over, but it was nice overall and we bumped into some other home edders that we hadn’t seen for two years which was excellent. Photos on Flickr as ever.
