Elmhurst Junior, Aylesbury

Good King Hal, explaining nicely to a youngster that pointing and laughing at Anne of Cleves is HIS job, and no one elses...

After all the rushing about at the end of last week, on Saturday, just for a change I did lots of rushing about. I was up early and out of the door to drive up to Wales and visit my parents at Newcastle Emlyn as they had some old friends from Essex staying, Ros and Mike Bloomfield from Great Dunmow. I arrived in time for brekkie, which was pretty good going. After this, and with the weather being bright and not too chilly, in the afternoon we drove up to the pretty waterfalls at Cenarth for a wander about. We had a wander about, marvelled at the beauty of the waterfalls and snapped a few photos. Like this one:

The falls at Cenarth, and not a coracle in sight.

We went back to my parents place and were then joined by my sister Sue and her other half Ian before heading out for dinner. We went to a lovely little pub/restaurant called The Daffodil in the village of Penrhiwllan (try saying that to a taxi driver when you've had a few). Going up to order some drinks I suddenly realised that I recognised the girl working behind the bar - her name was Carol and I used to work with her at Skandia Life in Southampton, what seems like a lifetime ago. How weird is life? You go all the way to the back of beyond in a small Welsh village, pick a restaurant almost at random and find someone you used to work with in a city hundreds of miles away working at the restaurant! Just to prove that this event really happened, here is a truly horrific photo of me with the lovely Carol.

Mike Farley (Good King Hal) and Carol, both former Skandia employees, hiding in Wales during the official opening of Mr Farley's second chin.

We had a fantastic meal and Carol and her staff treated us like Royalty, which happens to me all the time of course. All too soon it was Sunday and I was heading back to Somerset. Monday morning saw me up at the crack of dawn and hacking down the now familiarly dark A303 towards a visit to a new school - Elmhurst Junior in the town of Aylesbury, famous for it's ducks and Marillion - and in that order. I was greeted by the charming deputy head, a very nice Welshman from Pembrokeshire. It was a big group today- about 100 children, covering the year groups 3, 4 and 5. We had a really fun exciting day - lots of laughs for the children in the morning, some great Tudor knowledge on display and some really cool teachers - especially the lovely blond lady I pretended to behead and then added insult to injury by suggesting her Tudor outfit made her look like a crew member of the USS Enterprise in Star Trek. After a delicious lunch we were back in the hall. I had the delight of putting Mrs De Wolfe, the head teacher in the stocks, before we had a riotous jousting session. Now I thought they had been noisy at Chandlers Ford on Friday but today - wow. Just deafening. They roared, they cheered, they screamed - it was ear mufflingly noisy! And what a tournament! Another win for the gents!

GENTLEMEN 3 - 7 LADIES

Well done guys, that looks a bit better. The rest of the school joined us just after the joust for a quick get together and few more laughs, but then I was on my way. I finally got home to Crewkerne just after 6pm and I am very grateful that I have tomorrow off. However, tomorrow evening is the annual National Trust Pub Quiz over at Barrington with me hosting it again at the Royal Oak Pub. Should be fun. My next Henry show is on Wednesday at the lovely Parkfield Junior in Taunton.