A Big Trip.

Schloss Haigerloch, just before the Tudor invasion.

I had never done an overseas show as Henry before - not unless you count the Isle of Wight or Wales as abroad.  I know some people who would, but then I know some people who actually like Lambrini.  Well if you recall, or if you have actually been brave enough to read this blog for that long, about two years ago I was invited up to Hexham in Northumberland for a visit to a Shakespeare group who regularly got together with their combined love of the works of The Bard, but have since been working on a project called "The Bard Code", with the plan to build the ultimate database of Shakespearean data and make it accessible for everyone throughout the world.  Next year is the 400th anniversary of the death of Shakespeare and the plan is to launch the Bard Code in time for a concerted effort to get the 23rd April 2015 made into an official public holiday.  I was thrilled to be asked back by the group as Henry to front their latest get together which was to take place at the beautiful German castle of Schloss Haigerloch near Stuttgart.  Once more I would be travelling there with my sister Cathy (who has been working with the Bard Code group as their main graphics designer for quite some time now) and her husband Julian.

I travelled down to Cath and Julian's in Kent on the evening of the 24th April.  We loaded all of our luggage, including my huge Henry VIII suitcase into their Jeep Grand Cherokee and we were off down the M2 to get to Dover for the midday ferry sailing on the 25th.  After we had stopped briefly for fuel we noticed an unpleasant grinding sound coming from the rear right wheel.  Julian had a check and reckoned it was the brake pad making contact with the wheel itself.  It was noisy, but shouldn't cause any problems.  The plan was to disembark at Dunkirk after our crossing and then make our way to Heidelberg in Germany for an over night stop before pressing on to Haigerloch on the Saturday.  We drove ashore at Dunkirk with the local time being 3pm (we had gained an hour on arrival on the continent).  We hoped to be in Heidelberg by about 8pm in the evening.  We soon realised we might be a little bit later than we had hoped.  It was a bright and very warm Friday afternoon and it appeared the good people of Belgium were very much like the people of Britain who as soon as the sun comes out on a Friday there is a mass exodus to ANYWHERE that might constitute a holiday.  The roads were rammed, in particular around Antwerp, whose ring road bore an uncanny resemblance to the M25.  What we had for added entertainment was the Belgian mentality when it came to traffic jams.  It appears to them that you simply can't sit there in one lane and move up from time to time - no, you have to leap from lane to lane, into the smallest of spaces in the vain hope that it might just move you half a centimetre closer to your destination.  The Belgian authorities also had a bit thing for digging up these roads - every time we cleared one section of snarled up traffic, we'd move a few miles and then encounter MORE dug up stretches of carriageway and snarled up lane leaping traffic.  Time clicked on, the grinding wheel on the back of the Jeep got louder and we seemed to never get any closer to Heidelberg. Darkness began falling and we carried on our way.  In the distance you could see flashes of lightning, the traffic thinned out and we finally seemed to make some progress, but the monumental hold ups throughout Belgium meant out ETA at Heidelberg was now nearer to midnight.  We phoned ahead to the Hotel Molkenkur (our venue) and explained how late we were, but they were fine and said someone would be there to meet us regardless of the time of our arrival.  We stopped briefly for more fuel and a meal (a bloody Burger King of all things) and carried on.  The distant thunder and lightning got closer and closer and suddenly we were hit with torrential rain and flashes of lightning and booming rolls of thunder.  Finally we found ourselves in the back roads of Heidelberg, and as the storms slowly passed us by we wound up steep winding lanes to the entrance of Hotel Molkenkur.  It was a fantastic looking building, and I think we might have been a tad more impressed had it not been past midnight and all three of us were utterly exhausted.  We checked in, wandered up to our rooms and just fell into bed.

I awoke to birdsong and sunlight dappling through my bedroom window.  After getting myself showered and dressed I wandered over to Cathy and Julian's room.  They were at the front of the building and their view out down over the town and the Neckar River way below was stunning.  We had breakfast in the hotel restaurant, and pausing briefly for a cup of tea and a well earned fag we were soon on our way again.  Heidelberg and the Hotel Molkenkur both looked lovely, but to be honest, including a long sleep we were probably only there for less than 10 hours all told due to the appalling journey down.  We made rapid progress and the final leg of the journey down to Haigerloch was probably only about 2 hours.  The town of Haigerloch is very pleasant and typically German.  Tall half timbered buildings line the winding streets with the Castle on it's rock summit looming over the town.  It was bright warm sunshine on our arrival and we wandered the streets trying to find somewhere suitable for a bit of lunch before we checked into the Schloss. We plumped for a nice looking pizza bar in the centre of the town and settled into chairs round a table. Beers were ordered and beers were drunk.  The waitress didn't speak English and our German wasn't great, but it was pretty obvious what each of the pizza toppings were.  However, somehow the pizza I ordered and the one Julian ordered came out as completely different pizzas, but they were home made and very tasty.  And the beers kept coming which was fabulous.  We finally finished the lunch and made our way up to the Schloss and booked in.  Haigerloch is an ancient castle dating back over 800 years, but has been sympathetically restored and now comprises of function suites, a small theatre, and a luxurious hotel.  After booking in we went up to our rooms - Cath and Julian were on the 1st floor and I was on the 2nd.  I climbed to my floor and turned down the corridor towards my room - I was reading a small leaflet about the Castle and didn't notice the step.  It was a small step.  VERY small.  In fact, utterly pointless.  Why would any corridor need a step of about 1 inch height?  Surely with a bit of intelligent building work you could make it into a barely discernible ramp.  But as it was, it was still a annoying little 1 inch step.  I caught my toe in it.  I next took to that really embarrassing part of falling over, which is the 4 or 5 half running, half staggering steps you take, when you think you're going to remain upright.  It is about this time that dear old gravity kicks in and you just go "sod it" and go with it.  Crunch.  Down I went with a real proper face plant into the carpet. At this point I took to clutching my shattered ribs and thinking "ooh fuck" a lot.  With the noise someone of my build hitting the ground and with the copious amounts of swearing that I was now doing I fully expected to either hear people coming running to my aid, or at least to hear some slates coming loose on the roof.  But no one appeared.  I tottered gingerly the final five paces to my front room and examined my injuries in the mirror in my well appointed bedroom.  Apart from a slightly disappointing graze to my elbow and wrist, there was little else to see.  My ribs throbbed merrily though and would continue to do so for the rest of our stay in Germany.

The main body of the Shakespearean fans we had met at Hexham two years ago arrived via coach later in the afternoon.  The first nights entertainment was in the Castle's delightful little theatre and was a jazz swing band. The event was open to our group and also to anyone from the locality who might have seen all the posters with my ugly mug on the front dotted around town.  My job as Henry VIII for the first night was on a meet and greet basis at the front of the theatre.  It was gratifying that most of the locals seemed to know who I was, which was great, and I posed for a variety of photos.  A lot of the Shakespearean lot had dressed up as different characters, some of them a bit more effective than others. The local big band swung into action and everyone disappeared inside.  Now as regular readers of this blog will know, I am not exactly the world's biggest jazz fan and I wasn't that bothered to see them perform or not.  I wandered up for the first half and was treated to the sound of the big band launching into an astonishing version of Van Halen's "Jump".  It was made all the funnier by their German pronunciation of "Jump" which kept coming out as "Yump".  So we had the leader of the band singing "I might as well Yump!" and the backing band would as one shout out "YUMP!" much to my delight.  "Go ahead and Yump!" "YUMP!" and so on.  Marvellous.  I spent most of the second half of the show sitting on the nice beer terrace at the rear of the hotel across the courtyard from the theatre, but I was back in position when the show finished to do a bit more meeting and greeting.  Or meeting and farewell-ing, I suppose.  My ribs were throbbing a bit and so it seemed only right to head back to my room and bed.  I didn't sleep very well - a combination of my ribs and vastly over soft pillows meant I tossed and turned nearly all night.

Most of Sunday was at our own leisure, so we spent some time in the morning just lounging around on sofas in the hotel reading.  We then had a little stroll round the rest of the Schloss and took some photos down across the town of Haigerloch.  We had lunch in the hotel, which was a tremendously German affair.  We had help with the translation of the menu by a young very camp waiter who bore an uncanny resemblance to Steve Pemberton in the League of Gentlemen when dressed as the German teacher Herr Lipp. Cathy knew she had ordered something with asparagus in a Bearnaise sauce, which is what she got, and Julian and I had ordered something with sausages.  What J and I got was bizarre.  It was a big round plate with a veritable ocean of brown soupy lentils, with noodles to one side that bore a startling resemblance to scrambled egg, such was their colour and texture, and two long thin Frankfurter sausages laid on top of the lentil pond.  It wasn't the most visually alluring meal you'd ever seen, but it filled a hole.  We repaired to Cathy and Julian's bedroom, where Julian flaked out on the bed and Cath and I joked and nattered about life in general.  Cathy had bought some scotch on the ferry over and we used room service to order some mixers and nibbles and got stuck into the whisky.  Soon I was in my Henry garb for the second night of entertainment.  For this one we were back in the theatre but the music was different - not big band jazz but madrigals and plainsong. Two members of the Shakespeare group are composers and had set some of the Bard's words to music. We were entertained by a woodwind quartet and a vocal quintet, with me working as master of ceremonies in between songs.  I went on at the start, unsure how much English the audience could actually speak.  I did one of my usual opening gags and thankfully got a big laugh, which revealed to me that the audience's English was vastly superior to my German.

As you can see from the scan of the back of the evening event's programme I had been demoted from King Henry VIII to King Henry VII, which is slightly annoying.  The nice local German chap who had designed and printed the programmes claimed it was a deliberate mistake to see who was paying attention.  It was a good argument but I didn't buy it.  All of the local Germans who had attended the evening were a delight to chat to, none more so than the very nice young Gothic lady (you know my penchant for Gothic ladies...) plus she had badges showing her interest in Siouxsie Sioux AND Doctor Who.  What more could any healthy elderly Tudor pervert possibly want?  Ribs that weren't still throbbing would be nice.  The show went a storm and we got a huge round of applause at the end.  The German vocal group then came back on for an unexpected encore with a rousing rendition of "Land of Hope and Glory" as a treat for all the British people present.  It was a lovely touch and brought the evening event to a powerful finale.  We stayed for lots of drinks with everyone at the bar afterwards, and it was a bit of a bleary eyed totter back to the hotel at the end.  Still the evening wasn't finished as despite all the beer we had drunk it seemed like a great idea to carry on giving the scotch a further hammering.  I finally wound up staggering up to my room in the wee small hours full of whisky and good humour.  I sat on the edge of the bed and whizzed through all the German TV channels to see if I could find anything vaguely understandable.  Well it was the usual fayre you'd expect - news programmes, football highlights from the bundesliga, a bit of boxing (one of the Klitschko brothers pummelling an overweight dustman from Mexico City into a pulp by the look of it), a Steven Seagal movie dubbed badly into German, "Friends" dubbed badly into German, Victoria Stillwell training dogs with a German translation, more news, politics and then all of a sudden two people stark naked banging away like traction engines.  That I didn't expect.  I was shocked, I was horrified.  And twenty minutes later I as still as equally shocked and horrified.  One of the funniest parts of it was that it was an American naughty movie that had been dubbed into German, so during all the rutting scenes we were treated to the sounds of two German actors giving lots of "oh jah! Oh jah!" and "das iss goot" etc etc. I could just imagine the two poor bastards in a small recording studio somewhere with head phones on and having to make lots of moaning groaning sounds.  It suddenly made me dressing up as Henry VIII for a living seem quite respectable and main stream. Definitely time for bed.

We had breakfast at the hotel, said our goodbyes to the Shakespeare lot and hit the road.  We were booked on the 8pm ferry from Dunkirk back to Dover, but reckoned with a bit of luck we might make the 6pm one instead.  We pushed it hard, despite the continuing noises from the rear right wheel.  After belting through Luxembourg, we stopped at a Belgian service station, had some lunch and blasted on our way.  Rather inevitably as we reached Antwerp we were once again mired in huge traffic jams, just as we had been on Friday afternoon.  Time ticked on and our chances of making the 6pm ferry seemed to have finally gone.  But Julian drove beautifully (fast but safe) and we made brilliant progress.  Sadly though we had just lost too much time and arrived at the ferry terminal in time to see the 6pm ship slipping off into the channel without us. We parked up and headed for the passenger centre with the promise of food, drink and toilets.  What we got was revolting uncleaned crappy toilets, most of which were out of commission, a closed cafe, loads of expensive vending machines, noisy video games and a grey concrete faceless building that resembled a military holding facility.  We headed back to the car.  There were more drinks vending machines outside.  Guess what?  They were out of order as well.  We sat reading in the car till the ferry loomed into view again.  Soon we were ready to load on board.  As Julian started the engine and put the jeep in gear we moved forward followed immediately by a load bang and very loud scraping sounds from the rear right wheel.  We limped on board the ferry to discover the rear right brake pad had shattered and had taken the brake lines with it as brake fluid was pouring out.  No brakes.  At least this had happened here on the ferry and not just after we had left Haigerloch.  As we had two hours before we arrived in Dover it gave Cath and Julian time to phone their roadside assistance group and arrange to have a low loader to meet us on our arrival back in Blighty.

When we did arrive back in England we still had more problems, the jeep was drivable but had no brakes so we had to be very careful.  But we found the low loader, and we were soon on board and on our way.  But it wasn't going to plain sailing was it.  Road after road that we needed to go down was closed, so in the end our journey that should have been about 40 minutes ended up taking nearly an hour and a half.  We finally got back to Cath and Julian's house at Stockbury just after midnight.  A welcoming cup of tea and it was time for bed.  It had been a wonderful weekend,  Good King Hal's first overseas show has been a success.  My ribs still hurt, but I don't care!  

Back to jousting again this weekend - Blenheim Palace here I come.  But thank you Haigerloch, it was great.

Roar of the Grease Paint...

Elizabeth of York, feeling a prick (on a rose).

And finally the flood waters did recede, and the people of Somerset did look up at the strange yellow object in the sky and go "ooh-arr" and scratch their heads in bewilderment.  You knew the threat of flooding was now rapidly disappearing as all the TV news crews had buggered off.  When I look back to last year and this same time, we weren't inundated with water, we were instead freezing our collected butts off.  If you think back to the weekend at Knebworth (shudder - I try not to) the temperature for that whole weekend barely rose above freezing.  This same weekend just gone (i.e. 365 days later) and the temperatures were around about 20 degrees.  Funny old world, innit?

And so we begin on Tuesday the 18th March and the King's return to Birchfield Junior School in Yeovil.  My last visit to this school had been the previous January and that was certainly a lot colder - I remember loading the props back into the car after that show with huge great flakes of snow dolloping themselves onto my car windscreen and stubbornly refusing to melt.  I arrived early and was met by the usual group of very friendly teachers, including the wonderful Ally Goff who was her usual infectiously funny and happy self.  This is such a friendly happy school, great atmosphere whenever you go there and this day was no different.  We had a great group of kids as well, loads of laughs and everyone seemed to enjoy the day in the extreme.  The final jousting tournament was an incredibly loud event which virtually tore the roof off the place. It was worth it for the lads as they were finally rewarded with a long needed win.  Our score goes to:

GENTLEMEN 13.5 - 21.5 LADIES

Back out to the car to load it up and go and I am delighted to say there was not a hint of dollopy snow flakes in the air, for which I was very grateful for.

I headed up to Essex on the 23rd, for a week of looking after James as Amanda continued her burgeoning am dram career with her second performance for the Thalians Theatre Group in Basildon.  She was out for most evenings for the final technical and dress rehearsals, and was then performing on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the Mirren Studio in the Towngate Theatre.  My first port of call though back in the south east was a return visit to Dulwich College Junior School in South East London.  Again my previous visit last year had included quite prodigious amounts of snow everywhere, appalling traffic and a journey that seemed just slightly shorter than Captain Scott's epic trek to the South Pole.  There was no way I was going to get caught in such terrible traffic this time, so I set off spectacularly early from Basildon... and arrived spectacularly early at the school.  Not a hint of any traffic or bad weather.  Typical.  Once inside I was greeted by the delightful Leiba Sablon, the lovely teacher who booked me last year.  Dulwich College which is Nigel Farage's old school (now there is a claim to fame) is an all boy's school so no results from the very entertaining jousting can be added to the scores as it wouldn't be fair on the ladies.  I do the same for the men when I visit the Maynard School in Exeter.  It was a great day once again at this school.  Great kids, really switched on and with it, and they get all the gags - big time!  So man laughs.  We ripped through to a fantastic jousting finale and then I was on my way back to Basildon.  The traffic out of London was far more what I expected first thing in the morning, slow, bumper to bumper and lots of very bad tempered people refusing to budge an inch.

My main place of residence on Wednesday the 26th was at the "Weston Homes Community Stadium" in Colchester.  This sadly wasn't for some huge outdoor arena style Good King Hal show in front of thousands of adoring fans - nope, I was attending a speed awareness course as I had been photographed in the Royal motor doing 67MPH on the A282 leading onto the Dartford Crossing Bridge back in early January.  So I could either pay the £100 fine and take the three points onto my licence, or I could attend this course and avoid the points.  I naturally went for this option - and promptly picked up a bill for £97.50 to attend. Well, at least I saved myself £2.50.  Not really, after I had bought myself an exorbitantly priced cup of tea in the cafe in the stadium as I waited for the course to begin.  I found it rather sweet that Colchester United had decided to call their stadium cafe "The Hot Shot Cafe".  Surely for the level they play at it should be called "The Scuffed Shot" or "The Toe Ender".  But I can forgive them most things as the waitress had a lovely bottom.  The course was much as I expected - it was presented by two men, one who was so smug as to make Greg Wallace on Masterchef look positively insecure and another old chap who was to technical items what Bernard Manning was to race relations. If he could press a button and make something go wrong he would do it.  The automatic lights went up and down, the electronic blinds went up and down more times than a whore's drawers until they fused, and he was halfway through his part of the presentation when he somehow managed to completely switch off the lap top he was doing his presentation through and we had to sit in a slightly embarrassed silence as he and Captain Smug muttered and pressed buttons until it all came on again.  Well, it was all quite informative, didn't really tell me anything I didn't already knew and it was four hours of my life I won't get back again.

Thursday night was Amanda's opening night in the play.  The Thalians (the am dram group Amanda belongs to) were doing a version of Terry Pratchett's "Going Postal" and Amanda had the part of "Mr Pony" (yes, I know) and she did fantastically well in a superb all round production.  She had worked long and hard on this production, helping out a lot with the costumes, most particularly the very impressive Golem outfit, complete with it's stunning latex mask - anyone who saw the show will know what I am talking about.  Her performance was faultless and James and I really enjoyed it, even though James got very restless towards the end of the first half.  Luckily there were some spare seats at the back of the theatre, so for the second half James and I moved back there and my restless native of a son could stand up, sit down, wriggle and do all the things slightly bored autistic children want to do, without disturbing anybody around us.  It is so great to see Amanda getting into the acting lark - her almost child-like excitement and fixation with the cast and the whole experience reminded me so much of my early days in the business.  I warned her after the final performance she would experience a real downer of post show blues - and she did, bless her.  It was nice to see her in the post performance glow going over and over the photos she had taken of the rehearsals and the cast in general.  Thankfully she is going for the read through of their next production this week, so her fix for this new addiction will get fed again!  Hopefully there will be another production soon in which James can take part as he is as taken with the whole acting lark as Amanda is.  Oh, the roar of the grease paint, the smell of the crowd.... You can't whack it.

Mothering Sunday saw Amanda, James and I joining Cathy and Julian down at their house in Kent for a lovely slap up meal and a bit of champagne sipping.  It was a nice way to round off my week looking after my beloved James.  He can also get back into his performing as I have just had all the dates through for the jousting this summer with the Knights of Royal England.  Fantastic!

A'r Brenin arwain gorllewin (trwy Swindon). AND XTC!

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in drag.  From left to right: Bashful, Sleepy, Zeppo, Adolf, Brian, Shergar, Miss Chatham 1974, and another one.

The world turns and life moves on.  And for Good King Hal, it is just more and more endless roads.  The weekend of the 25th January found your jovial King once more in the south east of England.  I had Friday with my lovely son, and the Saturday morning, before heading down to Kent for my brother in law Julian's 50th birthday party.  It was a fantastic evening, populated with a nice gathering of close friends while we had our ear drums blasted out of our skulls by the consummate musical skills of the band The Licks.  A very competent and lively covers band, their lead singer looked like the unfortunate result of a night of passion between Mick Jagger and Charley Boorman, but he was a great front man.  Our dear old friend Michael Croydon once more displayed his drum whacking skills had not diminished as he pushed the rhythms along.  Add a fine bass player and a more than adequate plank spanker and you had the ideal band for a gathering like this.  It was great to see Ann Turner Maynard and her husband Dave again, plus Michelle Coda and Matt Rentell were there, and many other old familiar faces.  A great evening.  Made even the sweeter for me by the mere presence of a lady called Elaine.  But we'll leave it at that for now.  Keep you lot all hanging on on tenter hooks.

Sadly I had to whizz back to Somerset on the Sunday to get ready for two shows in two days.  The journey back was horrendous as the weather was simply so awful.  It was truly grisly, worse even than having to walk around CENSORED FOLLOWING LEGAL ADVISE gardens with CENSORED FOLLOWING LEGAL ADVICE and the other hatchet faced old boots from the CENSORED FOLLOWING LEGAL ADVICE, which was usually about as much fun as nailing your scrotum to a telegraph pole and then employing a blind rabid baboon to try and rip the nails out with his teeth.  Oh how I miss those happy days. I had a few hours at home to collect my thoughts, then I was up early and out of the door for a drive to Swindon, home of XTC and Billie Piper, among others, for a visit to Gorse Hill School.  This was a lovely school and a great day seemed to be had by all - much laughter from a great group of kids. Only one of the teachers had dressed up, all the others had declined the opportunity.  But she looked stunning in her, frankly Medieval dress, and certainly cheered my day up no end.  The final joust was incredibly loud and closely fought, but inevitably the ladies snatched a vital victory to extend their overall lead even further.  Our score is now:

GENTLEMEN 11.5 - 17.5 LADIES

They are virtually out of sight now.  It was as pathetic as CENSORED FOLLOWING LEGAL ADVISE trying to get into CENSORED FOLLOWING LEGAL ADVISE without an invite and demanding a dressing room when the jousting is on.

If I had any time to rest on my laurels, I barely had time to notice.  All too soon my alarm was squawking on my bedside table and I was up and out of the door again into another cold quiet early morning long distance drive.  I was this time making a return visit to Barry Island, in the Vale of Glamorgan (sounds lovely doesn't it?) and a day with the children and staff of Colcot School.  This lot were a lovely sparky bunch, ready to laugh and join in and not backward in coming forward with examples of their own knowledge.  Even if that knowledge could at some times be a bit dodgy.  The morning zipped past in very pleasant time and I was soon scarfing down a very welcoming plate of pasta bolognese and garlic bread for my lunch.  Just after the lunch break the teachers put on a mini Tudor banquet for the children, with pottage, ginger breads, and mulled apple juice to wash it all down.  I was on the top table with several children sitting with me, their names being drawn at random as to who should sit with the King.  I was sitting next to a very chatty and confident little girl of about eight.  She told me very proudly that she was learning to speak Welsh at school, which I told her I thought was a brilliant idea.  She showed me her new found skills by first saying "yacchi da" at me.  Then she told me how to say "hello" in Welsh.  Apparently you have to say "bonjour" in a thick French accent.  How do you follow that?  How DO you follow that?  In my case it is with a jousting tournament.  And it was another belter.  So close, all the way through.  In the final it honestly looked like the Gents had it sewn up, but their final rider had a bit of a mare, and the ladies romped through to nick it on the last quoit.  Would you believe it?  The score goes now to:

GENTLEMEN 11.5 - 18.5 LADIES

If this was a boxing match, they'd have stopped it by now to stop the lads from taking any more punishment.  A bit like Spurs being slaughtered by Manchester City the other night.  5-1, at White Hart Lane.  And that goes with the 6-0 drubbing they took at the Etihad Stadium earlier in the season.  11-1 on aggregate I make that. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...   I drove on from Barry Island and onto see my parents in Newcastle Emlyn, some 80+ miles further on into the Land of Song, Ivor Emmanuel and Goldie Looking Chain.  It was a long old trek and made all the more incredible for me as one of the teachers at Colcot School in Barry, drives there and back, every day from Newcastle Emlyn.  And I thought I was insane when I used to drive 75 miles to Southampton every day from Somerset, when I worked at Skandia.  

It was lovely to see my folks, and they have pampered me ridiculously, I have helped out a little round the house, doing errands, helping to underpin the mansion and re-tarmacked the main Cardigan Road, but it has been worth it just to spend some time with them.  And Elaine.... they're DYING to meet you!

Monday sees me back at the lovely Riverside School in Hereford and then on Tuesday down to one of my all time favourites, Coalway Junior in Coleford in the Forest of Dean.  And not a sign of  CENSORED FOLLOWING LEGAL ADVISE , stomping round like a cross between Peppa Pig and a steam roller with a cob on.  No, neither hide nor hair of her.  Thank God.

Walking and Talking

Good King Hal, wondering who the hell has photo-shopped Barrington Court out of existence.

Here is a look at the first photo from last week's photo shoot at Barrington Court with the supremely talented Simon Plant.  I think this picture looks stunning and would like to take this opportunity to thank Simon for his talent and skill.  What a guy!

I was back at Barrington Court on the Sunday for the first of my summer afternoon walkabouts at this lovely NT property near Ilminster.  I was delighted to be joined by Emma from the Tudor Roses, dressed as a lovely Katherine Parr, her son's Jonny and Matty as two young princes and the wonderful Darren Wilkins, armed to the teeth as ever with his trusty camera, who followed us around snapping away.  It was a quiet afternoon at the Court but it was nice to meet a greet people from all over the country.  I was so moved that Darren and Emma had chosen to drive all the way from Kent to spend the afternoon with us over at Barrington.  We weren't the only "attractions" there for the day, there was also a choir who were stationed in the main ball room in the house and warbled their way through various numbers including "Pass Time With Good Company" (another PRS cheque in the post for Henry!) and "Swing Low Sweet Chariot".  Their singing was very good and sounded lovely in the court house surroundings.  The sainted Mattew Applegate, long suffering Visitor Services Manager at Barrington Court looked after us superbly and organised some tea and biscuits for everyone in the afternoon.  Well we went down to join the choir for the drinks and were welcomed by them very much the way a North Atlantic Convoy during the second world war would have greeted the sight of a U-Boat.  Noses were looked down, we were at first ignored and then, comments were made about us.  While I was fixing some tea for Emma, Darren and myself, the main conductor was standing behind me with two of her warblers and I quite clearly heard her comment "His costume, do you think he made it out of a sofa?" and they guffawed happily together.  I can honestly say they were one of the unfriendliest coldest bunch of fish seen outside of a north sea trawlers net.  Obviously for reasons of me being a polite and lovely bloke, I would never name which choir this group were.  However they are a choir, they often perform in chambers and they come from a town in south Somerset.  That begins with Y.  And ends in L.  Anyway, after a few turns around the gardens and buildings, we changed back into our civvies and treated ourselves to a drink and some cakes in the fine cafe at the reception area of Barrington.  And then I was on my way back home to Crewkerne while Emma, Darren and the boys faced up to the much longer trek back to Kent.

I was up early this morning for a drive back to Downend just to the north east of Bristol for a return visit to Christ Church Junior School.  I had last appeared here back in 2011, and this time I was booked by a new teacher called Marie Harrison.  It was to be a big group for the day - approximately 150 children from years three and four combined.  Marie was lovely and made me very welcome, but then so did the whole staff and children.  They were a big group, but just a delight to work with!  The morning got off to a slightly delayed start, but it was worth the wait.  The whole morning was great fun and some of the children's costumes were just magnificent.  After a nice lunch break it was back to the hall for a fun session with the stocks before finishing with a deafening joust.  This was finally won by several lengths by a very entertaining and confident Gents team - and about time too!  They romped to a worthy victory.  Finally they can peg the ladies back slightly.  Our score goes to:

GENTLEMEN 13 - 21 LADIES

I had a little fun on the drive back when my sat nav decided to go a bit wibble on me, and I ended up driving up and down the Keynsham by-pass a couple of times for no adequately explained reason.  Still I am sure it gave the locals something to talk about.

Back home I said "HELLO" to a bottle of Merlot and some dinner and then settled down to watch the final episode of Broadchurch.  Not the best of the series by a long way, but it did at least manage to tie up the loose ends of the story in a fairly agreeable way.  Oh and Man Ure won the Premiership.  Now that IS depressing.  A day off tomorrow and then I am off up to Ilmington in Warwickshire for a Henry day at their local school.  So another early start.

Now Is the Winter of Our Discontent... and it shows no sign of stopping.

Good King Hal and his Mother, doing the hokey cokey in anticipation of the end of winter.  They were wrong.

Ice and snow?  More of it?  Oh come on!  It was nearly spring the other week.  I even went into Crewkerne in just t-shirt and jeans.  If I tried that today I'd be ripped to pieces by a pack of wolves as soon as I stepped out of my front door.  And then to add insult to injury, a UN Hercules transporter would probably drop a large wooden crate full of high energy biscuits on me as a "humanitarian gesture".  I dare suggest they might get something similar back from me.

So another week goes past and they STILL haven't formerly asked me to be the Pope, so I shall carry on being Henry VIII until they do.  My latest port of call was a return to Leeds Castle for an evening corporate do on Friday March 8th.  I drove up from Somerset on the morning of the 8th and spent some of the day with my lovely Shelley in Maidstone.  Then it was up to the Castle - and as usual with an evening "do" an air of mild confusion seemed to reign.  First they had no idea where they wanted me to get changed - I couldn't use my usual room as it was full of "shop stuff" apparently.  Finally they decided I should get changed in the Triangle Room.  The next problem was no one seemed to know where it was.  By now time was flying and my chance to be changed and ready for when the guests arrived was a rapidly diminishing prospect.  Finally, we found the room and I got changed.

By the time I came downstairs some of the guests were already in the Library for their welcoming drinks. Everyone from the company had come dressed in fancy dress - lots of the ladies as saucy wenches, which was fine with me, plus loads of Knights, elegant Royalty, one man dressed as a Castle (don't ask, but he was obviously very proud) and even two dragons, one of whom was the lady who had booked me.  I felt quite sorry for her as she looked longingly at all the other ladies in their elegant and sexy outfits, and there was her with a big green head and floppy paws.  Bless.  One lady in particular was very striking - about six feet tall, in stripey black and white basque, fishnets and stilettos.  Trust me, it would have been rude NOT to stare.  She was the perfect comic foil for me though - while I was halfway through my pre-dinner routine about the six wives, she suddenly walked in through the door behind me, then stopped, standing right next to me, frozen it seemed by the glare of the audience.  I looked her up and down and then said "I told you to wait in the car" which brought the house down.

After processing the group down to the main banqueting hall, that was me done for the evening.  So I went back to the Triangle Room, got changed and was on my way.  I had dinner with Shelley and then had an early night.  On the Saturday I met up with the lovely Annie Lucas, late of Rochester Cathedral, but now living in Cornwall and running her own bespoke wedding dress making business.  We met up at Tunbridge Wells railway station in a small cafe next to it and discussed possible future plans for world domination in the wedding market.  Some good plans were hatched, and it was lovely to see the wonderful Annie again!

I was due to stay with Shelley for a few days but the weather forecast for the Monday morning was bleak and biblical, with promises of very heavy falls of snow across Kent and Sussex - so being the wimp I was I decided to make a run for it on the Sunday.  And so I headed back to Somerset.

It is still ridiculously cold, and there seems little let up in the weather continuing in the same vein for a while, even according to Carole Kirkwood again this morning.  I'm starting to go off her, you know.  My next Henry engagement is this weekend when I am appearing on Emma Britton's Saturday Morning Show on BBC Somerset  from about 10am as one of her Somerset Lives interviews.  I am following in the footsteps of Michael Eavis and Tara Newley, so I reckon I should wear slingbacks so I get noticed.  Tune in if you can folks!  After that it is back to being a King at schools again with a visit too Woodham Ley School in Essex.

A Tudor King Doing a Very Passable Impression of a Yo-Yo

And to be honest, this was a major sticking point.  Geddit?

Another week, and another seven days of travel, travails, excitement, ups, downs and lots of miming to appalling records.  But enough about that for now. More later!  We spin the clock back a full week though, to the previous Friday when I was due to make an appearance at a brand new school for me - St Mark's Junior School in Salisbury in Wiltshire.  The weather was a bit rough on the journey down, but the arrival and welcome was warm and genuine.  The motif for St Mark's School is the Venetian lion, hence the name St Mark's I guess, but it gives the whole place a slightly cosmopolitan air.  Well it was a great day with the kids in a lovely school, with much fun had by all.  The day finished with the inevitable joust and the inevitable win for the ladies.  Our score slowly clicks over to:

GENTLEMEN 11 - 14 LADIES

The drive back was OK but unmemorable.

Saturday morning had me up bright and relatively early and heading up to Kent to see my lovely Shelley.  I spent a lovely day with her and Sir Owen of Leeds Castle before I headed over to my sister's place at Stockbury near Sittingbourne for my brother-in-law Julian's birthday party.  Shelley sadly couldn't attend as she couldn't get a baby sitter for Owen, however she did insist that I went anyway.  Well, who was I to argue?  The evening was great fun with lots of laughs with Dave and Anne Turner-Maynard, John and Viv Rich, Cath and Julian (of course) and Michelle Coda.  I drank too much and stayed up too late, but by God it was worth it, even the hangover in the morning.

I spent Sunday with Shelley and Owen, and we ended the day by re-visiting the new restaurant in Maidstone: Buddha-Belly.  Sadly, it was a little bit of a disappointment this time around, but Owen got very excited by being able to actually see the chefs hard at work cooking your food on the big flaming stoves.  We wandered back to the car each of us with our own Buddha Belly by this time, but for me there was only a little bit of sitting around, before climbing into the car and driving to Essex.  I spent the evening with my lovely son James, before heading for an early night.

Up at an ungodly hour on the Monday and on the road north up towards East Anglia.  I was heading back to Gorleton near Great Yarmouth and a once in every three years visit to Herman Junior.  I just love the name of this school - Herman Junior.  As I said in my previous blog entry about this place, it sounds like a character from The Munsters.  Again it was a fun day with everyone being welcoming and friendly, and wouldn't you just know it, the Ladies strolled to another easy victory in the Jousting.  So while I was trundling back down the A12 towards Essex, our score slowly changes to:

GENTLEMEN 11 - 15 LADIES

On the Tuesday I was down to Leeds Castle where I had to video a clip of me addressing the camera to advertise the forthcoming Jester Factor - a search for a new jester for Leeds Castle.  So I was all dolled up in my finest Henry gear, lurking in the King's bedchamber in the castle, when in walked a Japanese tourist, he had his back to me.  He slowly turned round and promptly nearly lost his sushi in his pants - so surprised was he to see the King standing in front of him.  Well if you wish to see the results of my video work then please go to You Tube and look at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oGBwLJyaT8 and you might be pleasantly surprised. Or not of course.  That evening it was back up to Essex as yet again the following morning I was up at the crack of you know what for a return drive to Norfolk.

It it's Wednesday it must be Norfolk?  True, here I was up the A14 and A147 heading back to Norwich and this time an eighth annual visit to White Woman Lane School in that lovely city.  This is a cracking school and always a delight to visit, and this year was no different.  Warm welcomes, much laughter about Mr Richmond the teacher wearing a Tudor pantaloons outfit in the same colours that Norwich City wear, so he did have a passing resemblance to a post medieval canary.  And apart from nearly falling asleep during the "Grand Tudor Quiz" everything went swimmingly and by the numbers.  And wouldn't you just know it, the ladies only went and triumphed again in the jousting.  The gents don't stand a chance at the moment and they now fall even further behind with a score of:

GENTLEMEN 11 - 16 LADIES

Sometimes it seems like there is absolutely no stopping them.  The drive back to Essex was fairly awful with sudden unexpected snow falling on the A147 in Norfolk and then a big smash on the A12 south which managed to close the road for a while, which was a bit of a pain.  But I managed to get past it.

Thursday was a day of relative relaxation.  I met up with an old friend of mine and had lunch, and picked up a big load of old cricket books, which pleased me!  All that and the weather was nice, which was splendid.  After another evening with dear James, Friday was due to be something a bit special, and it was.

I was due on this Friday to appear at James' school for a special appearance to kick off their History Week. James and I drove to the school through sunny but very icy lanes and arrived to a warm welcome from all of his teacher's and staff at St Anne Line School.  I was quite nervous about doing this show for James and his mates - it's OK to do shows time after time to anonymous children that you don't know, but suddenly to appear in front of a group of children you know, especially when one of them is your own flesh and blood.  That was a bit different, slightly scary and all the more rewarding when it went well - and it did.  It was a great day with very friendly help from Mrs Slee and Mrs Mulreaney, James' class teacher and his one to one worker, in that order.  Well James thoroughly enjoyed the day, even after I put him in the stocks during the afternoon session.  The only bit he couldn't stand was the noise in the hall during the joust and therefore sat quietly in the office when that was on.  As for the joust it was won - AGAIN, by the ladies.  How are they doing it?

GENTLEMEN 11 - 17 LADIES

What a lead!  Can they possibly be caught?  Keep watching.  The King is delighted to announce that he now has a couple of days off before Monday will involve him getting up very early for a first visit to Dulwich College Junior School in South East London.  Should be fun, then it is on to Southampton, then Hereford, the Devon and then.... Oh God.  It is back to being a yo-yo again, isn't it?

Birchfield, Brides and Books.

Anne Boleyn: You are Johnny Vegas and I claim my 400 groats.  Henry VIII:  Anne Boleyn, it is with great regret when I say - you're for the chop.

Snow?  What snow?  Almost as soon as it had come the inclement disgusting white stuff was on it's way out.  And good thing too.  My return visit to Birchfield Junior School in Yeovil was going to be a good one - all my visits there in the past had been equally entertaining.  The main road from Crewkerne to Yeovil is currently being dug up for some reason or other, so I found the early part of the journey involved lots of fannying around in minor country roads.  I arrived at the school under glowering grey skies and loaded my stuff into the hall.  As on my previous visits they have a large "Story Tellers" chair which they bring in, clean down and drape cloth over it to turn into a splendid throne for me.  Smashing.  Well it was, as in every visit I have made to the school, a real rip roaring fun day - a great sparky group of kids and lots of laughs.  The final joust was deafening and ended with ANOTHER win for the lads.  They are really on a roll now and have clawed the scores back to:

GENTLEMEN 11 - 13 LADIES

By the time I had got round to taking my props back out to the car, the rain that had been falling all day was slowly morphing into big fat round snowflakes that plopped down and refused to melt, the utter gits.  It snowed most of that night and for a good part of the following morning.  With a new covering of snow now in place my proposed visit to Riverside School in Hereford was certainly at risk and after a quick call to that school my visit was postponed until the 13th February.

On the Thursday, in the thick snow, I didn't go far aside from popping into the local Waitrose for some bits and pieces.  There was only one couple ahead of me at the checkout, an elderly couple of right old carrot crunchers.  Their stuff went through and they packed it away in various bags.  She pulled out a bulging leather purse, opened it and immediately a torrent of loose change exploded all over the floor.  Mostly coppers.  Her elderly husband and I then took to scrambling on the floor and picking them all up.  We poured the coins back into her purse which she zipped up.  The lady on the till then repeated their total.  "Oh yes" says the old lady, unzips her purse and.... there is a second explosion of loose change all over the floor.  I have to say that by now I was helpless with laughter and incapable of picking the change up this time.  When they had finally left and I got to the checkout girl she explained that they came in every week and ALWAYS did that.  So if you want a good bit of free entertainment folks, get yourselves down to Waitrose in Crewkerne and look out for this couple.

I drove to Kent on the Friday morning and spent some lovely time with Shelley and Owen.  On the Saturday afternoon I went to Essex and had some quality time with my lovely son James.  On the Sunday a group of us went to Detling Showground in Kent to check out the latest Wedding Fair and see if our proposed Tudor Wedding plan was looking good - and it was.  Michelle and I went in costume and got quite a bit of attention.  The cartoon above was done for us by the Artful Doodler - what a clever chap.  And I do look like Johnny Vegas in my picture, no matter what some people say.

Back down to Somerset and I was interviewed today by the lovely Marion Draper from the View From Crewkerne newspaper about my nearly 10 years of being Henry.  We met at Bilby's Cafe in Crewkerne and over a tea cake and pot of tea we put the world to rights.  I should be in next week's issue, so look out for that.  After bidding goodbye to Marion I wandered down to Gresham Books, a big antiquarian book seller at the head of Crewkerne High Street - saw a magnificent book from 1910 called "C B Fry's Who's Who of Cricket" in a leather bound jacket - wow.  I wanted it so much.  Till I saw the price. £125.  Ah, maybe not.  I'll wait till it comes out in paper back.  I'll get my purse out and release a tsunami of coppers.

Old Cats and Wombles. Plus Dear Madam Barnham...

Good King Hal wondering why he is still clutching a gear stick, hours after parking the car.  Perhaps he did it manually, perhaps it was just automatic.

Roads, roads and more roads.  And Travelodges.  When you last read this riveting missive, your favourite mock Tudor monarch was ensconced in a Travelodge near Kings Lynn in Norfolk.  It doesn't get much more exciting that this folks.  No wonder anything up to six people still bother reading this travesty of the English language.  And of those six people, I thank you all and will buy each and everyone of you a beer.  But I feel this blog has almost run its course.

Anyway, away from me moaning about people not bothering to read this crap, back to Henry on the road.  According to my sat nav, the drive from Kings Lynn to Old Catton School in Norwich should take about an hour and a quarter, so I gave myself and hour and a half, just to be on the safe side.  I should have given myself longer.  The traffic was bad all round, but by the time I reached the outskirts of Norwich it was horrendous and the journey ended up taking me over two hours and made me a bit late.  But there were fun moments.  Whilst driving along the A47 to the west of Norwich I drove past the Canary and Linnet Pub where many years ago a whole group of us had spent a mad New Years Eve, with a miserable landlord with a round pool table (yes, round).  It was a space saving pool table where you could turn the table round for your shots, but we soon discovered in our drunken states that if you racked all the balls up in the middle, removed the frame and then spun the table round all of the balls would immediately shoot straight into the pockets.  Very life affirming.

Old Catton School was a sight for sore eyes when I arrived and I was doubly lucky that they were having a morning assembly before the school day began so I had a bit of spare time to get my stuff in and get changed into my frock.  We had a fine morning with a lovely group of children.  They were lively knowledgeable and fun to work with.  The afternoon joust was incredibly loud and threatened to blow out the windows of the hall.  It ended with much needed victory for the gents, who now cut the useful lead the ladies had.  Our score after the Old Catton show:

GENTLEMEN 6 - 8 LADIES

And so I was on my way, heading first of all to Essex for an evening with Amanda and my lovely James.  We had a fun evening watching a bit of Night at the Museum 2 and eating a very welcome curry.  But when they went to bed early it was time for me to hit the road again and head down to Maidstone and see my lovely Shelley again.  I had the Thursday at leisure and was taken for a nice shopping trip round Maidstone by Shelley before she bought me lunch at Mexxa Mexxa, a marvellous Mexican restaurant near the Haslitt Theatre.

Friday was Children in Need day - and I was a King in Need.  It was too early!  And I was driving on the M25 (ARGH!), heading for London (ARGH!) and a return visit to St Matthew's School in West Wimbledon (ARGH!.... no actually, hang on, this is a lovely school).  It was lovely to be back and I was very warmly welcomed by one and all, especially the lovely Katie Barnham who booked me there, or "Dear Madam Barnham" as I deliberately miss-spelt her after the XTC song.  It was a funny little group today, just 20 children and of them, only five boys.  They were quiet to begin with, but soon perked up and we had a great day all round.  The afternoon session, including the jousting was very exciting but due to the lack of boys at the school made scoring this tournament an impossibility.  As it was a mixed team of boys and girls raced to victory.  So no change in the overall score.

So it was back to Maidstone for a long weekend with Shelley, but it wasn't terribly restful as poor Sir Owen was a bit poorly and Shelley didn't get to sleep much.  But we had a nice time anyway.  It was back to Somerset and a couple of days visiting old friends, and to keep that whole simile going I am off to Southampton today to see old friends at Skandia Life for a bit of lunch.  This weekend is the Mistletoe Fayre at Barrington Court, so hopefully I should see you all there briefly.  The King will not be staying long!

It's The End, But The Moment Has Been Prepared For...

The Knights of Royal England - splendid fellows.  All of them.

And so, the end was near and so we faced, our final curtain...  The last regular weekend of the jousting summer was suddenly upon us before I had even realised it was coming.  The Friday and Saturday was to be back for the final two days at Hever Castle.  Hever has been magnificent this year, even when the mud in the arena was so thick you could have re-coated the M25 with it - the crowds have turned up en masse for our shows.  We were without William of Antioch for the final two shows at Hever, but everyone else was there and, as ever, much fun was had by all.  It was also to be our final two shows with Michelle Coda in tow as she would not be coming to Hedingham for the shows there.  But we were without Vix who was off appearing in her drama society production of "Annie".  Michelle had been to see one of the performances earlier in the week and declared that the production was very "provincial" - damning!  But Vix was enjoying herself so that was alright.

I had promised James a wage packet for his hard work over the summer with the jousting team, and he was mostly pre-occupied with what he wanted to spend it on.  One of his ideas is he wants a fishing rod as he is hell bent on the idea of going fishing.  Those of you who know James will be aware that he has the attention span of a amphetamine addicted gnat and a very low boredom threshold, so perhaps fishing is not the best idea for a new hobby.  But he is still going on about it.  So watch this space, I shall let you know what is finally purchased.  To be honest, it could be anything.

The last two shows at Hever passed in what can only be described as a blur.  But they were well attended like all the other shows there this summer and a great reaction from the crowd.  So with barely time to lean against a side board and gasp for breath we were off, up to Essex for a Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday at Hedingham Castle near Halstead.   I had never worked at Hedingham before, I had visited in the past as a regular punter, but was delighted by what I saw.  The castle is a typical Norman keep atop a steep hill.  It is very reminiscent of Rochester Castle in Kent or the central keep at the Tower of London.  The actual tilting arena was tiny in comparison with Hever and Leeds Castle, but it was a lovely setting.  Whereas the jousters were at the foot of the hill changing in their horse box, James and I, and the Tudor Roses, were in a large marquee that a wedding reception had been held in, behind the main house of the owners of Hedingham Castle.  It was two shows a day at Hedingham with plenty of other distractions for the punters - archery, side stalls, a jester, various food outlets etc.  It was a truly magnificent sight.  James had a go at the archery on the Monday morning and managed to score a bulls eye with only his second arrow.  That's my boy! 

The four shows were great fun, lots of laughs from us and the audience, and with the much smaller arena you got a great reaction from the punters when something exciting happened.  Whenever a lance was smashed on a shield the gasp from the audience was very audible - great stuff.  Sir William of Antioch also showed off shamelessly, particularly on the Monday when he pretended to get the huff and stomped off into the audience, sitting with people, trying to steal lunches and even posing beautifully with a child's tiny clear plastic umbrella.

The only drawback for me over the weekend was being stopped by the Police on my way to Hedingham the first day - it turned out the MOT on my car had expired four weeks ago.  Oops!  It cost me a £60 fine  but will make me more aware of checking the expiry dates on my MOT's in future.

We got filmed by a US TV cable network called Reels (or something!) who shot the show and also interviews with various members of the cast (myself included), so if you're in the States and you know a channel called Reels, or Reel then keep a look out for me!  I also got to meet the owner of Hedingham at the end of the second show and he seemed keen on getting the King back in the future.  That would suit me!

And so it was over for another year.  We posed for the picture above before the second show on the Monday - I intend to print it out in large format and laminate it so James can put it up in his bedroom as a nice memento of a very memorable summer for him.  He can look at it when he gets back from fishing....

The photo was taken by Shelley Hughes - she is beautiful!  Just thought the world needed to know!

The Never Ending Bumps of Doom...

...but very soon Good King Hal was back to his charming, sociable, cuddly self.  My, how we all laughed.

With the Blenheim shows out of the way, it was time to head back to Kent and another joust at Leeds Castle.  This time however it was an evening corporate joust for an American based company who were in situ at Leeds Castle all week.  Michelle Coda came along as well and to begin with she, the rest of the jousting team and me spent the early part of the evening hiding in their tent as it was absolutely tipping down with rain.  It poured and poured, the sound deafening on the roof of the tent as we cowered inside.  Lightning flashed across the sky and thunder rumbled menacingly, and one or two of us were more than a little worried that we were in an open field, sheltering from a big electrical storm inside a large metal framed tent.  Not the cleverest place to be in that situation.  But the clouds and rain passed by and suddenly light evening sunshine appeared.  We were then introduced to Larry from the American group, their head honcho and a man hell bent on riding into the arena on one of the jousters horses, wearing a helmet and clutching a sword.  And all of this while wearing a pair of shoes that can only be described as BLUE!!!  Well, we did our show OK, but thankfully there was a small group of children from a local youth group to add some atmosphere as there was very little feedback from the American guests hidden in their marquee.  To be honest the show was hard work, simply due to the lack of audience reaction, you suddenly realised just how much this show relied upon audience participation.

I was back at Leeds Castle on Wednesday evening, and with the same American group from the Monday evening joust, for a champagne reception and evening banquet.  I had been paid a deposit by them and they were going to pay the rest on the evening.  I got an email from them the night before asking if I could swap from the Wednesday to the Sunday evening, but I couldn't as I was already booked up.  They then said as I was only appearing on the Wednesday they had decided to drop my fee.  I was not a happy bunny, as I think most people would be.  I arrived at the Castle bristling for a fight, and soon got one.  I was speaking to the lady from Hospitality at Leeds and said I wasn't happy about the way I was being treated by the host company.  Her immediate response was "well, if you want to leave you can go..." at which point I was quite tempted to.  I then said to her I needed to speak to the main organising lady from the American group and struggled to remember her name and ventured the option of Lisa.  The Leeds lady immediately bristled and said, rather snottily that the lady was a representative from a very important client, her name was Laura and suggested I get her name right before I spoke to her,  This was the snotty straw that broke the camels back.  I told the Leeds lady that the American lady should get her f***ing figures right when booking artists.  So I threatened to walk out and leave, but was encouraged by slightly less snotty Leeds lady to stay.  So I did the meet and greet, later paraded the guests down to the banquet hall, and then did a little 10 minutes stand up slot that had them rolling in the aisles with laughter.  I guess I won them over.  At the event I even got to meet Missy Franklin, three gold and one bronze medal winning swimmer from the American team at the 2012 London Olympics.  She had one of her gold medals with her, so I had a chance to hold the medal and get a close up of it - huge, and staggeringly heavy.  And Missy herself was lovely, and quite amazingly tall!  She towered over me! So what had begun as an unpleasant evening, in the end was a very memorable one.

Friday saw myself, Michelle Coda, her daughter Vix and my son James back at Hever Castle for another weekend of jousting.  It was good to see Sir Owen of Leeds Castle there for each and every day, alongside his delightful and yummy mummy, Shelley.  The Friday was amazingly hot and sweaty, with barely a breath of wind to be found.  We were also short of men from the jousting team with Ashley, Bill, Dan, Mungo and Andy all missing for a variety of reasons. So for once the Knight Marshall's at both ends of the arena were ladies - Lady Kim ("the Squeeze of du Barry" as I introduced her!) at the red end, and her daughter Lucy ("Bob") manning the blue end.  It was a pretty good show, despite the stifling heat and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.  We ended up back at Michelle's house in Folkestone eating a lovely take away Chinese and drinking cold beer.  Just what was needed.

Saturday, and all the lads were back for the jousting show (And Sir Owen and Lady Shelley!).  The day began with the horse box arriving at the Castle and, after the real horses had been taken out and tethered, Jeremy went back into the box and produced a pantomime horse, consisting of his son Sam and Sam's mate Alex.

As you can see from the picture attached, it was incredibly realistic.  OK, so not to us, but as the pantomime nag clopped down the back of the horse box it completely freaked out the real horses who backed off and tried to break their tethering to hoof it away.  Michelle's daughter Vix got to have a ride on the pantomime horse's back, much to her delight.  It turned out this was one of many costumes Jeremy had recently purchased from an auction, most of them jokey fancy dress efforts, but we would see a lot more of them later that day.

The show on the Saturday was great - a fantastic responsive audience and even a nice cooling breeze for us idiots dressed up in costumes.  Very much appreciated.  James and Vix got much more involved in the show this time around and even had a good old bop around the arena at the end when we played "We Will Rock You" by Queen, and Sam and Bill came back on for their traditional victory dance.  The Tudor Roses were in attendance as well on the Saturday, and so after the show it was decided we should all go along to the Kentish Horse pub just up the road from Hever for some dinner and drinks.  We thought the other jousters might be there, but of all of them only young Mungo had shown up.  Sir Owen was terribly upset as he wanted to see Sir William (or "The Bad Guy" as he calls him), but of the others there was not a sign.  Eventually Sir Owen and Lady Shelley had to leave and make their way home.  Barely five minutes after they had gone Jeremy and Kim's Land Rover swept into the pub car park and 12 (YES, TWELVE) jousters leaped out of the interior all dressed in various silly costumes from Jeremy's purchase.  Ashley and Sam were Gorillas, even if Ash's one bore a striking resemblance to Amy Winehouse from behind, Kim and Lady Porlock were rabbits, Jeremy a big pink elephant, Lucy was a turtle, Sir Stepen of Porlock was a Womble (or a Wookiee Womble as James christened him) and there was also penguins, more rabbits and Stephanie was a cross between a Tiger and a Wolf, whatever the hell that is.  It was hysterical fun as you can see from the pictures, but I was quite glad young Sir Owen had gone as he gets so excited when he meets the jousters normally, that to see them in their costumes, arsing about in the pub garden I think he might have completely freaked out.  James was in heaven though and laughed like a drain throughout.

 Sir Stephen of Porlock remembering he's a Wookiee Womble (please note departing rear end of Tiger/Wolf hybrid).

 Sir William of Antioch not completely thrilled at the stifling heat.  Not a happy bunny.

Lady Kim and Sir Jasper as a rabbit and an elephant.  No honestly...

And so we came to Sunday, our final day.  The heat was still on, and sadly the cooling breeze had more or less vanished as well.  But it was another good show, with a very vocal Sir Owen in attendance as ever and a very thrilled audience who took part with great gusto.  After the show another drink at the Kentish Horse seemed like the best idea to get over the rigours of the day.  But it was only one, for then James and I had to climb in the car and begin our long journey back to Somerset.  We got back after about two and a bit hours, then watched a load of the Olympic closing ceremony.  James then went to bed but unfortunately was up about an hour later throwing up everywhere.  So my lovely weekend concluded with me on all fours mopping up five big puddles of vomit.  Not how I expected it to end, to be honest.

And the title of this blog?  Vix's description of the speed bumps as you drive into Hever Castle!  They were the "Never Ending Bumps of Doom"!  Brilliant.

Christchurch Mansion Day 2

The Beverley Sisters after a direct hit from the Luftwaffe.

And so, on the very day that the London Olympics officially opened, where was Good King Hal going?  Yes!  Back to Ipswich in Suffolk for the second of his two days at Christchurch Mansion.  Yesterday had been fun, but unbearably hot, with blazing sunshine all day, so I personally was a little relieved to wake up and find the morning overcast and cool. The drive up to Ipswich was easier this morning, and despite the odd spot of rain here and there, mostly fine.

The early part of the day found me wandering the halls and rooms of the Museum, chatting to people, posing for photographs and upsetting tiny children - the usual really.  After a brief break for a cup of tea I was due on at 1.30pm for my first show of the day.  I had worried a little that there didn't seem to be as many people around as yesterday, but I needn't have worried.  The first show was, if anything, busier than the previous day.  It was a fun show with a lovely audience, though there was an elderly couple to the back of the room who sat stony faced throughout with expressions that intimated that both of them had recently inserted large cacti into their underwear.  He was tall, pale, elderly and wearing tiny shorts that revealed two thin, knobbly kneed legs that tapered down to Argyle socks and sensible shoes, whereas she simply looked as if she had just been evicted from the Conservative Party Conference.  I left the room to applause and headed for the cafe for a bite to eat - only to find the sour faced couple on the table right next to me.  They had looked like nit-pickers, and I was right, they were.  As I sat down, her opening gambit was:

"Very good show, though some of your dates were inaccurate..."  My usual response to this is to try to shove a blancmange down the protagonists underpants, but I contained myself as they were elderly (and I didn't have a blancmange to hand) and kept it to a:

"Well, it depends on which book you read...."  At which point the thin elderly chap, in a quavering Brian Sewell-like voice, complete with tilted up head and half closed fluttering eye lids said:

"But you said the executioner for Anne Boleyn came from France - he didn't, he was Flemish..."  My usual response to this type of petty "I am cleverer and better read than wot you is (sic)" snottiness is to fell the protagonist with a vicious right hook and then throw them into a convenient water feature.  But they were elderly, and I was trying to eat a Tuna sandwich at the time.

The second show today wasn't quite as full as the first show, but what an audience!  They were magnificent, laughing and joining in enthusiastically.  When asking the audience if the marriage between Henry VIII and Katherine Howard is going to last, I usually get them all shouting "NO!" back at me.  One little boy in this show, louder than everyone else shouted "PROBABLY NOT!" which garnered him a big laugh from me and a round of applause from the audience.  In the end I nearly managed to kill myself by swallowing a tiny amount of spit down my windpipe just after playing the kornholt musical instrument.  As I gasped and coughed on stage trying to catch my breath, the audience continued laughing as they thought it was part of the show.  It isn't and I am very glad I don't have to do it every day.

The day finished with me posing for many photographs with two pneumatic east European ladies and their children, which was fine by me. And I got to meet my friend David Randall and his wife, who I have got to know via Facebook - so hello David!  I drove back down to Essex, collected my lovely son James and we headed then down into Kent to stay overnight at my sister Cathy's place ready for our return to Hever Castle for the weekend's jousting.  It is going to be a fantastic weekend I can tell.  Very excited!



Good King Hal & Son

Good King Hal produces his new improved "Mini-Me" to an astonished World.  Last time he threatened to produce is "Mini-Me" in public he was arrested and charged with intended gross indecency.

And so it was time to head back to Hever Castle first of all, for a joust on the Saturday.  However, this time there were a couple of differences - one, it wasn't raining and the sun was shining (hoorah!) and two, I had my son James with me, dressed as a sort of cross between a Herald and a cheap version of Prince Edward.  I had picked up a costume for James to use from "Dress the Part" - a fancy dress outlet that used to be in the Shereday's Centre in Billericay High Street when I was working there back in the 1980's, but has since moved to much bigger premises at Barleyland's Farm just outside Billericay.  We drove down to Hever from Essex on the Saturday morning and met up with Jeremy Richardson, head honcho of the Knights of Royal England as the jousting arena we normally use at Hever still hadn't recovered from the soaking and pounding it took last week, and a new, temporary arena had been set up the far side of the public car park, next to the lake.

Well, we paraded out for the show, and me feeling proud as punch as I had my son James with me in the show for the first time.  There was another notable difference - no Michelle Coda today.  She and her family were attending a big family event and so her place was taken by the admirable Emma Fuery from The Tudor Roses.  She looked after James wonderfully while I was in the middle of the arena doing my patter with the audience.  As we sat in the Royal Box doing the commentary, James knelt on the floor in front of me, but I had to keep shushing him as he was laughing at the antics of the Knights too much and occasionally forgetting he was very close to an open mic!  It was also nice to see Sir Stephen of Porlock back with the Knights again.  It was a lovely day, topped off in marvellous style by seeing Sir Owen of Leeds Castle again, along with his lovely Mummy, Shelley.

James and I immediately left the castle and then headed down to Somerset.  We had a fun night playing on the Wii console, but it was time for an early night as we had to be up bright and early for a trip to Sudeley Castle and the latest Tudor Fun day.  It was lovely to see Sudeley in the sunshine, we had waited so long to see it that way.  There were two Tudor Roses today - Lady Erica and Lady Rachel, plus the lovely Zarrina and Diane from Tudor Gowns.  James and I were spoilt for lovely ladies to look at!  It was devilishly hot today and the old castle was packed with punters which was lovely to see.  It was good to see the lovely Tudor ladies frolicking in the playground, and Rachel and Erica both had fun on the big slide in their Tudor frocks, and then Erica topped that by going on the zip wire in her full Queen's outfit.  Not a site you see every day!  We wandered and posed for photos for most of the day, but James' two  days in the limelight started catching up with him, and by about 3.30pm he was well and truly done in.  We slipped away from the throng, he got changed, I got changed and then we were on our way.  He slept in the car for a while, but amazingly, one take away curry and some Sponge Bob episodes on the TV and he was virtually bouncing off the walls again. 

A few days at leisure and then I am on at Christchurch Mansion in Ipswich next Thursday and Friday, before heading back to Hever Castle on the Saturday and Sunday, and then Leeds Castle on the Monday.  Come and say hello if you get a chance.  And now........... sleep....!

Sutton Valence Primary School



Engelbert Humperdink and his mother celebrate not coming last in the recent Eurovision Song Contest.

Back to Kent today for a visit to Sutton Valence Primary School.  I managed to scare myself half to death the night before by looking up the school on the Internet only to discover there are two Sutton Valence Schools in the village.  ARGH!  Was I going to go to the right one? Well, yes I did.  Sutton Valence Primary School is a state school, whereas Sutton Valence School is a private school - and just to make things even more complicated they are both in the same road and within less than 400 yards of each other...  No wonder I was initially confused.  As it was it was nice to get to the correct school and a very warm welcome from all the staff.

It was a different sort of day today.  The school were celebrating a Horrible Histories Day and had all sorts of different events going on, with me just as one of them.  They had built a Viking long ship in their playground, there was a hunt the famous figure from history competition outside, plus a visit from a Falconer and his birds.  Things began with me greeting the entire school to a morning assembly.  I was only partially through this when the falconer arrived and rather stole any thunder I might have had by walking in with an American Bald Eagle on his arm.  Now that is a conversation stopper I can tell you.  He then wowed the children even more by first launching the bird across the school hall and it swooped low over their heads eliciting many excited whoops and squeals.  He did this several times, and then parted the children where they sat on the floor and had the Eagle trot across the hall again getting a great reaction from all present.  The falconer was a bit of a name dropper and mentioned once or twice during the day that the Eagle had appeared alongside Liam Neeson in the movie "Clash of the Titans".  Should I tell him I once had a beer with Rolf Harris?  No, I don't think it would have cut much ice to be brutally honest.

After the assembly I had an hour with year 5 doing the six wives talk, then I was with year 6 (a really mean and moody bunch of trainee teenagers) for a short while.  And so the day continued with me spending times with different groups.  The year four group that I did the stocks and punishment section with straight after lunch were absolutely brilliant and we had a big laugh.  The lunch was a magnificent Tudor banquet with tables set up in the main hall under superb flags and pennants.

My final section of the day was to be a jousting tournament with years 1 and 2.  I was a little worried as to how this would go as I had never done a tournament with such a very young group.  But I needn't have worried, they were absolutely brilliant!  In the main final a very good ladies team JUST pipped the Gents in a race off finale.  This makes what could be the final score for the school year to be:

GENTLEMEN 19 - 30 LADIES

A convincing win for the lasses!

Watching all of this was the Mayor of Maidstone and he very charmingly agreed to take part in a final joust between children and teachers, but obviously he was weighed down with his ceremonial chain of office and came a poor second to the ladies teacher's team. 

It was a really different sort of day and great fun all round!  A lovely school worth visiting and I was tired but very happy with the day.  A long drive home was not quite what the doctor ordered but I am sure I should thank him in the long run.