North By North West. Then South a Bit. And East.

Good King Hal treating yet another child with the same respect he always does. 

Tights.  Don't you just hate tights?  They are the bane of my life sometimes.  For instance, on Monday just gone, I was at a school in Taunton during the day, and then at a small village just outside Yeovil in the evening for a visit to a WI group.  I wore the same tights for both shows, but they might as well have been completely different items of clothing.  During the day, they were a delight, fitting perfectly and staying in place.  In the evening they took on a totally different persona and were hell bent on heading south as fast as they possibly could.  Ladies, I know exactly what you go through.  Sometimes the damn things are so keen on falling off that you almost feel like you want to nail the bloody things in place to keep them there.  Perhaps stockings and suspenders are the way forward for me.  I'd better not.  I might have a heart attack half way through a show and die one day and then.... oh, the shame of what they discover when they get me to the hospital.

Anyway, the week opened last week with an early start on the Monday and a drive up to Bromsgrove in Worcestershire and two days at the lovely Aston Fields Middle School.  I was very warmly welcomed on both days and had a lovely time.  I had also managed to find a Travelodge to stay in that was (a) very nice, (amazing, I know) and (b) closer to the school I was appearing at than any other I have ever been to.  It was less than half a mile from the school gates.  Marvellous!  On the first day the children were a little restless and lacked a little bit of focus early on, but they came along wonderfully as the day went on.  By the end they were ready for a jousting tournament, and they were great!  Loud and frantic, it was a great tournament which a gents team just managed to win by the shortest of heads.  Our score for the academic year shifts on to:

GENTLEMEN 4.5 - 5.5 LADIES

Close.  The closest our tournaments have been for years.  I went back to the very nice Travelodge and settled in for an early night (and a glass of wine or two...).  Well, you have to...

Wednesday and my second day back at Aston Fields.  It was a different group of children and teachers today, but the welcome was as warm and inviting as the day before.  The children were a bit more attuned to the day from the word go on this morning and the day really moved along with a comfortable swagger.  Plenty of laughs all round, and one of the most bizarre answers I have ever received during my years on the road.  I asked the group if they knew the name of Henry VIII's second wife - and a young lad put up his hand like a rocket and blurted out "STEVE!"  There was a stunned silence for a couple of seconds, then a huge explosion of laughter.  It was akin to the old Monty Python sketch about where do Penguins come from.  BURMA!  Why did you shout Burma?  I panicked.  Perhaps this young lad did as well.  Anyway, after a fine lunch the joust proved to be every bit as competitive as the previous day, only this time the ladies just managed to snatch victory.  So the score goes to:

GENTLEMEN 4.5 - 6.5 LADIES

Has normal service been resumed?  We shall see...  I was not to be heading home, it was back onto the motorway system for a drive up to the outskirts of Preston in Lancashire as my next Tudor day was at St Mary's Catholic School in Leyland.  It was supposed to be about a two hour drive from Bromsgrove to the Travelodge I was next staying in, but with heavy rain and rush hour traffic, it took me closer to four hours.  As I climbed out of the car a chill wind howled round me.  Blimey, where did that come from?  It has been so warm for so long I had almost forgotten what cold weather felt like.  Well, that was one hell of a reminder I can tell you folks.  As I walked up to the main door into the Travelodge, an elderly lady sat outside in the cold smoking a fag and coughing in a desperately unhealthy rasping way.  Nice.  As I walked into reception she followed me in spluttering and wheezing.  She walked straight round behind reception and immediately said:  "Good evening, (choke hawk wheeze) can I 'elp yer?"  That's what I call a welcome!  This was a proper Travelodge with spattered carpets, gruesome looking smears in the bathroom and a stunning view out of your bedroom window of the side of a hill approximately 15 feet away.  I fully expected to find the Gideon Bible chained to the bedside drawer.

Great day at St Mary's School in Leyland.  Absolutely lovely teachers - friendly, gorgeous and great fun.  The kids were a lovely group to work with as well and it turned out to be a truly memorable day.  I was also inundated with requests for photos from the teachers during the lunch break!  I was more than happy to pose with all these lovely ladies!  The jousting was another belter, closely fought up to the final leg, when the gents team simply strolled away to a great victory.

GENTLEMEN 5.5 - 6.5 LADIES

This year is certainly proving to be a lot closer between the two teams than has come to be expected.  I packed up my stuff and then hit the road to head back down to Somerset.  I was dreading the journey, but it was actually OK.  I was going to use the word "a delight" but that is an epithet I could never hang on the M5 of an evening.  It was so good to be home.

Monday morning found me heading up to Taunton for a first visit to Norton Fitzwarren, which is a state primary school and not some long forgotten Victorian tragic actor.  I was there for the morning only with a group mixed up of years 3, 4, 5 & 6, which was fabulous, but means I won't be visiting them again for at least 5 years!  It was one of the most fun mornings I have ever had, loads off laughs, a great group of kids and some more delightful teachers.  A fantastic school.  The ladies won a pulsating joust that produced so much noise it damn near blew the roof off the school hall!  And so:

GENTLEMEN 5.5 - 7.5 LADIES

When I got home in the early afternoon it wasn't the end of my day.  In the evening I was booked to appear for Marston Magna (again, not a Victorian actor) WI group as their evening guest speaker.  I love doing WI groups as the ladies are all delightful and usually love a nice saucy laugh.  Well there was plenty of those!  I didn't get on until after 8pm, but the talk went really well and the ladies seemed to really enjoy themselves.  After I was changed I was asked to judge a competition of ancient relics (not the members of the WI before you all say it) but a collection of heirlooms and old items that members of the club had brought in, and I had to choose my three favourites.  Third place I went for a coachman's truncheon, carried by a coachman on the London to Plymouth stage coach in the early 1800's.  Second place I gave to an early almanack type of book dated from 1764. But for first place I chose a certificate of teaching competence awarded to a lady who had worked at Highbridge School, and then at Barrington School!  Wonderful stuff.  Next it was time for a cup of tea and a chin wag with some of the club members and then I was on my way home.  It had been a long day and a long week, but very satisfying.

Autumn Action.

Good King Hal and friend suddenly notice the paparazzi.  Swines.

More driving around the country, but this time with a very last minute booking.  I got several calls and texts from Shillingstone School, near Blandford in Dorset desperate for me to come to the school before half term. I had visited Shillingstone twice before - once when they were in their old premises. This was an old Victorian building and with absolutely no parking near it.  My abiding memory was of dodging thundering lorries and cars whistling about 5 inches from my head as I unloaded all the props from my car in front of the school gates.  They have moved now, as I discovered on my last visit, to a brand new purpose built, state of the art school building  It is stunning, with great views all round it.  A wonderful school with fabulous teachers, lovely kids and great facilities.  What is not to like?  The drive down is pretty idyllic too, taking you down through Sherborne, past open fields full of deer racing around in herds and little cute hamlets (not moody teenage Danish Prince's having naughty thoughts about bumping people off...).  The morning was great fun, with lots of laughs as usual, and we finished with a quite magnificent jousting tournament that went right to the wire, but the winners, almost inevitably, were the ladies.  So once more they leap on to:

GENTLEMEN 1 - 4 LADIES

Same old same old!  Tired was not really the word when I got home.  It was more a case of "oh my God, everything hurts, I cannot move another inch in any direction as I think I am going to die".  Which might sound a tad over reactive, but then that's the kind of mock Tudor monarch I am....  A Chinese takeaway made me feel a whole lot better.  God bless that MSG.

On the Thursday I drove up to Lutterworth in Leicestershire, so I was nice a close by for a return visit to Orchard School in Broughton Astley.  No.  No I won't do it.  You can't make me.  I have done it on every other visit to this lovely school but I refuse to this time.  I will NOT make a joke about Broughton Astley being Rick Astley's little brother.  DAMMIT!  I just did.  The drive up was OK, but I was only staying at a Travelodge, so I wasn't in a hurry to get there to be honest.  Lutterworth itself is quite nice - as you enter the town there is a big model of a Gloucester Meteor in a real comic book take off position, as this is the birthplace of Sir Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.  Well just past this big stainless steel sculpture there is the Travelodge.  I drove past it to see if I could find a nice cheap supermarket where I could buy some food for the evening.  I had a quick look but all I could see was a Waitrose - expensive, but there seemed little other choice.  I actually asked someone in the car park if there was anywhere else nearby and he told me there wasn't.  He was a complete liar, because when I drove 200 yards past it the next morning there was a bloody great Mace store.  Git.  I bought some food which came to just slightly less than the GDP of a small African country and went out to the car park.  As I went to reverse out of my space an old chap strolled straight behind my moving car.  I stopped suddenly and waited for him to move.  He didn't, he simply slowly started lighting a cigarette.  I waited and waited and finally he moved.  He gave me an absolutely filthy look as I pulled out - not sure why.  I wound down the window and called out to him: "I'll get you next time Usain".  He made a well known rude gesture.  How nice.

Orchard School was lovely the next day.  Great to see everyone from my previous visits, including the jolliest caretaker you could ever wish to meet.  It was a superb day, great fun, lots of laughs and two of the biggest prima donna's you could ever wish to meet.  As if to prove my predictions wrong, the gents this time stormed to a well deserved victory over the ladies, thus pulling our score back to:

GENTLEMEN 2 - 4 LADIES

Nice and close.  The journey back on a Friday afternoon affected M5 was not pleasant, but the weekend has been nice and relaxing.  Tomorrow morning I am up bright and early for a visit to Tilehursst near Reading in Berkshire, and then after the morning with them I am shooting down to Wales to see my folks again.  Can't wait!

Back on the Road Again. And Again. And Again.

Good King Hal, inflating a new author by blowing in her ear in front of the Houses of Parliament.  And why not.

And so we knew summer was over as it started chucking it down with rain, the winds started howling, central heating got turned on again, and all the people who had been moaning about it being too hot during the summer immediately started moaning that it was too cold.  What a joy the people of England are some time.  Another sure fire sign that summer was over was the imminent re-opening of the schools and my endless trips round to the to be King Henry VIII.

My first port of call for this academic year was to West Leigh Junior School near Southend-on-Sea in Essex. I had visited this school several times previously and it was a delight to be back with Bella Garrett and her lovely pupils.  It seemed a little strange being back in schools after a long summer of jousting, but it felt good as well.  Admittedly I was a little rusty having not done a full day since about mid July, but after having done this show well over 700 times it soon came back to me.  It was a big group for the first day back - about 135 year three children, but a very rewarding group none-the-less.  The morning did seem to zip past as I performed in the small inner hall.  After lunch we hiked over to the dining hall - much bigger - and got ready for the jousting.  It was a fine old tournament, amazing noise from all of the pupils and a really closely fought contest.  Amazingly, our first winners of the new scholastic year was..... THE BOYS!  I know!  Will wonders never cease?  So, like the first Premier League table of the season, this may not mean very much in the long run, but our score is:

GENTLEMEN 1 - 0 LADIES

Would it last?  Well, you will find out very shortly...  Also at this time we were all waiting for the results of our filming efforts at Hever Castle to go "live" on line.  Doug Bolton, the sainted Darlene Cavill's son, had done a marvellous job with the filming, rendering and editing and I was dying for our efforts to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world.  But we would have to wait for just a little bit longer.

On Monday the 9th, I was back in Somerset for a return visit for the first time since 2009 to Long Sutton Primary near Langport.  Lizzie Reynolds, late of Manor Court School in Chard, is still the head at this lovely little school and it was so nice to see her again.  We had a fabulous day - Long Sutton is a brilliant school and very welcoming and friendly, and we had a superb morning with plenty of laughs from the children and some great joining in.  The jousting was, like West Leigh, very hard fought, incredibly noisy and a close run thing.  But getting things back to normal, the ladies simply walked off with the win in the final.  It seemed almost too easy for them.

GENTLEMEN 1 - 1 LADIES

So, normal service resumed?  Read on dear intrepid Tudor nonsense fan, read on... I had about 12 hours to gather my thoughts and some clean underwear and hit the road for the long trek up to Cumbria and an appointment at Ashfield Junior in Workington.

I had asked my lovely friends Andy and Kate Blundell of the Phoenix Antiques Barn in Temple Sowerby near Penrith if I could stay with them, and they very kindly agreed.  So I headed out onto the M5 and pointed my car at the North Pole and began...  It was actually a very pleasant drive up - when you get to North Lancashire and Cumbria some of the scenery alongside the M6 is possibly the most dramatic you will find by any motorway in Britain, unless of course the big wind turbine near the Madjewski Stadium in Reading next to the M4 is the kind of thing that floats your boat.  I was blessed with brilliant sunshine as well, which as it began to slowly fade at about 4pm, looked stunning against the rugged hills and peaks of the Cumbrian landscape.  I got to the Phoenix Barn to find Andy holding his bank manager in a head lock, so I joined in with a couple of rabbit punches and a kick to the goolies and sent him on his way.  It was great to see Andy and he took me on a tour of the latest acquisitions in the Barn.  As ever some lovely stuff and definitely worth a visit if you are ever in the area.  We headed back to their house where I got a big bone crushing hug from Kate, and it was good to see their lovely kids Daisy and Dylan again.  We went out to dinner at a local pub, and then headed back to their place to drink far too much wine and sit in the garden watching the satellites silently gliding above us in the black inky night sky.  Lovely.  I headed off early the next morning after demolishing some croissants Andy cooked and drove over to Workington.  The drive over itself was lovely - past stunning countryside and more dramatic peaks and lakes.  Workington itself is...ahem... a little on the plain side, but Ashfield School was lovely - hugely welcoming and roughly the same size as the TARDIS inside.  I got lost on numerous occasions, even when just trying to find the loo.  We had to begin the day with the jousting as we only had access to the main hall for the early morning.  It was a long loud tournament but very bravely fought by both sides.  Predictably enough, the ladies romped to a victory so normal service IS resumed.

GENTLEMEN 1 - 2 LADIES

On finishing the show I headed back towards the M6 and the 340 miles back to Somerset.  The weather was no longer my friend, and it poured with rain, the wind howled and the traffic was dreadful.  But I made it back and walked into my flat at about 9.45pm.  I was tired out of my brain, but any thoughts of a rest and a long lie-in would just have to wait...

The alarm went off at "WHAT?" o'clock and I stumbled out of a bed that I didn't want to leave.  Back on the road again, this time in cold foggy conditions, back up the A303 to the A34 and another return trip, this time to the lovely Kingsclere School in Berkshire.  This is such a lovely school with some of the nicest teachers you would ever want to meet or work with.  Loads of laughs throughout the day, plus plenty of offers of wedding cake and other goodies from various just missed festivities.  And I bet you can't guess what happened in the jousting???  Yes, the ladies won - AGAIN.  History is repeating itself quite obviously and the same pattern emerges year after year.  I feel sure some research scientist somewhere could look into this and discover something very deep and meaningful about the entire human condition.  But to be honest I am too bleedin' knackered to bother asking him, so it will just have to wait.  Along with those other all consuming questions we should be striving to find an answer for - such as, how does the snow plough driver get to work in the morning?  Or if you unscrew your belly button does your bum fall off?  Or who on Earth actually finds Miranda Hart funny other than about three BBC executives?  All this and much more will NOT be answered in the next blog.

GENTLEMEN 1 - 3 LADIES

Oh, and after all that - yes, the video we made IS "live" now on both the Hever Castle website and on You Tube.  Have a look, enjoy and share it with as many people as you know.  Let's go viral folks.