Sudeley Castle 2 - Soaking in Sudeley.

The Jackson Five as seen in Tudor England.  From the left: Marlon, Tito, Groucho, Harpo and Sneezy.  Ye YMCA in full vigour.  Many thanks to The Tudor Roses for the lending of this picture.

You could tell it was a British Bank Holiday Monday by the Bible black skies and tsunami-like downpour of rain. What better way to experience this day than trudging round the soggy gardens of Sudeley Castle whilst dressed as a big Tudor Jessie.  To sweeten this less than appetising pill I was going to be wandering round with the Tudor Roses again, this time with the addition of Zarrina Bull.

No new name has yet been finalised for the King's new sat nav in the car.  The names Vivienne and Henrietta have been suggested, but more suggestions would be appreciated.  She got her first proper outing on the Monday morning as I drove up the M5 towards Winchcombe and Sudeley Castle.  However, she is going to have to get better at this as she insisted on taking me slap bang through the middle of Cheltenham - not too bad on a rainy early Bank Holiday Monday morning, but could have been a real pain in ye Royal posterior if it was a working day and getting close to rush hour.  I arrived at the Castle to be greeted by the lovely Kim Gibbons again - a charming lady looking a little under the weather this particular morning.  She insisted her ailments were self-inflicted, but I still felt sorry for her.

My morning got off to a bad start.  I arrived at the Castle in pouring rain - not good.  I knew this would soon be followed by the staircase equivalent of scaling the north face of the Eiger, whilst pulling a bloody great big suitcase after you - the room I use to get changed in is right at the top of a very high Castle tower... So to make things easier I decided to ease the weight of my Henry costume case, and before I went in I jettisoned my spare robe, pantaloons, doublet, tunic and anything else I might not need on the day.  Excellent.  I still sounded like a shagged out steam locomotive puffing up the last few steps in the rarefied atmosphere at the top of the tower, but I was happy I had completed my task and I was safe in the knowledge that my car was now parked about half a mile down the track in the staff car park, and safe and sound.  I got the costume out and stripped out of my normal clothes.  Henry shirt on - check.  Tights on - check.  Pantaloons?  Er.....  pantaloons?  I tipped the bag upside down and went all through it - not a sight of any of my pantaloons. Sod it, there was only one thing for it - slip my jeans on over my tights and put some shoes on and slog back DOWN the north face of the Eiger and slosh through the mud the half mile to the staff car park where my car was all safe and sound, but bloody miles away.  Sure enough when I got to the car I had indeed jettisoned both pairs of pantaloons I had with me.  What a complete and utter twit.  So it was back UP the north face of the Eiger and carry on changing.

I am always amazed by the tenacity of the British tourist.  In the pouring rain and howling wind the last place most sane people would want to go would be a cold old Tudor Castle - but came they still did.  Not a massive turn out by any standards, but somewhere in the region of about 400 hardy souls.  One of whom was one of the lovely teachers I had seen at Hugh Sexey Middle School on Friday!  She came with her husband, children and what appeared to be a full set of grandparents as well.  For services above and beyond the call of duty, she receives the Good King Hal Medal of Bravery in the Face of Inclement Weather.  It was fun perambulating the grounds with the Tudor Roses and dear Zarrina - their costumes look so fantastic and they're all such pretty girls. 

We lunched all together in the great hall dining room, surrounded by the tourists in for the day.  The big roaring fire in there was most welcoming.  You simply would not believe it was May outside - it was so cold.  The musical minstrels from our previous trip to Sudeley were not outside in the pouring wind and rain, but were stationed in the minstrel gallery above the restaurant and provided a perfect soundtrack to our lunch.

We were finally released at about 4pm and began our individual slogs home.  The M5 to begin with resembled being inside a car wash on full blast, such was the ferocity of the rain fall, but it eventually cleared up.  I was home by 6.30pm, and getting stuck into a glass of Shiraz by about 6.32pm.  A really lovely day with some really lovely ladies and looking forward to us all re-convening at Sudeley on the 5th June.

Confessions of a Sexey Model. (You'll understand...)

Breakfast TV on Tudor Vision.  Joining Henry and Liz on the sofa this morning will be lovable brain box from Holland - Erasmus; chum of the King - Robert Aske; and Perkin Warbeck - crazy name, crazy guy!  Stay tuned.

The middle of last week found me down in Folkestone in Kent to begin with, having dinner and meeting with my new brilliant agent, the legendary Michelle Coda.  I stayed the night with her and her other half Matt, and Michelle's little daughter, Victoria.  In the evening her parents Frank and Debbie came over and much wine was drunk and food eaten, which always seems to happen when Frank and Debbie Coda are on the scene.  I began the long drive back to Somerset on the Thursday lunchtime, but this time with one passenger missing - my poor old sat nav, the one dubbed originally Doris II by me, but later and more poetically Kanuna by my son James, she is no more.  Her power supply has broken and really I was just looking for a good excuse to get rid of her!  She had never been that good to be honest.  She can find easy addresses brilliantly - if you want 57 Hannover Street in Oldham or something, she can take you straight there.  But ask her to find some house in the middle of nowhere - hopeless.  You'd key in the post code for Little Rustic Farm, near Wurzel Village in Devon and she'd say "Well, I can't find that address, but I can find Rustic Road slap bang in the middle of Exeter, would you like to go there instead?" which is about as helpful as finding a man who is drowning and asking him to hold your anvil.  So Friday's appearance back at the wonderful Hugh Sexey Middle School in Blackford near Wedmore would have to begin with me finding the school manually.  I printed out directions from Google Maps and felt confident I could find the place the following morning.

Twit.  Total and utter twit.  Of course I wouldn't be able to find it with printed out directions from Google Maps.  I couldn't even find it with Kanuna in previous years.  Somehow, through luck more than judgement, I found myself in the village of Blackford and asked a very nice lady taking her dog for a walk where I could find Hugh Sexey School - a question which, asked in any other village in the UK would have probably resulted in a slapped face for me.  So here I was back at this lovely school, surrounded as ever but a veritable bevy of beautiful teachers.  It seems a pre-requisite to work at this school is you have to be female and attractive.  And I am not complaining!  Always makes my visits more fun for me!

Well, we had a great morning - it was a big group of about 100 children I suppose, and all of them in fantastic costumes.  Loads of laughs in the morning, and some really sound and impressive Tudor knowledge displayed by the children.  We started a little late because of a morning assembly in the hall, but we soon caught up.    For lunch the children had all brought in packed lunches, and as in previous years I was asked to judge which I thought were the most authentically Tudor of the foods.  One little girl had a yogurt frube drink and a chocolate bar and was surprised when I told her they weren't terribly authentic.  I was treated to a lovely lunch of pasta bolognese, followed by a chocolate cake in custard.  Terribly healthy!  I also shared a bottle of red grape Schloer with the teachers, with us all pretending it was red wine - but it was obvious it wasn't as we all went back to work after lunch!

The afternoon was loud and fun, culminating in yet another brilliant Jousting tournament, but this one ended in that rarest of occurrences - a win for the Gents!  This makes the updated score:

GENTLEMEN 15 - 26 LADIES

Still a big lead for the ladies, but the gents are at least hanging in there. We finally finished with some photos with the group, and a parade of the children's costumes with me picking the best.  I was absolutely cream crackered by the time it was for me to pick my way home.  But any ideas I had of a quiet lazy evening snoozing on the sofa, well, I could forget all that.

You may remember I modelled for the Shepton Beauchamp art group recently, in my full Henry gear, and I was heading back there for a return visit by popular demand!  I wore a different outfit from my previous posings and we had the usual banter and laughs with the ladies there present.  A very pleasant evening, and proof, if you ever wanted it, that not only Lily Cole is a "model" in this family.  So now you understand the title of the blog - Sexey Model?  Geddit?  Oh never mind...

I have purchased a new sat nav today - not sure of her name yet.  Any suggestions from readers of this blog?  She will first be used "in anger" on Bank Holiday Monday when I am back at Sudeley Castle in Winchcombe in Gloucestershire for another Tudor "fun" day. Looking forward to seeing my Queen's again as the Tudor Roses will be out in force again.  Smashing!

Falcon School, Norwich

Good King Hal, known as "The Tudor Pelvis", rocking through yet another rendition of "Hound Dog" to a stunned audience of easily distracted midgets.  Surely there must be a law against this sort of thing.

Manchester City 1 Manchester United 0.  It gladdens the soul, folks, it really does.  But I won't mention it much more in this blog.  Honest.  I had driven to Essex on Sunday as a staging post for the next part of this journey to this show - onwards up to Norwich on the Monday morning for a return visit to Falcon School.  One of my friends on Facebook got terribly upset when she realised that Falcon School was just that - a school and not, as she had thought, a school for Falconry.  I promised to get it introduced on the curriculum as soon as is Kingly possible.

The pouring rain which has highlighted our drought over the past few weeks (eh?) had finally given way, and on waking in the wee small hours of Monday I was delighted to see the beginnings of a sunrise.  This made the morning drive up very pleasant indeed, and even at an early hour it was warming up nicely.  To be honest, for someone who was going to spend the whole day in furs and heavy clothing, it was warming up a bit too much.  I was warmly welcomed with a cup of tea and even a hug from one teacher!  It was a bigger group than in previous years at Falcon - just under 100 children in three classes.  Manchester City 1 Manchester United 0.  Ah!  It just sounds better each time you mention it, doesn't it?  Today's show was just one of those days when everything goes right.  It was a lovely group of children, great teachers and everyone got really involved.  Loads of laughs and also some very impressive Tudor knowledge, one little girl scoring a rare 20 out of 20 in the Tudor quiz. 

Lunch was an ice hockey puck and chips.  Sorry, lunch was a BEEFBURGER and chips, and it filled a void, though when it did go in my mouth a big bell rang out, organ music played and loads of very fat Americans started waving flags and shouting.  (This is a joke BTW).  Meanwhile, Manchester City 1 Manchester United 0.  And does anybody even care what a Rock Hyrax is?  I do.

The afternoon session was hilarious, loads of laughs, and one of the teachers let slip that one of the others is on the verge of emigrating to New Zealand which apparently the children weren't supposed to know.  Oops!  That is the sort of thing I do normally, so it was nice to see someone else putting their foot in it.  In the joust, one of the gents teams had this young lad in it who frankly hadn't got a clue what he was doing. He just randomly prodded at quoits in whichever direction he felt like at the time, and then wandered aimlessly between the quintaines as the crowd howled at him to get on with the race.  Somehow his team reached the final against the ladies team, but he put in a similarly bewildered performance in the final which allowed a very good ladies team to romp to a deserved victory.  Our score now goes up to a very one sided:

GENTLEMEN 14 - 26 LADIES

They are getting away now.  It is not as close as Manchester City 1 Manchester United 0, but it is just as joyful.  Almost as joyful as watching Sir Alex "Complete and Utter ****" Ferguson losing the plot midway through the second half when his team couldn't win.  I was very sympathetic.  I only laughed for 38 minutes.  And then a further 25 minutes.  Right, the King is off down to Folkestone tomorrow to see his agent, then back to Somerset for a return visit to the delightfully named Hugh Sexey School in Wedmore.

Oh, and in case I forgot to mention it....  Manchester City 1 Manchester United 0.

Shakespeare, Hexham, Hadrian's Wall and all points north...

Hadrian's Wall - a small garden ornament designed to keep out vast hoards of marauding Picts.  Surprisingly effective. Seen here in excellent weather and with a distinct lack of sheep poo.

It was to be an excursion north.  My sister Cathy, is a graphic designer and does a lot of work for a Shakespearean group who have their base in Northumberland.  She and her husband, Julian, had been invited up to this neck of the woods for a party to celebrate Shakespeare's birthday/death day (depending on how you look at it).  She had mentioned to them that I dress up as a big Tudor Jessie and they were keen for me to come along and join in the fun, as I was assured many other of the guests would similarly be dressed up.  Oh yes, I was assured...
We drove up on the Thursday morning, up along the A68 which was the very same route I took way back in 1987 on my first ever trip to the Edinburgh Festival.  Ah!  This time, instead of sharing a clapped out Ford Transit minibus, I was in my sister's humongous Jeep Grand Cherokee, a car roughly the same size as the USS Nimitz, which was lucky considering the vast amount of baggage we were bringing with us, as well as Cath and Julian's dogs, Charlie and Oona.  We were staying just outside Hexham in the delightful hamlet of Juniper in a restored pre-Victorian chapel nestling next to a flowing river.  Beautiful - even in the weather we endured, which was damp with a capital "splash".  Check it out here: http://www.theriversidechapel.co.uk/  and go and visit it!  It's lovely!  We had a lovely lazy first evening, drinking wine, and eating chicken and chips - very classy.
On the Friday we drove up to Hadrian's Wall, a site I have driven past so many times over the years but had yet to visit.  We headed up to Housesteads Roman Fort where you park up, and enter via the site shop.  You are lulled into a false sense of security by the gentle path that leads out of the back of the shop, this then slopes down before suddenly rearing up like the north face of the Eiger.  I was overtaken by one very pensionable looking chap which made me feel great about my current fitness levels. But we got there in the end and had a look round the interesting museum, then had a good wander round the site which had more sheep poo than you could honestly shake a stick at.  I did my usual trick of visiting an ancient monument by taking some time to kick over a few molehills to see if anything cropped up - and they did!  First I found a nice bit of Roman grey ware pottery, then a very nice fragment of Samian pottery and finally the remnant of a rusted nail - possibly too small to be a roof nail, but possibly from a Roman shoe.  I handed that one into the museum and they seemed genuinely pleased to receive it.  Little things...  We drove back to our chapel via the charming little town of Haltwhistle, where we picked up a very nice steak pie for our din dins that evening from a local butcher's.
Saturday was the day of the Shakespeare bash - in the nearby little town/village of Allendale.  As it turned out I was the only person in costume, nothing new for me to be honest, but I was also the youngest person there by about 20 years.  It was an interesting day - readings from various plays and sonnets, traditional songs and also some lovely folk music.  We were given almost industrial amounts of wine to drink, which was very welcome, and after about 3 hours it was time to leave, probably before we slipped into an alcohol induced coma.
Sunday was another day out, this time driving over to Temple Sowerby, near Penrith to visit my lovely friends Andy and Kate Blundell and their children Daisy and Dylan.  The drive over was via the town of Alston on the A686 which I can thoroughly recommend - stunning scenery and some beautiful houses.  It was great to see Andy and Kate again and we sat in their garden drinking tea and watching young Dylan demolish a chocolate cake all by himself.  Good lad.  Andy took us over to their antiques showroom later - such wonderful stuff!  Have a look here: http://www.phoenixantiquesbarn.co.uk/ at what they can offer.  We drove back to the Chapel for our last night, stopping on the way to pick up a take away curry and some more wine for our final blow out.
The drive back on the Monday morning was hard work for Julian, he did most of the driving.  I have to admit I slept most of the way!  The weather was mostly dreadful with heavy sheets of rain lashing down.  My plan to hurtle off back down to Somerset was thwarted as I had to come to Essex and look after James for a couple of days as Amanda is ill with severe bronchitis at the moment.  But, hey, any excuse to spend some happy time with my lovely son is to be cherished.  So I am not complaining!  It has been a lovely long weekend away, but I would really love to see Juniper and the Old Riverside Chapel in nice weather as it must be stunning.  It was good enough in filthy weather!

Bishop's Down Primary, Tunbridge Wells

His Majesty, The King, suffering from a tremendous bout of Hampton Court. But then he shouldn't have sat down so quickly.

The rather pleasant sunny weather of the last few days was only a memory on Tuesday morning. After finishing at Sudeley Castle on the Sunday, by Monday I was back on the road heading to Kent for a visit to Bishops Down Primary School in Royal Tunbridge Wells on the Tuesday. The Monday drive had been through the same bright but cold weather of the weekend, but Tuesday dawned grey and cold, with threatening clouds overhead. Tunbridge Wells is a very attractive town most of the time, but even it's charms were somewhat limited in the ceaseless, steady downpour of rain.

I had been booked to appear at this school by a lady called Sarah Grimsey, and she was there to greet me when I parked up outside the school's front doors. She shot up in my estimation by first and foremost being very friendly and welcoming, but then did even better by making me a cup of tea. It was a mixed group of years 5 and 6 for today - about 50 children in total, and they were lovely. Full of laughs and, considering I was their official introduction to the Tudors topic, very well informed on all things Henry VIII. The morning finished in their classroom for a very funny question and answer session.

Lunch was a delicious pesto pasta with home made meat balls - absolutely lovely! The afternoon was equally loud and fun, and when we came to the jousting tournament it was deafening. The final got us back to our usual result with the ladies romping to a very competent and well deserved victory. Our score for the year is now:

GENTLEMEN 14 - 25 LADIES

That is a very big lead the ladies now have, and to be honest I can't see the gentlemen catching them, or am I just doing Roberto Mancini mind games?

I was quite low on fuel as I headed back to my sister's place near Detling, but do you think I could find a petrol station between the school in Tunbridge Wells and Stockbury? Could I heck. I saw one on my side of the road the whole way, and so badly positioned was it that you couldn't see or notice it till you were well past it on a non-turning duel carriageway. Finally, I conceded I would have to stop at the little petrol station at the top of Detling Hill... WRONG! I pulled up on their forecourt with my car virtually running on fumes, to be greeted by big signs saying "Sorry, we are temporarily closed. Apologies for any inconvenience." I then had trouble getting back on the road as some tit in a tarmac-spreading lorry had parked on the slip road back on to the A249 and was reading a newspaper, utterly blocking any attempt to rejoin the carriageway. When he finally grudgingly agreed to move out the way for me I cheerfully waved at him, in that time honoured tradition of miffed drivers. My, how we laughed.

A day off today for a flying visit to Essex to see my beloved son, then tomorrow a drive up to Northumberland... ooh! Now, time to find me that long over due petrol.

Sudeley Castle 1

Good King Hal blowing an enormous raspberry on the back of his Queen's hand. What a charmer.

Four years had passed since my previous appearance at Sudeley Castle. FOUR YEARS! And I get back there yesterday and they STILL haven't finished it. I had been invited back by the very charming and delightful Kim Gibbons who now does all the booking of this sort of thing at Sudeley. The drive up from Somerset to the Cotswolds was going to take just a smidgen under two hours according to my sat nav, so I left home at about 7.30am aiming for a 9.30am arrival at the castle, for a 10.30am start. I would be working with The Tudor Roses, previously seen at Leeds Castle last year, and also Diane Collings also late of Leeds Castle, Hever Castle, Barrington Court, and the photo above.

It was a brilliantly bright clear morning as I left Crewkerne - dazzling spring sunshine and a Canaletto blue sky. Something that always surprises me when I work at Sudeley Castle is the almost complete lack of any road signs indicating it's existence outside of the small town it's in (Winchcombe). When you go to the area around Leeds Castle and Hever Castle you are left in little doubt as to the location of these charming sites. But Sudeley seems almost to hide itself on purpose, which is a real shame as it is delightful and in the most charming typical Cotswold countryside of rolling hills and quaint views. It's amazing Liz Hurley found it for her wedding.

I was greeted by Kim and shown to my dressing room - an office on nearly the top floor of one of the castle's towers. A lung bursting climb at the best of times, made even more strenuous by hauling half a hundred weight of Henry VIII clothing in a bag behind you. I was soon changed and sitting out on the terrace at the rear of the castle, taking in the views and awaiting the appearance of the Tudor Roses and Diane. With them all assembled round me I was now Henry VIII complete with a Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, Jane Seymour, Katherine Parr, Princess Mary and, thanks to an appearance by Diane's step daughter, a nine year old Princess Elizabeth. There were lots of other attractions for the punters including a circus skills training group, archery and a falconer - everything you could possibly need for a wild Tudor weekend.

Henry and his entourage walked round the castle estate, meeting and greeting any punters we came across and posing for limitless photographs. The sun, when out was very warming, but any time some clouds came across, there was a very keen wind which whipped across the castle grounds and reminded you we were still several weeks from May.

We all lunched together in the Castle cafe, which prompted much mirth and interest from our fellow non-Tudor dressed diners. After much more walking about and being photographed, we paused at one point to watch the falconry display, but this nearly ended in disaster as a customer's dog, for some stupid reason off it's lead, roared into the display area and began trying to attack the falcons. I was just waiting for the owner to run past screaming "FENTON! FENTON! JESUS CHRIST!"

We changed and headed back to our cars, and I was soon on my way home. Again the journey was relatively easy and the only unpleasantness occurred when I was nearly home on the A358 between Taunton and Ilminster, where some complete dick wad in a Ford Mondeo decided he was going to weave in and out of the traffic, regardless of what was coming in the other direction. How come you NEVER see a traffic policeman when you want to!?

Right, off to Kent today for a Henry show at Tunbridge Wells tomorrow, then later this week up to Northumberland for an appearance at a Shakespeare festival (and an excuse for a long weekend away). Thanks to the Tudor ladies this weekend, it was a delight.

Bourne Hall, Epsom

One of these two men is a highly successful actor and voice-over artist. The other is dressed as Henry VIII.

Bourne Hall, Epsom in Surrey. What does this name conjure up for you? Some old Victorian hall, or stylish Georgian edifice? Surrounded by sculpted lawns and with an elegant sweeping driveway... Eh? WRONG. The site that greeted me when I pulled up in the car park after my long drive up from Somerset was what appeared to be a recently landed flying saucer of the retro late-60's look. I half expected the front door to slide open amidst clouds of dry ice and Klaatu to step out and start frying cars with his death ray. I was TERRIBLY disappointed when he didn't, but then Michael Rennie has been dead for a long time now. Ahem. I feel I am getting away from the point of this blog. Silly me.

I had been contacted by Bourne Hall via the charming people at Portals to the Past. Bourne Hall is a wedding venue, museum, library, social centre, meeting place and also contains within it's bowels a very nice function room with stage, dance floor and space for about 300 seats. I was informed by David Brooks from the museum that this very hallowed hall where I was about to perform was where Steps auditioned originally and was also where Posh Spice herself had performed as a youngster. I offered to burn down the building to cover up this terrible revelation, but Mr Brooks declined. I was to do two of my Henry's Horrid History presentations and a bit of jousting - one show in the morning and one after lunch. We had good turn outs for both talks - about 50 people for the first and a few more for the afternoon session. I got my timing all wrong in the first show - finished the jousting and said "thank you and goodbye!" as David Brooks ran hurriedly over and gabbled "you've got another 30 minutes to do!" So I did another 30 minutes. Naughty Henry. I was much more professional for the second show. With this we were treated to the appearance of the local Mayor, a lovely lady, who turned out in her full ceremonial robes. For once I felt slightly under dressed as Henry, but I did get a good laugh when she first arrived halfway through my second talk in her fancy gear and funny hat, as I shouted "MUMMY!" very loudly.

Bourne Hall is a lovely, wonderful place with a really nice little museum. Give it a visit if you're in the area. I finished at about 3pm and was on the road by about 4pm. I got home by about 6.30pm and had a wonderful evening as Manchester United got beaten by Wigan, and Manchester City thrashed West Brom. That put a lovely smile on the King's face!

You can catch up with the King again this Sunday with a walkabout appearance at Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire. See you there!

Male Modelling and Cotford St Luke x 2!

All the jokes used by this man are genuine, hand-stitched, leather antiques and have been carefully assembled by aged stand up comedians in a small lock-up garage in East Cheam.

Me? Being a model? A male model? That is just wrong. It goes against all that is right in nature. It's like Bernard Manning hang-gliding, or Dale Winton playing professional rugby league, or George Osborne proving he knows what the hell he is talking about. It is all highly unlikely. But happen it did. And where was this, I hear you murmur, with barely suppressed excitement? A photo shoot in LA for Cosmopolitan Magazine? A new calendar shoot in St Tropez? No. It was the slightly humbler surroundings of Shepton Beauchamp village hall and I was sitting in my full Henry regalia posing for the Shepton Beauchamp Art Group! It was a very pleasant evening in the end, lots of giggles, laughs, a nice cup of tea or two, and at the end of the day a bit of money and a very nice bottle of Australian Shiraz as a thank you. It had been organised by Jo Walshe, post mistress at Shepton Beauchamp post office and stores and I have to say her pencil drawings of me were very good, but then so were most of the artwork produced on the evening. What a talented bunch. This was last Friday.

After a terribly exciting weekend of doing the sum total of bugger all, it was back to being Henry again on the Monday morning. I was being summoned back to Cotford St Luke School near Taunton. Now I had last visited this school back in 2006 when I did a couple of days there a few months apart doing a big group of children. This time they wanted me on two separate days, but right next to each other. So I would be at Cotford on the Monday and the Tuesday. Getting to Cotford is no easy thing as you have to drive right through the middle of Taunton, which as I might just have mentioned in this blog on one or two previous occasions, can be about as easy as trying to excavate a new channel tunnel using a small white plastic tea spoon. However on both mornings Taunton's traffic was in a very benign mood, and I sailed through to the quiet leafy lanes that make up Cotford St Luke. I was warmly welcomed on the first morning by the caretaker, a happy smiley Hobbit of a man and I was soon set up in the big impressive, but squeaky floored hall. On the first day I would be working with a mainly mixture of years 3 and 4, then on the Tuesday I would finish off with years 5 and 6. The group on day one were the most hard work as there were one or two little "characters" in their midst - nothing more than a little bit of immaturity, but on the whole a very very pleasant group. Plenty of laughs in the morning were had, with the children as well as the very friendly welcoming teachers. Lunch was a delicious chicken korma curry, but all too soon it was back to the hall for the afternoon. The jousting was of a very high quality and (wait for it) ended with a win for.... the Gents! At last! This pegs the ladies back a bit to:

GENTLEMEN 13 - 24 LADIES

But there is still so much to do. At the end of the day I didn't have to pack the props back in the car, I just stowed them away in a class room ready for the next day...

Back on the road to Cotford St Luke on the Tuesday, this was almost like Groundhog Day. Taunton was again a placid place of no hold ups and it was back to the lovely school. Todays group of years 5 and 6 were great - really good fun, very intelligent, bright, sparky children, the sort of group that makes you want to come back and be Henry VIII over and over again. Cotford St Luke is a magnificent school! It was another great day - a good morning of many laughs, a lovely lunch of baked potato and sausages, and then back into the hall for more stocks and jousting shenanigans. And just to make the Groundhog Day simile come to full fruition, the Gents won the jousting AGAIN. You wait weeks for one, then two come along in two days. The score slowly clicks over to:

GENTLEMEN 14 - 24 LADIES

There is one very tired King here this evening, his Royal plates are about to be put up for a well deserved rest. Thank you, Cotford for two very memorable days. Sadly, I probably won't see you again until 2018 if the wait between visits is the same! Now that is just too long...

St Michael's School, Wimborne AND Julian Richards

Good King Hal, as he appears on the brand spanking new time line wall mural at St Michael's School in Wimborne.

After the fun and games of visiting Broughton Astley again, it was back to visit one of my longest standing regular schools: St Michael's School in Wimborne in Dorset. This was to be my eighth annual visit, and as ever it was a delight, full of fun, laughter and one or two surprises. The school had recently had a new time line wall mural painted by a local artist, who also happens to be a mother to one of the pupils, and I had been pre-warned that I would be requested to take part in the morning school assembly and then also help with the "opening" of the mural for the press. So after an opening hour of my usual Henry day with the children, I was whisked out the hall as they brought the rest of the school pupils in for the assembly. In the staff room I was introduced to the other special guests for the day - namely the artist herself, and Professor Julian Richards, often seen presenting such historic TV programmes as "Meet the Ancestors". What a nice bloke!

The three of us were wheeled into the packed hall and sat on chairs at the front, where we were then given a thorough press conference by the children. Tremendous fun. Next we walked through to the mural itself where press photographers were waiting for us to pose like mad with a ribbon and some scissors. And then we were done! The school had it's new impressive mural, Julian Richards had met Henry VIII and I was back to the rest of the Tudor day with year 5.

It was a very big group today, about 120 children, but they were all magnificent, great costumes and lots of fun. It was nice to see regular teacher Jane Eyre back at the school after her brave year working for the VSO out in West Africa. Welcome back! Well the rest of the morning was good fun and very silly - as it always should be! Lunch was a very pleasant roast chicken dinner in the as ever laughter filled staff room.

Back to the Tudor shenanigans for the afternoon, and with such a big group we had a deafening jousting tournament. The gents team went into the final looking very good and very confident, as well they should as they trounced their opposition in the semi final. However, the gents luck is really not running their way at the moment in the finals, and so it proved again, as once more the ladies simply walked off with a very comfortable win. Amazing. Our score is now:

GENTLEMEN 12 - 24 LADIES

There is just no stopping them!

I am back to being Henry on Friday night as I am posing as a life model (with clothes on you'll be relieved to hear) for the Shepton Beauchamp arts group! My next school visits are Monday and Tuesday next week with two days back at Cotford St Luke near Taunton.

Orchard School, Broughton Astley

An artists impression of Justin Timberlake. The artist was then sacked.

The last time I had visited the Orchard School in Broughton Astley in Leicestershire, I made loads of unnecessarily childish jokes about Rick Astley. I promise wholeheartedly not to do the same thing again. Much...

I drove up to the Midlands on the Monday, for another visit to another wonderful, exciting, brilliant Travelodge. This time in Nuneaton! I got to the hotel at about 4pm and by 4.08pm I had exhausted the entertainment possibilities available to me. I had switched the lights on and off in the bathroom. I had laid on the bed in every conceivable compass point, and I had pulled and opened the curtains. There was nothing else for it - I was going to have to prepare for dinner in the evening. Slap bang next door to the Travelodge was a Harvester Inn. Now I am not a big fan of Harvesters at the best of times - they are to traditional English pubs what the Luftwaffe was to East End redevelopment. I went over just after 6pm and was amazed to find, on this Monday night, that the place was just one huge heaving mass of humanity. Is there nothing else to do in Nuneaton? Apparently not. I sat in the bar and ordered a large glass of Shiraz. It came to just shy of £5. Cripes. Harvesters always bang on about how good their steaks are, and as I don't normally eat steaks when I am out I thought I would give one of them a bash. I ordered a Sirloin steak, which I like to have well done. I am really not a fan of rare steaks - a plate awash with blood does not really get the old taste buds pulsing for me. My motto is never to eat anything that looks like a gunshot wound. Anyway, I asked for my steak to be well done and boy did they do that. When it arrived it looked like a piece of vulcanised rubber that had been caught in a flow of scalding hot magma, had then been rescued and for some unexplained reason had then been fired out of a howitzer on a number of occasions. All this and a spoonful of bullet-like peas and 24 chips (I counted them). £15.00. Good job I was hungry.

After a good nights sleep I was soon off to Broughton Astley. It was so nice to be back, warmly welcomed by all the lovely staff. Just as on my previous visit all of the staff and all of the children had dressed up in brilliant costumes. The morning was great fun - when I was doing the music section I played, as always, a brief version of Greensleeves, just as that is what everyone expects. Just before I played the piece I asked (again, as always) which piece of music is most commonly associated with Henry VIII. Today I was told by one little boy that it was the Main Theme from Star Wars. Brilliant. After a lovely lunch of baked potato and salad, it was back to the hall for more nonsense. The stocks were rigged so that one particular classroom assistant, who's 50th birthday is imminent, was set up to go in them! After that the jousting was bound to be good, and it was. And guess what - the ladies won AGAIN. Our score is now:

GENTLEMEN 12 - 23 LADIES

Where will it all end? The drive home was mostly trouble free and I was back at the flat by just after 6pm.

A nice quiet evening will be followed tomorrow for my eighth annual visit to St Michael's School in Wimborne in Dorset. I am due to meet Julian Richards, archaeologist and former presenter of the BBC TV series "Meet the Ancestors" as he will be at the school at the same time. I told my Mother this evening on the phone I would be meeting him - she was bitterly disappointed that it wasn't Neil Oliver from "Coast" as I think she has a bit of a soft spot for him. I told her he is next on my "to do" list. Hmmmmm, perhaps I'd better re-phrase that...

St James' School, Cheltenham

All England fruit bottling supremo, Egbert Lunge, whilst on a fact finding mission to the Seychelles, falls under the microscopic scrutiny of Kenyan bog-snorkelling champion, Loretta Goes-Nicely. In a tender flash back at the El Morocco Tea Rooms in Sleaford, Egbert reveals he is not a natural blonde, before enforcing the follow on. Shortly, despotic rhythm guitarist, "Dangerous" Malcolm Discharge, bowling unchanged from the Gas Works End, sings a moving version of "I Stuck My Finger in a Woodpecker's Hole" before bad light stopped play. Now, read on....

OK, it's March, right? March as in "not February", as in "not winter"? Yeah? OK, so I am driving back from Essex on Sunday, at about lunch time and I am driving down the A303 across Salisbury Plain - and it starts snowing. SNOWING! S-N-NOOOOOO-WING! ARGH! I should write to The Times about this. This pleased me not as I knew I was going to have to get up very early on the Monday morning for a drive up to Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, and I really didn't fancy doing that through snow storms. However, I had nothing to fear. By the time I got to the tropical climes of South Somerset, the outside temperature had rocketed up to nearly 7 degrees. Mind you, it was still a bit of a shock to the system when my alarm went off at 5.30 this morning. I wonder if Ernest Shackleton ever had worries like this?

The drive up to Cheltenham was actually very pleasant. It was a cold, but very clear morning, and the roads were relative empty. I was making a first ever visit to St James' School in Cheltenham and when I found the address it looked very nice, the school nestling in amongst a very attractive new housing complex. I was extremely warmly welcomed and handed a very cheering cup of tea. This was lovely as I am suffering with a somewhat unpleasant cold at the moment and a hot tea went down a treat. It was a group of over 80 children today in a mixed years 3 and 4 set up. But they were very switched on, very excitable and good fun to work with. The main teacher who had booked me, a simply charming gentleman by the name of Duncan Cook, could not have been more helpful, but then all the staff were very wonderful today. The morning seemed to shoot past at an express rate and before you could say "blimey, what the heck was that?" it was lunch time. I was treated to a very tasty plate of spaghetti and meatballs before heading back to the hall for the afternoon session. More fun with the stocks and then it was on to a very entertaining and interesting jousting tournament. In the grand final it finally looked like the gents were going to claim a much needed win as their first two riders streaked off into a seemingly unbeatable lead. But the ladies would not be denied and clawed back the difference. It was going to come down to the final quoit but the gents, in their haste and desire to claim a win virtually pushed the last quoit onto their riders lance. I had no option but to stop the race, re-hook two singular quoits and let the two teams have a race-off... and would you believe it - the ladies won AGAIN. Our score now moves on to an almost embarrassingly one sided:

GENTLEMEN 12 - 22 LADIES

This is getting too much lads - come on! Must do better! I packed up my stuff and was soon in the car, coughing and sneezing my way down the M5 and home. A nice dinner and pint of Tanglefoot, and all of a sudden my cold doesn't seem as bad as I first thought. It was lovely to visit St James' School today, and I sincerely hope Mr Cook's daughter gets well again soon.

All Saints, Wouldham

Finally, Good King Hal gets exactly what he wanted for Christmas. Sadly, he'd broken both of them by Boxing Day, and himself.

Another half day for the King today. I was in Essex with my delightful little boy, but had to be up relatively early for a morning jaunt down over the jolly old Dartford crossing to Kent for a visit to All Saints School in the village/town Wouldham. The drive didn't start with any great pleasure as there was dense fog everywhere which gave the journey the feeling of trying to drive through thick cold porridge. I was also surrounded by lots of thick cold fellow drivers as well.

The school in Wouldham is situated down a small side lane, and apparently was first used in about 1867, which does rather beg the question as to who thought it would be a jolly whizz to build an enormous, ominously throbbing electricity sub station right next door to the school. It certainly wouldn't have been there before 1867, unless Kent is far more advanced than we had previously given them credit for.

Anyway, it was a lovely half day, working with all the Key Stage 2 pupils - a cross section of years 3, 4, 5 and 6, a total of about 60 children. The teachers and staff were a delight to work with and we had plenty of laughs. The jousting at the end was somewhat disrupted by the arrival of the dinner ladies and so the tournament had to conclude outside in the playground, which was fine for me in all my robes, but some of the teachers and children looked a tad chilly. It was a good natured and well fought tournament that culminated in a win for the ladies yet again. They are trouncing the lads this year. Our latest score is now:

GENTLEMEN 12 - 21 LADIES

The gents will get another chance to try and pin back the ladies and their juggernaut of success this Monday when I am up in Cheltenham for a visit to a school up there. I will be in Essex until Sunday when I shall once more drive down the A303 to home. I am pretty sure one of these days I will notice that I have worn a groove in the tarmac on it.

Redstart

An enormous Tudor edifice. And in the background, you might just be able to see Leeds Castle as well.

And so the dust came to settle after the birthday party weekend. It was quite a come down for me, the whole weekend having been such a success. On the Tuesday night I went back to the Phelips Arms Pub in Montacute for their monthly pub quiz. I had last entered this a couple of months back and our team had steam-rollered the opposition, so I returned feeling quite confident. I was on the same team and Rachel Brewer, her other half Anthony and our mutual friend Sarah Kennedy, among others. We started off well and led from the very first round, but the final round (naming different ropes and sails on a Brig) proved to be our Achilles heel and we lost by just half of one point to finish second. Not good!

I was up relatively early on the Wednesday for my first Henry show for a little while. This was a return visit to Redstart School in Chard, so literally just down the road. It was a morning only with a group of about 60 children, and they were all absolutely brilliant - decked out in fabulous Tudor costumes and full of enthusiasm. The teachers took loads of photos and we finished the half day with a great jousting tournament which culminated in the inevitable victory for the ladies team. Our ongoing year long score now comes to:

GENTLEMEN 12 - 20 LADIES

This is getting a bit one sided lads, so come on!

Tomorrow I drive to Essex for a show on the Friday down in Kent. So watch this space for another blog then. And so back to the mountain of cup cakes left from the party. This surely can't be doing my diet any good. But I will do my best.

A Right Royal Knees Up

The true horror of the initiation ceremony for the Knights of Royal England was finally made public. The queue to join suddenly leaped from 3 to nearly 5.

Close friends and family, from across the country, were summoned to South Somerset for a very important reason. It was my birthday party! It's actually my birthday today, but frankly, apart from jobbing actors in the West End, no one has parties on a Sunday, so my 45th birthday thrash was to take place on February 25th 2012 at Barrington Village Hall. For once I was not to be dressed as Henry VIII at a party which was a relief. Music and sound was supplied by Party Tyme Entertainments, run by my mate Robbie Strickland from Stoke sub Hamdon, plus there would be a chance at the party for people to get up and do a song or two if they wished. Also we would be having a whip round to collect money for the National Autism Society and... well, just have a bit of fun! Lots of people chipped in with food and drink - my lovely friend Lisa Head (who I used to work with at Skandia in Southampton) was baking some cup cakes and bringing them with her. And they were fantastic - vanilla and chocolate, and just mind blowingly good.

Well the evening was a bit of a riot, mostly thanks to the Knights of Royal England, who turned up en masse, and made a pretty good party a quite staggeringly brilliant party. I kicked off the singing on stage by murdering "Fireflies" by Owl City, and then after a few crap jokes I sang "Chocolate Girl" by Deacon Blue in deference to the aforementioned, deeply wonderful Lisa Head. The Knights did a few songs, including an a capella version of "I'm Henry the Eighth I Am" with an impromptu "Full Monty" strip section, as you can see in the photo above. We ended the evening with wild singalongs to Guns N Roses, Green Day, Queen and a variety of others, and I had a splendid old time playing air guitar and singing The Boys are Back in Town with the deeply wonderful and insane Roland Bearne. Great stuff! The collected money came to about £220, which I shall bump up a bit more and then send a cheque off to the National Autism Society. I hope they'll be happy. We also had a jousting tournament, like in the schools, only this time with various plastered adults riding the hobby horses - most of the Knights of Royal England took part - and were soundly thrashed by a group of ordinary punters! Wonderful.

It was a truly legendary evening - made all the more special by having so many dear close friends and family with me. Thank you to all of you for your efforts to get there and support the evening. Today, I feel like I have just taken a punishment beating from the IRA, with aching knees and ankles (too much dancing), but it is definitely worth it. I can honestly say, it is the best party I have ever hosted. However, I think I now ought to go and have a long lie down in a dark room. Good night!

Half Term Happiness

It was at approximately 11.45am that Good King Hal whipped out his big wooden trencher out and startled everyone.

Half term! Hoorah! What does half term normally entail for your average King Henry VIII impersonator? Well, to be honest, not a lot. With the schools all closed it usually involves lie ins and late nights, but this year the February half term was a bit different. For a start I had my lovely son James staying with me down in Somerset. Secondly I had a show to do at the Dementia Care Trust Home in Weston super Mare where I had appeared about four years ago.

It was funny - I had asked James what he was most looking forward to on his return to his county of birth, thinking he'd come back with something about "being with you, Daddy" or "a visit to Lyme Regis" or some such. Did I get that? Did I heck. What was he most looking forward to? Lunch at Bilby's Cafe in Ilminster. Well at least he has good taste in local food outlets. He and I drove down to Somerset on the Saturday, along with my sister Cathy who we picked up from her home in Kent as she wanted dropping off in Southampton to collect a new car she had bought from the Ebay website. She treated us, if that is the right word, to lunch on the way, which ended up being taken at the Rounham's service station on the M27. The food was, at best school dinner level and served by the sort of people you would imagine that if you asked them to follow your finger in front of their eyes, they'd be about two seconds behind. We found the home where the car was to be collected and waited with Cathy till she'd paid and then led her to the nearest petrol station that sold LPG for her new vehicle. Turned out it didn't sell LPG, but never mind, the thought was there. So as Cathy and her new Jeep Grand Cherokee headed east back to Kent, James and I continued west towards Somerset.

We had a nice lazy Sunday not doing very much other than watching Spongebob Squarepants endlessly on Nick Toons. On the Monday I fulfilled my promise to James and took him to Bilby's in Ilminster for lunch. Unfortunately, James' new medication for his concentration can also wreck his appetite, which it did on Monday. So while I sat and munched my way through ham, egg and chips (very healthy), James simply sat happily slurping from a bottle of diet coke.

Tuesday saw us up and early off for the show at the Dementia Care Trust in Weston super Mare. They are a lovely group and I am always made most welcome there - particularly from my dear old friend Diane Warren and her daughter Alice. James worked hard as my roadie helping me get my gear into the unit and waiting with me as I got changed. The talk went really well, and James sat happily with Diane throughout the show and even laughed quite loudly at a couple of my jokes. When the show was over James came up to me and said "you told some jokes!" as though it was illegal. I told him that I always try and make my shows funny, which he thought was marvellous.

Wednesday and I fulfilled another promise to James - to take him to see Star Wars - The Phantom Menace in 3D. We got into Yeovil quite early and I purchased the tickets for the 2.20pm showing. Next it was time for lunch and James wanted to go to Pizza Hut. Not a chance - a queue of Biblical proportions snaked out of the front door and down the road. OK, I was not heartbroken by this news, so we tried to get into Frankie and Bennie's, with pretty much the same result. Fair enough. About 20 yards up the road is a small Italian restaurant called La Tamboura or something - we walked down there, and it was virtually empty! We had a superb meal of real Italian food with a very hard working friendly staff who could not have been more attentive if they tried. After that blow out we wandered back to the cinema. OH MY GOD. It appeared that there had been an explosion in a "spotty-bed-haired-annoying-teenager-factory" somewhere and they had all landed in the cinema foyer. The queue for the ticket booth snaked right across the entrance hall and the queue for the popcorn was only marginally shorter. As we already had tickets we joined the popcorn queue. The huge amounts of spotty adolescents in the line was matched only by the spotty adolescents behind the counters who seemed to be content on finding anything to do other than serve the ever swelling crowd in front of them. Time was whizzing past and the queue was barely moving. With only about 5 minutes before the film was due to start, we finally got served. A small bag of popcorn and slush puppy for James, a small diet coke (small? It was about the size of your average garden water butt) and a packet of wine gums for me and it cost over £12. How on Earth can they justify these prices? Anyway, we belted into the screen where Star Wars was showing, expecting it to be chock full of the annoying adolescents to find the room almost completely empty - they'd all obviously come to see Daniel Radcliffe in "The Woman in Black", and I was insanely jealous. The Phantom Menace, not to put too fine a point on it, is a truly appalling film. Terrible script, abject plotting, half formed characters, stilted dialogue and of course Jah-Jah f*****g Binks. I put my 3D glasses on and promptly fell asleep until James elbowed me for snoring too loudly. The film seemed to go on forever, but James loved it, so that is all that matters.

So today, Thursday I am driving the little fellow back to Essex. I will thoroughly enjoy having my bed back to myself, but by God the flat (and my life) is going to feel very empty without him around. He is so gorgeous and my pride and joy. I can't spend enough time with him!

Brass Monkeys In Norwich and West Wimbledon

Three Little Maids From School Are We, sung in middle English and with baggy tights on. It was never really going to bother the charts, was it?

Just when you think you've managed to escape from the whole of winter with barely a frost bitten appendage to worry about and - WALLOP - Snow. Horrid, white, freezing, slippery, slidey, time consuming, ankle breaking snow. And some people pay good money to travel the world looking for the ruddy stuff. They want locking up. Now, down in Somerset we're very smart, we don't hold with all this snow nonsense. Even while the rest of the country at the beginning of the week was ranting and raving about snow storms and travel chaos, in Somerset it was a balmy 8-9 degrees, and also dry and sunny. I was due for a drive to the south east for shows in Norwich and West Wimbledon, and to be honest I wasn't sure what to expect.

To begin with all was fine. I drove up the A303 and there was not a sign of any snow or ice, and it continued this happy way until I reached roughly the Andover area, and then various bits of melting snow were spotted in fields. Then towards the end of the A303 there was more and more, clearly a lot had fallen. By the time I got to that mighty metropolis of the east (Basildon to you and me), there was loads of snow everywhere. There was little or no more snow promised, but by heck it was cold. After a nice cuddly evening with my lovely son, I was up at a piercingly cold 5.30am for a drive up to Norwich and return visit to White Woman Lane School. The journey was pretty awful I have to say, not because of the weather, but of the extreme cold and the pathological terror the mere mention of ice seems to breed in some drivers. Queues of slow moving traffic were everywhere, most of them stacked up behind petrified Ford Mondeo drivers, gripping their steering wheels with white knuckled hands and barely getting much above 35 MPH, even on gun barrel straight, well salted, ice-free roads. The two hour journey eventually took me much nearer three hours to complete. But it was worth it, as White Woman Lane School is just so nice! Wonderful funny kids, genuinely lovely teachers and a guaranteed warm welcomed whenever I go - and some of the staff came all the way down to Kent to see me perform Henry's Horrid History last February. Above and beyond the call of duty chaps, seriously...

It was a fun, loud and laughter filled day. A particularly popular gag I did was about a Tudor version of the Teletubbies, with characters like Choppy-Woppy and Leechy, however all the gags seemed to go tremendously well and the kids were genuinely eager to learn more and more about Henry and the Tudors. The apres-lunch stocks session was an absolute blast, and in the jousting we finally managed to secure a win for the Gentlemen, the first time it seems in ages. Our score after Norwich was therefore:

GENTLEMEN 12 - 18 LADIES

Originally I was then due to have the Wednesday daytime off and then travel to West Wimbledon and a visit to St Matthew's Primary School on the Thursday, but at the last minute St Matthew's decided to swap their day and go for the Wednesday. So I found myself once again rising at the crack of dawn in freezing cold weather and heading round the M25, then up through the frightfully pleasant Esher and into the Wimbledon area. I was welcomed by an absolutely charming young lady called Katie Barnham and introduced to this school I had never visited before. Again, as with so many schools I visit, the overall welcome from all the staff could not have been kinder, warmer or more generous. It genuinely felt like I was an old returning friend, not some first time visitor, particularly one clad in white tights. It was only a relatively small group on the day - 29 children, but their lack of numbers was easily out-weighed by their enthusiasm, noise level and enjoyment of the day. It was a real pleasure to work with such switched on, intelligent and well behaved children. Katie Barnham has a smashing class, and I don't just say that about everyone! Lunch was a truly delicious roast beef dinner and we had a slightly curtailed afternoon to let me get away and attempt to beat the M25 rush back to an appointment in Essex. And it worked! The jousting was great though, very exciting and loud, but won by a superb ladies team (again!), which brings the score back again to it's current position of:

GENTLEMEN 12 - 19 LADIES

Back in the old routine, eh?

I am in Essex now until Saturday, then will pick up my lovely son and drive him down to Somerset for the half term holiday. I am doing a private party in Weston-super-Mare on Tuesday, but the rest of the week I am all his, so I hope we have some great fun.

Coalway Junior, Coleford

Good King Hal on the first day of shooting Guy Ritchie's new movie "Lock Stocks Pillory and Two Smoking Leeches", shortly before getting a bit medieval and "tasty" on Little Danny Dyer. And who can blame him.

Gad, it's cold! Frost on my codpiece and all other extremities are a reminder that the winter has not quite finished with us yet. The week started on a warm note though when I drove down to Southampton on the Monday night with the promise of dinner cooked for me by my old ex-Skandia colleague, Lisa Head. She cooked a fabulous meal and finished it off with home made bizarrely flavour cup cakes. How bizarre, you ask? Chocolate and bacon. Yes... bacon. And do you know what? It really worked! Delicious. Just don't tell my Rabbi, or my dietitian. Tuesday was a day spent catching up on emails and paperwork (and sitting eating a sandwich and watching "Bargain Hunt" just don't tell everyone about my wild and exciting lifestyle).

But today was Wednesday and that meant one thing - up at the crack of dawn on a very crisp frosty morning for a drive up to Gloucestershire and a visit to Coalway Junior School in Coleford. This was my 8th visit to this lovely school, and as ever it was an absolute delight to come back. Coalway is, amazingly, exactly 100 miles from my flat - door to door, and I managed to arrive at their august portals at just after 8am this morning. It was bright and sunny by now, but piercingly cold. I was set up to go in the hall, the main idea being that the children would be sat down with their backs to me when I first went in the hall, then I could shout and make them all jump. And it worked a treat! The morning went swimmingly with a group of about 60 children, all of whom were hugely enthusiastic, apart from one young lady who spent the whole morning either sucking her thumb or with her hands clamped over her ears, but even she perked up a bit in the afternoon.

One of the best things about visiting Coalway is the teachers and staff - they are all absolutely lovely, and the lunch and tea breaks in the staff room are always loud and laughter filled, and today was no exception. The afternoon was even more hilarious and we had a visit from the local newspaper who took a pile of photos of the kids and myself mucking about with the stocks, and another set of me sitting with a little lad in wheelchair as he posed with some of the jousting equipment. As for the joust - rip-roaring stuff! Very loud, but not particularly close. A brilliant ladies team simply blew away the gents team. This makes the score look very ominous for the gents now. It says:

GENTLEMEN 11 - 18 LADIES

Is there no stopping them? Probably not, but watch this space for more updates and reports.

Finally, on a sad note, I would like to get all my friends and colleagues to send good thoughts and best wishes to my old friend Anne Edwards who I used to work with at The London Borough of Newham back in the late 80's. Anne is currently hospitalised after suffering a stroke and faces a long and difficult path back to good health again, so please if you know her or would just like to send good thoughts and prayers, if that is your bag, then please do. Many thanks.

Here There and Everywhere.

Some of Manchester City's recent signings were a little surprising, but the new first XI seemed to be shaping up well.

Well, my dear old Blog appears to be working again, especially if you're actually able to read this, which I hope you are. So after rattling up and down the A303 and the A12 in Essex and Suffolk, and all points north towards Norwich last week, I was now back down in deepest darkest Devon for yet another return visit to Blundell's Prep School in Tiverton. I had been to this school so many times in the past, but it was different this time - for a start there was no Steff Jeffs. She has departed to pastures new, wearing a Dog collar and saving souls. There was also no Nick Folland as head teacher as he has now moved on. I met the new head teacher on my arrival first thing in the morning. I know I am getting old when head teachers start looking so YOUNG.

Blundells is a lovely school and I was very warmly welcomed by all the staff as ever. It was a nice group of children as well, and we spent the morning first of all in the main hall, before swapping back to the Drama studio for the final part of the morning. Lunch was a delicious chicken curry which was spent chatting to the friendly staff. As this is a private school the day is a little bit lop-sided. The morning doesn't finish until about 1pm, then you are back after lunch at about 2.15pm, and yet I still finish at 3pm! So the afternoon was a very rapid session with the stocks, before finishing off with a great Joust that ended with a thrilling win for a very good ladies team. Our score lurches on inevitably to:

GENTLEMEN 12 - 16 LADIES

I got home on the Monday evening and then went to meet some friends for a drink at the near legendary Dinnington Docks pub, where I was delighted to find that the guest ale for the evening was Adnams Broadside - my old favourite beer from my days at the Hoop Pub in Stock in Essex. Yum!

There was no time to rest on my laurels as first thing on the Tuesday I was driving back up to Essex for a return visit on the Wednesday to Wickford Junior School. It was good to see my lovely son James again, and he is doing so well at school it seems. On the Tuesday night he read me a new book he had, and read it from cover to cover with barely a wrong word. He has come on in leaps and bounds and I am so proud of him. Wednesday found me back at Wickford School, which is again a lovely place to visit and work at. I was welcomed and made to feel very much at home by the wonderful staff of this school, particularly Mike Williams, my main contact there. The children were a delight in this group today. Sparky, funny and very switched on to the whole Tudor thing! The morning just seemed to fly past. Lunch was great fun in the teacher's new improved, larger staff room. Plenty of laughs. The afternoon session was unbelievably loud and finished with another brilliant joust and yet ANOTHER win for the ladies. Boys, this is getting embarrassing now. So the score ticks over to:

GENTLEMEN 12 - 17 LADIES

I had a couple more days in Essex, with my wife and son, and seeing and helping some friends, but today (Saturday) I drove back to Somerset and tried to remember which flat I lived in. It had been a while... This week I am back up at Coalway Junior School in Coleford in Gloucestershire for another return visit to an old and favourite school. Hope the weather holds.

The Parable of the Yo-Yo-ing Henry VIII

Good King Hal trying valiantly to out-stare a Triffid.

And Lo, it came to pass, that in the land that is known as Somerset, there dwelt a man called Good King Hal who didst wear tights and impersonate some old Queen or something. And verily he wouldst travel the country and startle children and teachers alike with stories of times past. And e'en now Good King of the Hal wouldst booketh his appearances so that they wouldst all be in the same area of the land that is known as Eng-Er-Land and he wouldst not have to fanny-eth about on the motorway too much. Well, that was-eth the plan. In the month that is January in the year of our Lord that is 2012, it did come to pass that Good King of the Hal had somewhat nausethed up his bookings and lo it did also come to pass that he would be doing a show in the land that is known as Dorset and then immediately have to driveth unto even like the Button that is known as Jensen, and haul his Tudor bottom all the way over to the land that is known as Norfolk in lesseth time than it taketh the on-line supplier, that is known as Amazon, to getteth a new DVD to you, even with their bargain delivery service. And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth and use of the "F" word. And thou doesn't have to be a mind reader to worketh out what happened next... Here end the lesson.

Yes folks, it was time to get on the road and do some quite obscene amounts of driving. I was heading on the Thursday back to Downlands School at Blandford Camp in Dorset. This was my fourth visit to them, but I only get to go there every two years as I do my show for years 3 and 4 combined. As Blandford Camp is an army base you must sign in through their security post when you first arrive. As it was I arrived at the camp at about 7.30am and presented myself to the security guards. They had not been informed by the school that I was coming but seemed to see this as some sort of fault on my behalf. I was treated with utter contempt by one elderly uniformed creep and with slight disdain by the other hoary old Scottish git. When I asked them what I should do I was told in no uncertain terms to basically bugger off and sit in my car until 8am. This I did, but was then told on returning to the Chuckle Brothers that they had still not managed to get hold of anyone at the school. The elderly uniformed creep had now gone off duty and I was left in the warm tender care of the thistle flavoured one. Eventually word was got to the school and they avowed that I was not a psychotic Al Qaeeda operative with explosives strapped to my codpiece and I was let in.

It was nice to be back at Downlands - the school has been almost completely rebuilt in the two years since I was last there. It looks fantastic! It was a brilliant day as ever at Downlands - lovely kids, great teachers and lots of fun and games. I was warmly welcomed and treated like real Royalty by everyone there, which made up for the rude welcome from the Security Guards. After lunch we had a stunning jousting tournament which was won by a very good Ladies team. The score then stood at:

GENTLEMEN 11 - 15 LADIES

I drove back to Crewkerne and packed a small suitcase and was soon on my way up a rapidly darkening A303 for a trip to Essex. On my arrival I was hugged tightly by my lovely son, always a good welcome.

I was up at 5am on the Friday morning for a two and a bit hours drive up to Martham Junior School near Norwich. My previous two visits to this school had been at the height of summer, so it was a bit of a shock to the nervous system to arrive in temperatures only just above freezing. But the welcome was as warm as the hottest summer day. Martham is a delightful school and it is a real pleasure to go back there every time. It was a biggish group, over 100 children, a mixture of year 5 and 6, and they were fantastic - so full of life and enthusiasm. The noise when they really got going was almost unbelievable and the jousting was of a suitably high standard. At last though it was time for the gents to finally snatch a well deserved victory. So at the end of the week the score is:

GENTLEMEN 12 - 15 LADIES

I drove back to Essex for a couple of days with my lovely son, then this morning it was back to yo-yo-ing up and down the A303 for a return to Somerset and tomorrow morning I am off down to Tiverton in Devon and another visit to Blundell's Prep School. And just to show the yo-yo-ing isn't over, the day after that I have to drive back to Essex for a visit to Wickford School. I really must not organise a week like this again for a while. I don't think my car will forgive me if I do.

Wassail 2012

Matthew Applegate, reliable and deeply wonderful visitor services manager at Barrington Court, looking for his "front door keysh... hic!" in his Wassail bowl.

The previous few years, the Wassail at Barrington Court had suffered at the hands of the elements. Strong winds, heavy rain and piercing cold seemed to have been the common denominator. Matthew Applegate, usually the event organiser as well as being the most criminally undervalued Visitor Services Manager in the entire National Trust, was having trouble for this year's event with getting "acts" to come along. In previous years a samba drumming band had been one of the most popular turns, but they were not available this year and so it just seemed that a big public event was not in the offing. It was decided instead to have a private Wassail at Barrington Court, with entry by invitation only. However, the Langport Mummers group which appears every year had other ideas, and put the Wassail show on their official posters and this had garnered a lot of public interest, so it was therefore decided that all those invited should come, and if any members of the public turned up, well the more the merrier!

As it was there was quite a good turn out anyway, mostly familiar figures seen at the Court house throughout the year and at previous Wassails. It was an absolute delight to see Sarah Kennedy there (no, not the former early morning slurring-voiced BBC Radio 2 turps nudging presenter but the close friend of Barrington Court's pommellier, Rachel Brewer - who is currently away on holiday in Thailand hence no appearance by her and her other half Anthony) and we spent most of the evening almost huddled together against the cold. It was quite icy, but the hot mulled cider certainly helped matters.

Well we had the usual Wassail nonsense, a few carols, a poem by yours truly, The Langport Mummers and their play, the procession to the King cider tree, the offering of toast and cider to the tree, and then the firing of guns to scare away evil spirits. Wonderful stuff. If you have never experienced a proper Wassail then mark January 17th 2013 in your diary and get down to Barrington Court, but don't forget a torch and lots of thermal underwear. It can be bitter.

On the drive home various fire engines came roaring past me on their way to what seemed to be a nasty car crash on the back roads near Shepton Beauchamp - I hope no one from the Wassail was involved. Tomorrow I am off to Blandford Camp and a Henry day at Downlands School - looking forward to it!

Penwythnos gwyllt yng Nghymru. (Oh a sioe yn Henffordd).

The sort of image that was once banned by the Geneva Convention.

Now try saying the title of this blog entry when you've had a few. Not easy is it. Mind you, it's not easy when you're sober either to be honest. I think the Welsh language sometimes goes out of it's way to be awkward. Last Thursday our story begins, with an early rise and a drive up to Hereford for a second visit to the lovely Riverside School there. I last visited this school back in 2010 and it was just in the final throes of being built back then. Now, in early 2012 it is complete and looks magnificent. It was a big group today, about 60+ pupils but all very lively and articulate. They were very much up for the day and to be honest had to be reined in a little from time to time. But I would always much rather have that scenario, than the one of them sitting in stony silence.

The morning passed fairly quickly, with a slightly extended morning break to allow the school to have an assembly. Lunch was a beef stir fry with noodles, which was surprisingly tasty for a school dinner. Usually there isn't enough salt in one of the meals to harm even the wimpiest of slugs, but this meal was very well seasoned and edible. The afternoon was loud and over-excitable and culminated in another thrilling joust which was won, inevitably it seems, by the Ladies AGAIN. This now makes the score:

GENTLEMEN 11 - 14 LADIES

They are escaping. No doubt about it. On leaving the school at about 3.15pm, I was not to head back down the jolly old M5 and home to Somerset - no! I was heading back out to Newcastle Emlyn for a long weekend being spoilt by my parents at their home. I had seen them at Christmas, but had been with my son who takes up most of my time, and my Father was not particularly well, so I wanted to see them and spend a bit more time with them. They had other guests staying with them - their old friends from Essex, Mike and Ros Bloomfield. We had a lovely weekend with a long day out over to Tenby where I managed to get yet more post cards of the Edwardian actress Gertie Millar to add to my ever increasing collection, and then the following day driving to the wonderfully named village of Gwber (pronounced Goober, as in "Goober and the Ghost Chasers" - how many of you remember THAT little pearl of retro-TV?)where we had a delicious lunch at the brilliant Flat Rock Restaurant. I drove back to Somerset on the Monday morning.

Tonight is Wassail night back at Barrington Court, but it is a much more laid back small affair this year, with attendance really only by invite only. I am then back to being Henry again on Thursday with a return visit to Blandford Camp in Dorset and a show at the Downlands School.

Ilchester, sir! Quite staggeringly popular!

A tense moment during the opening rounds of "Ye Stryctlye Comme Pavanning" from 1538. Amazingly the programme was being presented by Bruce Forsyth even then. And he was still utter crap.

This was my first Henry show back after the long Christmas and New Year lay off. It was a nice gentle re-introduction with just a short drive over to the town of Ilchester just off the A303. Life would have been easier if my pathetic sat nav could actually find the place I was going to. It had barely heard of Ilchester, let alone the road I was striving to find. Somehow, through a mixture of blind luck and asking a startled looking old man out walking his dog I managed to find a school. Not THE school, just A school. It was Ilchester Primary (Infants) and I was looking for Ilchester Primary (Juniors), so with a new set of directions ringing in my ears I was off again, and very soon at the place I needed to be. I was welcomed and let in by the school caretaker, a lovely friendly lady - which was a nice change. The only previous female caretaker I can recall was the one at Boxted near Colchester who looked like Daryl Hannah (the caretaker that is, not the school).

This is a lovely school, I cannot say how friendly I was welcomed or how kind and generous all the staff were. It was as if they had all known me for years which was absolutely wonderful. It was a big group of children today - over 90, but they were all absolutely terrific. Fun, buzzy and ready and willing to laugh and learn, something that always makes my job so much easier. When I was doing the talk about the fate of poor Anne Boleyn, I did my usual thing of choosing one of the female teachers at random to play the doomed Queen. As I approached the bit about the beheading, a small girl in the audience just dissolved into tears - it turned out it was this teacher's daughter and she was worried I was really going to lop her Mum's head off! The teacher I had chosen had the absolutely delicious name of Mrs Custard! I shall allow my hallowed readers to make up their own jokes at this point, but feel free to post the best ones to me...

Lunch was a delicious roast pork and then we were off and flying for the afternoon session. It was a riot, loads of laughs aplenty and much fun for everyone it seems. We finished off with the inevitable joust which went down to the wire before a very competent ladies team romped home to victory. This now makes the ongoing scores:

GENTLEMEN 11-13 LADIES

I headed for home and then indulged in a highly unhealthy Chinese takeaway, but to be honest I couldn't face the idea of cooking. Tomorrow I am up bright and very early for a drive up to Hereford and a return visit to Riverside School, before then driving on from there to visit my parents for the weekend in Wales. There's lovely.

It's The End of the World as We Know It... But not till later on...

Good King Hal, the morning after the 31st December wondering whether the third pint of kerosene was really such a good idea after all.

2012? So what is due? The London Olympics for a start. Not that I have been contacted by the organising committee - it might be a long shot if I am aiming to line up against Usain Bolt in the 100 metres, but I did give them my details a while ago wondering if they might need Henry VIII for some of their publicity. But so far - in the words of Bluebottle - "not a sossige". And what else for 2012? Oh yes, the end of the World. Apparently some Mayan Priests have predicted the end of everything by 2012, which is nearly quarter past eight on the 24 hour clock. So I better have an early dinner tonight otherwise I might be about to meet my maker with indigestion. Very embarrassing.

Professionally, I have Henry shows coming up at Ilchester, Hereford, Blandford, Tiverton and Wickford in Essex for this month and many more next month, which is good. I am also having a fund raising evening for the National Austistic Society masquerading as a birthday party at the end of February at which I am hoping many friends will come along.

But don't forget - for the finest Key Stage 2 Tudor Day for your pupils and at your school then contact Good King Hal either via this blog, at the website www.goodkinghal.co.uk or follow Good King Hal on Facebook.

Happy New Year everyone - have a great year. Until nearly quarter past eight tonight when we're all DOOMED!!!!!!