Somerton Infants

Good King Hal on his way home from the stock exchange. (Geddit???)

I never ever do infant school visits as most of the Key Stage 1 pupils just won't get the talky bits I do as Henry. However, I was contacted by Somerton Infants a while back, I explained my situation with being a talky show, but the teachers insisted they wanted Henry VIII at their school! So I worked out a day for the little 'uns with as little of the lengthy wordy sections as possible. I drove up to this delightful Somerset town through fantastic spring sunshine - it seems to have been a long time coming, but it was welcome anyway. I wasn't due to start at the school until about 11am anyway, so it was a nice lie in and lazy-ish morning for me. The drive up was great only partially spoilt by what seemed to be a larger than normal amount of road-kill about. Wherever I went there was squashed this, flattened that - all just about intact enough to see what they had originally been in the first place. It sent my strange mind wandering. How about a children's TV show and series of books all about these mangled remains? We could have great fun thinking up characters names! Splatty Squirrel! Phlattened Pheasant! Bloaty Badger! Hammered Hedgehog! Exploded Rook! Crunched Crow! Oh the fun! Imagine what the jigsaws would be like?

But enough of this repulsiveness. The school itself was a delight - very bright and friendly, lovely teachers (the single dark haired lady in particular got my vote!) and very, VERY excitable young children! I did a walk around first to the classrooms, meeting each of the years as I went. Some of the questions in these early sections were hilarious - one little girl wanted to know if the costume I was wearing was the sort of thing Henry wore when he went to a "bank account" (sic). It suddenly dawned on me that she meant "banquet" - how sweet. I finished the morning session with a talk in the hall, taking little snippets here and there from my normal talk. I ended up with some music and the children seemed to really enjoy it.

Lunch was yummy again - more pasta and bolognese sauce as I got the other day from Noremarsh Junior. This was equally tasty and very filling. The afternoon was spent with yet another jousting tournament. Some of the really little ones struggled with the lance and horse, but they soldiered on, mostly with huge grins spread across their faces! And guess what? The ladies won AGAIN! Unbelievable. The score now goes to:

GENTLEMEN 20 - 26 LADIES

It really is as one sided as Spurs' lame efforts in the Champions League against Real Madrid last night (snigger, snigger). All that and a nice drive home through beautiful Somerset countryside, in bright sunshine and with a cheque in my pocket from the school. Marvellous. Tomorrow I am off to Wales to pick up my father for our "Stranraer Sojourn!" Keep reading this blog in the next few days to find out what happened.