Birchfield Primary, Yeovil

Good King Hal, looking camper than a row of pink tents, whilst lurking in the kitchens at Barrington Court. The Pot Noodle was ruined.

The drive across to Birchfield was nice and easy this morning. As I pulled into the car park of this lovely school in Yeovil I nearly ran into a recycling lorry that was busy...er... recycling things. That had just finished when I stepped from the car and was promptly nearly run over by two of the teachers arriving in a mud spattered VW Polo. Birchfield is a lovely school, always a pleasure to return to - friendly teachers, lovely kids and a nice atmosphere about the place. And it's local to me, which is definitely a plus point.

It was a largish group today, just under 100 children and the vast majority had dressed up. During the early part of the show I talk about some of the problems Henry suffered with Catherine of Aragon as they tried for children - about how the first child she gave birth to was a boy - I always then ask the group what they called the first child. Now this is a great test of Tudor knowledge as most people will guess at Edward, but of course the first, short-lived child was called Henry. Anyway, I asked the question and sure enough the first child I came to guessed "Edward", I informed them they were wrong. The second child guessed "Prince Edward" - nope still wrong. Amazingly about the next 6 kids I went to kept guessing different variations on the names Edward, Eddie, Prince Edward and even King Edward. You had to admire their tenacity.

Lunch was very nice and was spent in the company of the teachers and staff of this lovely school - but they were in and out like fiddlers elbows as they were being officially photographed this day. This caused a fair amount of moaning and distress for some of them. But I reckon they all looked fine! The afternoon went by at a fair old lick and the jousting was unbelievably loud and boisterous. It culminated in a fairly comfortable victory for the gentlemen - it wasn't even really close to be honest. This now makes the score:

GENTLEMEN 23 - 27 LADIES

I finished to great acclaim and reloaded all the props back into the car. I had decided I needed to pop into central Yeovil to go to the bank. As I drove away from the school with streets still busy with children, I did what I always did which was to drive very slowly and carefully. Thankfully I did as coming along one small road a rather moth-eaten looking cat just suddenly wandered out of a garden and in front of my car. I slammed on the brakes and thankfully managed to avoid the suicidal moggy, but it certainly had it's nine lives quota reduced by one. I fought my way across town and got to the car park near the banks. It was closed and was being resurfaced by a bunch of arse scratching neanderthals in day glo overalls. I better head for home then.

Oh, and as I haven't mentioned it before... MANCHESTER CITY WON THE FA CUP ON SATURDAY! YES!!!!!! There, I feel better now... Got my folks coming to stay for a few days, with my next Henry show being a return visit to Haylands School in Ryde on the Isle of Wight.