Honiton Museum Day

Good King Hal, not sure about his future with current wife Anne Boleyn, keeps a close eye on a possible part-exchange model called Jane Seymour.

No Hever this weekend as all the jousters are heading off to Blenheim Palace for a tournament over there. Jeremy did ring me up and ask me if I'd like to come along and commentate, but I had already committed myself to a weekend and more of looking after my lovely James and taking him down to Wales to see his Nanna and Bapa. Therefore my only Henry booking for this week was a long standing obligation to appear at Honiton's All Hallows Museum for a couple of Henry's Horrid History talks. I was looking forward to this as I had been booked through Russ and Mary Wardell, a lovely couple who I often see down at Barrington Court and thought it would be a fun day. Well, it most certainly was, but it wasn't quite as successful as we hoped it might be.

I drove down to Honiton which is a lovely little town - reminded me a lot of Bridport - and then began the search for the museum. Finally located it and got in. I was stuck in a side room where the local history group normally meets which I could use as a dressing room. Not sure what the local history group gets up to in there at their meetings as all their seemed to be were lots of maps, microfiche and a naked female mannequin model with huge prominent nipples. Ooh er!

I walked outside and spent some time in the High Road as a kind of benevolent Tudor press gang, cajoling people into coming into the museum for the talk. In the end it didn't work very well as we only had less than 10 people, but they all seemed to like it and there were lots of laughs. I changed for lunch and Russ then took me for a meal at a local wine bar, which was delicious, as was the brunette waitress with the tight skirt. In fact, one of the things I liked best about Honiton today was the preponderance of gorgeous ladies! They were everywhere. One young lass I spoke to during my afternoon on the pavement trying to sort out an audience looked just like a young Rachel Weisz! She was on her way home from her first day at a new job in a local coffee bar and was all excited. Bless! The second show didn't take place in the end as we only had two punters - an English ex-pat who lived half the year in Honiton and the other half in California (sounds like a good mix to me) and her excitable young son. So instead I had a little chat with them and played them some tunes on my recorder which actually seemed to delight them!

I went outside after this for a final recce on the High Street, and who was sitting out there on a bench eating an ice cream? Fiona Bruce! Fiona-bloody-Bruce! Fiona-Antiques-Roadshow-BBC-News-Looks-a-bit-saucy-Bruce! I said a hello and asked if she'd like to see inside the museum, but she politely declined. This was proof, if I needed any, that it was time to get changed and head for home. So that is exactly what I did.

Tonight I am off up to Essex to collect my lovely son, and then bring him down to Somerset for a little holiday, and then on to Wales this weekend.