South Green Billericay and a perfect time to PARTY.

Good King Hal, just checking his roof for nesting Catholics. As you can see, he was on his way to the stock exchange. The writer of this blog would like to apologise for the previous joke, it was nicked with much love from a very reasonably priced Christmas cracker.

Good heavens! Back in Essex again. There should be a law against this sort of thing. It was lovely to see my son again and he took great delight and no little time in once again thrashing me at Mario Kart on the Wii. I also let him scoff large amounts of my Chinese take away on the Thursday evening. What a nice Daddy I am. On the Friday morning I was off over to South Green Junior in Billericay for my fifth visit to this lovely school in as many years. Once more I was very warmly welcomed, only this time with words of warning by the fine teachers there - the group I was to see were apparently quite....er... challenging, which is I think the P.C. and polite way of saying they were quite a handful. So I was a little nervous about what to expect - but I really needn't have worried, they were a lovely group all in all! We had great fun in the morning session and even though the children had only relatively recently begun studying the Tudors properly, they showed tremendous early knowledge. Lunch was that lovely good old fashioned Friday staple of primary schools - fish fingers and chips! Back in the hall we had a fairly riotous afternoon session culminating in the inevitable roof-lifting jousting tournament. The final outcome was another victory for the ladies - their first for three schools. Our on-going score now reads:

GENTLEMEN 2 - 3 LADIES

I am next on show as every one's favourite Tudor despot with an appearance at Yetminster in Dorset. Look out for a blog coming your way soon.

Saturday morning I took James into town for breakfast, and he insisted on going to McDonald's. He was only out of the will during the meal, don't worry. Saturday evening I was down at my sister's and brother-in-law's house for my sister's birthday party. Her 46th birthday - yeah, that's right - 46th. Poor old dear. I should have bought her a zimmer frame and some dentures. The party was lovely, just a smallish gathering of close friends and with lots to drink and eat. Among those attending were Michelle Coda and her other half Matt (late of Hever Castle jousting tournaments!), and her cute daughter Victoria; John and Viv Rich who had only just got back from their holiday in Somerset where I had seen them last week; and Ann and Dave Turner-Maynard from Chelmsford who are always great fun to be around - so a splendid time was guaranteed for all. I drank an industrial amount of good red wine and felt tremendoushly schplendid for it (hic). A truly memorable and fun party.

I drove back to Somerset this late morning feeling slightly fragile, but as the day has progressed so I have got better and better. In fact I feel just about strong enough now to go to bed.