When Barry met Harry.

Good King Hal, testing the strength of a school table by lowering the Royal rump right on it.  The vicious swine.

Back on the road again means getting up at the crack of dawn, especially as the show was in Wales - Barry to be precise.  I had visited Barry once before, donkeys years ago and to be honest I couldn't remember it at all.  The drive up was quite pleasant and easy with the M5 being delightfully empty.  I got to to the Severn Crossing and now found that they were charging you £6 to go across.  £6?  How can they justify such a cost?  You should get a free balloon or a lollipop or something at that cost.  Anyway, I rolled up outside the school - Colcot Junior, and was very warmly welcomed by the lovely Liz Prescott, the teacher who had organised the event.

It was a lovely school with great kids.  The group was quite large - about 70 I suppose, and a mixture of years 3 and 4.  The morning ran it's usual course with great fun in the opening talk and a keenly contested quiz.  We broke for lunch and then things changed from it's normal run - first I was back in the hall for a Tudor banquet with a nice pottage, some gingered bread, marzipan sweetmeats and delicious spiced apple juice.  The children also entertained the King with some "knock knock" jokes - most of which I had heard to be honest, but there was one young lad who specialised in completely off the wall knock knock jokes such as "knock knock"  "Who's there?" "A chicken" "A chicken who?"  "A chicken trying to get to the other side of the road."  Cue total silence and tumble weed.  But he knew loads of them!  After the feast and the jokes the children then showed off their Tudor dancing skills which was great fun.  And from that we went straight into the usual Jousting tournament.  It was a loud entertaining affair finishing with one of those rarest things - a win for the gents!  Our score now rolls on to:

GENTLEMEN 16 - 26 LADIES

Colcot Junior was a fabulous memorable school and it was a delight to visit.  Now instead of heading back to Somerset I carried on down the M4 towards Newcastle Emlyn and my parents place.  On the Friday night we went out to dinner with my cousin George, who has just bought a fantastic big house near to my parents place.  George, his wife Alex and their two sons Arthur and Tom, joined myself and my mother and father at the Netpool Inn at St Dogmaels - what a fantastic pub.  We had the warmest welcome from the charming hosts and had a brilliant evening.  Another cousin of  mine - John Boorn and and his old pal Vic from Melbourne in Australia arrived on Saturday and it was great catching up with "Boorny" as he is affectionately known.  I spent a wonderful weekend with them all, got to catch up with my sister Sue and her other half Ian as well.  It was also nice to see some warm weather for a change as well.  I drove back to Somerset this morning and am amazed to find myself sitting here with the windows of the flat wide open and it actually feels like Spring has finally arrived.  And about time too...