Joust When I Thought That My Skies Were a June/July Blue...

Jasper du Barry attempts to discover a new erogenous zone of Sam of Hever with a bloody great sword.

This was a better way to start the jousting season!  Not like last year at Knebworth with driving snow, icicles, dreadful hotels, projectile vomiting and some deceitful lying little REST OF THIS SENTENCE OBSCURED ON LEGAL ADVICE. The day dawned bright but cold on Saturday 3rd May and I was up and out of the front door on the roughly 130 miles drive to the lovely town of Woodstock in Oxfordshire, and a return visit to Blenheim Palace with the Knights of Royal England Jousting Team.  Blenheim is a gorgeous site, the stunning Palace sitting looking down over broad lawns, with mature trees clumped here and there and fine views down across what appears to be a multitude of water features.  I was due to meet Michelle Coda in Woodstock so I could show her the easy way into Blenheim Palace, however while I was still about 20 miles from my destination I got a text from Michelle telling me she had arrive and Kim already had the kettle on.  Blimey, this was well before 10am so she must have left Folkestone about two weeks ago to get there that early, knowing the way Michelle drives!  (Love you!).  Michelle was so excited about appearing at Blenheim as it was her first stately home to work at other than Hever Castle or Leeds Castle.  On my arrival I was warmly welcomed by all the team, but there were a few absentees this year - most notably Sir William of Antioch.  Dear old Bill Monaghan (as he is known in civvies) had decided to retire and spend more time with his family, and he is a big loss to the team as his larger than life character of Sir William was always hugely popular with the audiences we played.  But out with the old and in with the new, we welcomed aboard Oliver, a friend of Sir Ashley's from Hampshire, fresh from a four year stint in the army, he was immediately swamped with female attention as he seemed to have perfected the art of growing muscle upon muscle upon muscle to the extent that Michelle immediately Christened him Popeye.  God help us if he takes a liking to spinach.

The first show back was a bit of a shock to the system.  I was in my new Medieval Merchant's outfit, just recently made for me by the brilliant Judy Picton of Martock in Somerset.  It had been decided at the end of last years season that any castle or venue we visited that DIDN'T have a direct connection with Henry VIII would need to see me in a different costume as a different character, as having a 16th Century monarch like Henry presiding over a generally 13th century style jousting tournament would be enough to give most historians the anachronistic bends.  And so for this weekend, and a few more this summer, I suddenly became Lord Anthony of Bollingbroke, Lord Chancellor, milk monitor, member of the Tufty club and 1st class idiot and bar.  But all went well, the big crowd seemed to enjoy themselves and we all managed to even get sun burnt.  That evening Jeremy treated us all to a night out in Oxford at a very swish restaurant in the Jericho area of the town, called Branca.  It was mostly to celebrate Jeremy and Kim's daughter, Lucy's 21st birthday. Well we had a fabulous meal in a superb restaurant - but Oxford is a funny place.  It is (A) massively expensive (see the house prices - you will weep) and (B) appears to be more full of pretty people obsessed with their looks than any other spot on the planet.  We noted that the restaurant seemed jam packed with mirrors, but it seemed that they had been placed there as none of these drop dead gorgeous and beautifully attired human beings, whether they be male or female, could stand up or do anything without first clocking themselves in one of these mirrors, subtly brushing away an errant hair or something, before smirking smugly to themselves and then carrying on with their dull little lives. 

The following morning Michelle and I emerged from our burrows (actually the Travelodge up near Bicester) took out a mortgage, and purchased two drinks from Costa Coffee at the service station.  I know you are a captive audience at these service stations, but by God, they come as close to mugging you as is legally possible without being arrested.  I wanted to purchase some Nurofen in case my bad ankle started to play up.  How much?  A pack of 16 tables £4.95.  What?  A small bottle of apple juice?  £2.19.  A can of Lynx body spray (normally already pretty stupidly expensive in supermarkets at about £3.75 a can)?  Here it was over £5.  The shows at the Palace were very well attended again today, and this time we even managed to cop our first injury of the season, and of course it had to go to new boy Oliver, didn't it?  And was it during the middle of a brutal fight with another of the Knight Marshall's?  No.  At the very end of the second show, as Sam, James and Oliver were mucking about air guitaring in the arena with their swords, Sam thought it would be hilarious to leap on top of Oliver, just as Oliver was pretending to play his sword with his teeth.  Oliver luckily missed his mouth and teeth, but somehow managed to cut the very edge of his lower eye lid, so that by the time the music had finished he had plenty of the red stuff pouring down his face.  Several anti-septic swabs and a steri-strip later and he seemed right as rain.  For this evenings din-dins Jeremy was treating us to a meal at The Star Pub in Woodstock itself, and again it was delicious.  I was driving and so as the evening, and shrieking grew louder, I ended up more and more side-lined as the only sober person there.  Not much fun!   By the time we were due to leave, Michelle was four huge Bacardi and cokes and an industrial amount of Irish coffee down the line, so I virtually had to guide her, like a Labrador with a blind person, firstly back to my car, then through the incredibly busy car park at the Travelodge and finally up to her room. All she kept repeating the whole time was "I can't feel my top lip....  I can't feel my top lip..." She also discovered to her horror that the jousters had stolen her camera while we were outside having a cigarette and had taken some very interesting studies in the gents.

If Michelle was feeling a little delicate on our last morning, she didn't show it.  However, young Oliver had apparently peaked a bit early on their arrival back at the camp site last night but he got through the two shows without barfing up a lung, so he is obviously a man made of stern stuff.  We were filmed by a BBC film crew from BBC South during the shows today and I was interviewed by Witney TV, a TV station just for Witney in Oxfordshire.  At least seven people will have probably seen it by now.  I was delighted today to also get a visit from the simply gorgeous Sarah Morris who popped in very briefly just to say a big "hi" to me and all the jousters after her appearance with them a couple of years ago.  She was as beautiful and charming as ever.  And so we finished the final show, helped tidy up with the Knights, bid our fond farewells and hit the road.  I was back in Somerset by 6.30pm and Michelle got home some time after that, so we both made good time.  It was great to be back with the jousters and it was the usual fun madness that weekends with them always are.  I can't wait for Leeds Castle at the end of this month to see them again.

Henry is back at School tomorrow with a return visit to Ilchester School near Yeovil for a full Tudor Day.  I can't wait!

Accidents Will Happen

Good King Hal attempting to keep his tights in the standing load position.

So with only a few hours to catch our breath after finishing at Hever, the jolly old Knights of Royal England, plus a rotund Tudor King and his young Squire rolled into Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire for three more days of jousting mayhem.  Blenheim is situated in the delightful little town of Woodstock just to the north of Oxford.  It's a place that had corpses being discovered at embarrassingly regular intervals in the whole world of Inspector Morse, but is as genteel and backwater a place as you can possibly find.  James and I drove up after a couple of days R&R in Somerset and I had promised James a breakfast at one of his favourite haute cuisine outlets - Little Chef to you and me.  But do you think I could find one once we got on the A34 north?  Not a chance.  I even resorted to typing it into my sat nav, which promised that there was one just two miles further up the road.  We drove there only to discover it had morphed into a Costa Coffee house.  We had two sausage baps, a cup of coffee and an orange juice and it really did Costa bloody fortune.  What rip offs these places are.

We arrived at Blenheim Palace and were warmly greeted by Jeremy, Kim and everyone else from the group.  The weather forecast for the first day was not brilliant, but we were treated to blazing sunshine and sun burn all round.  The first two shows on the first day passed with little or no big problems, and after a lovely meal at the Woodstock Arms hotel in the evening, James and I left the young jousters to their usual revels and headed off to our luxurious hotel.  (OK, OK, it was a Travelodge).  We arrived back at the Palace on the Saturday morning expecting to see the usual collection of hangovers, jousters slumped in chairs and not much movement.  But there was little or no sign of anyone around the horse box, most of the jousters were working like smoke over in the arena, getting everything ready for the show, and there was no sign of Jeremy, Kim or their Land Rover.  Sam's girlfriend, Vanessa then appeared at the door of the horse box.  We said good morning and I asked her if J and K were off in town doing some shopping.  No, apparently they were off at A&E at the local hospital with Mungo.  What had happened?  During some "hi-jinx" on the Friday night, whilst highly intoxicated (i.e. pissed out of their brains) an incident occurred that had somehow culminated in Mungo falling heavily against a parked car and breaking his shoulder.  Blimey.  I was glad we had left early.  Jeremy and Kim then returned with faces like thunder and it suddenly became apparent why all the younger jousters were beetling around desperately working their socks off getting everything ready for the two shows that day.  Just before the show Mungo himself returned to the site via a taxi with his arm in a sling and slightly sheepish expression on his face.  After all that the two shows had to be good, and they were.  We were hit with a little bit of rain during both shows, but nothing like the deluge of last year.  The apres show dinner at a local Chinese restaurant was very nice and also highly restrained after the previous nights shenanigans.

Sunday was the final two days of Blenheim this year.  Two more good shows went by, with all the incidents saved for our final tournament.  At the beginning of the second show, we do a gag where I address the audience about what qualities a person needs to become a great Knight - and all the while I am saying this, someone (usually Sir William of Antioch) mimes them behind me, with the final pay off being something they very obviously can't have.  In Sir William's case it is always a head of luxurious hair.  As Sir William was away, Dan was filling in, and his pay off was to be totally terrified of swords.  For this he was to leap onto the centre tilt, look at his sword, scream like a girl and then jump off the tilt.  Not exactly Emmy Award winning stuff, but a bit of fun.  On this day we had had a bit of a shower just before the show, and as Dan leapt onto the tilt, he didn't realise how slippery it was, and as I was about to deliver my line "but what a Knight needs most of all..." his legs shot away from under him and he fell down, completely cross-barring himself right in the old Niagara's.  Therefore I quickly changed my pay off line to: "What a Knight really needs is... (CRUNCH).... a pair of fully functioning cobblers.  So that's you out, Dan", which got the biggest laugh of the day.  And still our accidents weren't over.  Right at the very end of the tournament, during a skill exhibition by both teams, my son James who was sitting in the Royal Box to my right, was getting very excited and was jumping up and down in his seat.  I looked away to commentate on some action to my left, at which point there was an enormous crash to my right, which at first I assumed was a horse bouncing off the Royal Box, such was it's score on the Richter Scale, and the fact that it caused all of the flags around the Royal Box to collapse and fall apart.  What it was was James' chair falling backwards off the Royal Box and bringing all the standards with him.  It was a big fall and he could easily have been hurt, but thankfully he was fine, just with a very bruised ego.  We finally finished the show and made our way back to the car.  It had been a fine weekend at Blenheim, memorable for a lot of different reasons, but it was good to be on our way home. 

This weekend we are back at Hever for another three days of fun jousting.  It will be nice to see Michelle and Vix again, but sadly Mungo is now out for the rest of the year.  Alcohol sales in the Edenbridge area are going to suffer, BIG TIME.

From Basildon to Blenheim.

A big fat ugly single ginger bloke, in a dress.  Try and spot the enamoured lady, hugely attracted to the man in this picture...*

Hello sensation seekers.  Last time you read this pulse stopping blog (pulse stopping, in much the same way a massive dose of beater blocker drugs would be pulse stopping) I had just finished a desperately exciting trip to Radlett in Hertfordshire for an appearance at Newberries School.  Now, contain your excitement folks - weak bladders should be emptied before reading further.  Such extracts of this Earth moving and heart warming blog might be enough to cause some ructions in certain places.

Being Henry in a school is what I do most often, and my second port of call this week was to Lee Chapel Primary School in Basildon in sunny downtown Essex.  This was a return visit to this lovely school after my visit the previous year - I remember it being a very friendly open and fun school with some great children, and this year was frankly no different.  My arrival was not my finest moment - the car park at the rear is tiny and space is at a premium.  As I parked a lady in a large silver car which had just parked in a space behind me should out that I couldn't park where I was.  When I exasperatedly gestured round the full tiny space she yelled aggressively "well, we have to work here you know!"  At this point I was ready to chew the head off a recalcitrant Great White Shark, but I walked into the school to announce myself and let the office staff know I had double parked in the tiny car park and if anyone wanted me to move the car I would be happy to shift it.  Apparently the space left in the car park was for the accounts lady who bore a stunning resemblance to "Mad" Frankie Fraser if her parking space was in the slightest bit compromised. Not wishing to witness this for myself, I surrendered and just parked badly out of the way.  I was now warmly welcomed by Hayley McCechnie (I think you spell it something vaguely like that) and got ready for the Tudor Day ahead of us.  It was a superb day as ever at this brilliant school.  Piles of laughs and contributions from these smart sassy kids!  Everybody but everybody seemed to have a good time, which is fine by me, and after a lovely lunch we soon found ourselves in the midst of the jousting tournament.  It was loud, it was frenetic and it was good fun.  And of course the inevitable happened!  Yet another win for the ladies!  They simply annihilated the lads in the final.  Our score goes to:

GENTLEMEN 15 - 23 LADIES

It was time to get back to Somerset, catch my breath for a couple of minutes before on the Saturday morning, heading up to Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire for three days of jousting on the Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday.  As you may recall, on our previous jousting jaunt to Knebworth House in Hertfordshire over Easter weekend, we had all frozen half to death and some of us even vaguely beyond it, but thankfully this weekend the weather was gorgeous.  I even got a sunburned nose on the Saturday.  It was so nice to be back with the Knights of Royal England team again, and all the usual fun and larks ensued.  The first night with them was too much for a tired and shagged out me - we finished the shows and I made my pathetic excuses and made my way to my luxury Travelodge near Bicester.  I went to bed and slept soundly for nearly 10 hours, which was exactly what I needed, and I found myself the following morning up, bright, rested, alert and ready for action.  Which I am sure was a ghastly site for most sane normal people. Well all three days were fun, packed and very warm, particularly the Monday where the staff of Blenheim assured us this was their biggest ever turn out for a jousting event at the Palace. I do wish some of the punters who come and see these shows could think of some more original questions to ask you as you pose for photos after the show.  Virtually every other question was "are you hot?"  Hot?  Me?  This towering lump of lard, in three layers of heavy satin with about 2 cwt of fur draped round my shoulders on what is the hottest day of the year so far, with my bright red face with several gallons of sweat pouring down it?  Hot?  Whatever gives you that idea?  Tish, it's nothing!
During the weekend it was the birthday of Lucy (Jeremy and Kim, who run the Knights of Royal England - well, their daughter) aka "Bob" and on the Sunday evening we all went out for a meal at the White House Pub at Bladon near Woodstock.  It was so nice to be amongst close friends and have such a laugh.  It was also nice to meet Frank, an old friend of Jeremy's who looks like being one of our regular riders this summer.  He is a tall striking looking Frenchman.  I asked him where he lived - and he is now in Birmingham, having surrendered to the brummie charm enough to re-locate from the Burgundy region.  He wants locking up.  But a very nice chap indeed and fun to work with.  And so we finished and headed off our different ways.  The jousters off to Sweden to do some shows, and me to head today off to Coventry for a visit to a new school tomorrow.  After that I am back at Bathampton on Thursday and then leaning against a sideboard and gasping for breath on Friday.

* There isn't one.

From a Castle to a Palace...

No funny caption for once.  Just an insufferably cute picture of James and Vix at Hever Castle recently.  Awww!  Bless!

And the jousting bandwagon rolls on through the summer...  On Thursday 2nd August we were at Leeds Castle for a jousting event, with two shows to do - one at 12.30pm and one at 2.30pm.  As usual with a Leeds event everything was very well planned and organised, and a big crowd turned up for both shows.  But at the end of the show, this was no time to relax - James (my son and squire for the week) headed to my sister's place for a night, before getting up very early on the Friday for a drive up to Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire for a weekend of jousting there.

We were up at 5am and on the road by 6am.  The plan was to try and blast our way round the M25 ahead of the rush hour and then stop for a breakfast somewhere up near Blenheim.  At first it seemed this idea was enormously flawed as we got on the M26 and were treated to the site of stationary traffic and red brake lights.  But this soon passed and we made good progress right round to the M40.  I had been advised by all the jousters that any sat nav would try to take you off the M40 at junction 8 and bring you to the town of Woodstock straight through the middle of Oxford, but I should ignore this and come off at junction 9 as it was much easier, and were they right.  James and I stopped at a Little Chef for a breakfast commonly known as "Heart Attack on a Plate" and then made our way to Blenheim Palace itself.  What a fantastic site! Such beautiful grounds and a stunning building.  The jousters were set up on the back lawn and it was good to see them again.  James and I helped set up the arena with them and we prepped for the day hoping against hope that the threatening clouds above didn't rain too much.

We had good turn outs on all the days at Blenheim - not really in the Leeds Castle or Hever Castle amounts of people, but still enough to build up a good atmosphere.  After the first day it was great to see my old friend Claire Venables and her son Tolly in the audience.  I hadn't seen Claire in years, so it was great to see her and meet Tolly for the first time.  So good to be back in touch.  After the second show James and I made our way to our hotel (a simply enormous Travelodge near Bicester, which was functional and comfortable, which is about all you can say about most Travelodges).  The service area next door was over-priced to the point of robbery.  I took James over there on the first night and bought him a few nibbles and magazines, things to keep him amused, but nothing major.  The bill came to over £27!  When I asked the bloke on the counter if it was correct he printed off the bill and showed me.  I requested to keep the bill so I could frame it for posterity.  We then drove back to near Blenheim for dinner with the jousters at the White House Pub right next door to the Palace.  The food was OK if a little uninspiring, but the company great fun.

Saturday's shows were fun as well, aside from a terrific downpour during the children's parade on the second show.  In the break between shows, Ashley (one of our blue knights) flaked out on the ground next to the horse box for a quick snooze.  As he lay there in his full jousting gear, Steve, one of the red knights, took it upon himself to make a lasso out of some rope, and gently tie it round Ashley's ankles.  He took such time and precision with his work that the rest of us were mesmerised, waiting anxiously to see what would happen to the poor slumbering blue knight when his plan came to fruition.  He seemed to have everything in place, then wrenched the cord hard to snap the lasso closed around Ashley's ankle - and the whole Heath Robinson designed unravelled in his hands and he fell flat on his back - accompanied by loud guffaws from the watching crew.  Ashley stirred into life and wondered what everyone was laughing at, lost interest and lay back down to sleep some more.

Saturday night we ate at the much more pleasant Woodstock Arms pub in central Woodstock.  Again an evening of great fun was had by all, and once again, as I had young James in tow with me, I had to leave early.  James and I checked out of the luxurious Travelodge on Sunday morning and headed over to the Palace for the final two shows.  The Knights and I were joined by Sarah Morris, one time Tudor Rose and soon to be published Anne Boleyn novelist, and she was Queen for the day.  During the first show, Sam of Hever took a bit of a blow to the face with a sword and had to be taken to hospital for a patch up and a couple of temporary stitches, but he was back in time for the second show which was delayed for a short while by a downpour of quite Biblical proportions which ended up with all of the Knights, Squires, Knight Marshall's et al crammed into Steve's tent trying to dodge the rain.  But all the shows at Blenheim were good fun and the crowds, though not massive, were certainly good.

James and I drove away from a sodden soggy Blenheim, only to discover that less than 10 miles down the road the ground was parchment dry!  We got back to his Mum's house in Essex and settled down for the evening.  I am off back to Leeds Castle tomorrow evening for a corporate joust show, then back at Leeds on Wednesday for another corporate evening bash.  Tired, but happy!