Autumn Action.

Good King Hal and friend suddenly notice the paparazzi.  Swines.

More driving around the country, but this time with a very last minute booking.  I got several calls and texts from Shillingstone School, near Blandford in Dorset desperate for me to come to the school before half term. I had visited Shillingstone twice before - once when they were in their old premises. This was an old Victorian building and with absolutely no parking near it.  My abiding memory was of dodging thundering lorries and cars whistling about 5 inches from my head as I unloaded all the props from my car in front of the school gates.  They have moved now, as I discovered on my last visit, to a brand new purpose built, state of the art school building  It is stunning, with great views all round it.  A wonderful school with fabulous teachers, lovely kids and great facilities.  What is not to like?  The drive down is pretty idyllic too, taking you down through Sherborne, past open fields full of deer racing around in herds and little cute hamlets (not moody teenage Danish Prince's having naughty thoughts about bumping people off...).  The morning was great fun, with lots of laughs as usual, and we finished with a quite magnificent jousting tournament that went right to the wire, but the winners, almost inevitably, were the ladies.  So once more they leap on to:

GENTLEMEN 1 - 4 LADIES

Same old same old!  Tired was not really the word when I got home.  It was more a case of "oh my God, everything hurts, I cannot move another inch in any direction as I think I am going to die".  Which might sound a tad over reactive, but then that's the kind of mock Tudor monarch I am....  A Chinese takeaway made me feel a whole lot better.  God bless that MSG.

On the Thursday I drove up to Lutterworth in Leicestershire, so I was nice a close by for a return visit to Orchard School in Broughton Astley.  No.  No I won't do it.  You can't make me.  I have done it on every other visit to this lovely school but I refuse to this time.  I will NOT make a joke about Broughton Astley being Rick Astley's little brother.  DAMMIT!  I just did.  The drive up was OK, but I was only staying at a Travelodge, so I wasn't in a hurry to get there to be honest.  Lutterworth itself is quite nice - as you enter the town there is a big model of a Gloucester Meteor in a real comic book take off position, as this is the birthplace of Sir Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.  Well just past this big stainless steel sculpture there is the Travelodge.  I drove past it to see if I could find a nice cheap supermarket where I could buy some food for the evening.  I had a quick look but all I could see was a Waitrose - expensive, but there seemed little other choice.  I actually asked someone in the car park if there was anywhere else nearby and he told me there wasn't.  He was a complete liar, because when I drove 200 yards past it the next morning there was a bloody great Mace store.  Git.  I bought some food which came to just slightly less than the GDP of a small African country and went out to the car park.  As I went to reverse out of my space an old chap strolled straight behind my moving car.  I stopped suddenly and waited for him to move.  He didn't, he simply slowly started lighting a cigarette.  I waited and waited and finally he moved.  He gave me an absolutely filthy look as I pulled out - not sure why.  I wound down the window and called out to him: "I'll get you next time Usain".  He made a well known rude gesture.  How nice.

Orchard School was lovely the next day.  Great to see everyone from my previous visits, including the jolliest caretaker you could ever wish to meet.  It was a superb day, great fun, lots of laughs and two of the biggest prima donna's you could ever wish to meet.  As if to prove my predictions wrong, the gents this time stormed to a well deserved victory over the ladies, thus pulling our score back to:

GENTLEMEN 2 - 4 LADIES

Nice and close.  The journey back on a Friday afternoon affected M5 was not pleasant, but the weekend has been nice and relaxing.  Tomorrow morning I am up bright and early for a visit to Tilehursst near Reading in Berkshire, and then after the morning with them I am shooting down to Wales to see my folks again.  Can't wait!

Orchard School, Broughton Astley

An artists impression of Justin Timberlake. The artist was then sacked.

The last time I had visited the Orchard School in Broughton Astley in Leicestershire, I made loads of unnecessarily childish jokes about Rick Astley. I promise wholeheartedly not to do the same thing again. Much...

I drove up to the Midlands on the Monday, for another visit to another wonderful, exciting, brilliant Travelodge. This time in Nuneaton! I got to the hotel at about 4pm and by 4.08pm I had exhausted the entertainment possibilities available to me. I had switched the lights on and off in the bathroom. I had laid on the bed in every conceivable compass point, and I had pulled and opened the curtains. There was nothing else for it - I was going to have to prepare for dinner in the evening. Slap bang next door to the Travelodge was a Harvester Inn. Now I am not a big fan of Harvesters at the best of times - they are to traditional English pubs what the Luftwaffe was to East End redevelopment. I went over just after 6pm and was amazed to find, on this Monday night, that the place was just one huge heaving mass of humanity. Is there nothing else to do in Nuneaton? Apparently not. I sat in the bar and ordered a large glass of Shiraz. It came to just shy of £5. Cripes. Harvesters always bang on about how good their steaks are, and as I don't normally eat steaks when I am out I thought I would give one of them a bash. I ordered a Sirloin steak, which I like to have well done. I am really not a fan of rare steaks - a plate awash with blood does not really get the old taste buds pulsing for me. My motto is never to eat anything that looks like a gunshot wound. Anyway, I asked for my steak to be well done and boy did they do that. When it arrived it looked like a piece of vulcanised rubber that had been caught in a flow of scalding hot magma, had then been rescued and for some unexplained reason had then been fired out of a howitzer on a number of occasions. All this and a spoonful of bullet-like peas and 24 chips (I counted them). £15.00. Good job I was hungry.

After a good nights sleep I was soon off to Broughton Astley. It was so nice to be back, warmly welcomed by all the lovely staff. Just as on my previous visit all of the staff and all of the children had dressed up in brilliant costumes. The morning was great fun - when I was doing the music section I played, as always, a brief version of Greensleeves, just as that is what everyone expects. Just before I played the piece I asked (again, as always) which piece of music is most commonly associated with Henry VIII. Today I was told by one little boy that it was the Main Theme from Star Wars. Brilliant. After a lovely lunch of baked potato and salad, it was back to the hall for more nonsense. The stocks were rigged so that one particular classroom assistant, who's 50th birthday is imminent, was set up to go in them! After that the jousting was bound to be good, and it was. And guess what - the ladies won AGAIN. Our score is now:

GENTLEMEN 12 - 23 LADIES

Where will it all end? The drive home was mostly trouble free and I was back at the flat by just after 6pm.

A nice quiet evening will be followed tomorrow for my eighth annual visit to St Michael's School in Wimborne in Dorset. I am due to meet Julian Richards, archaeologist and former presenter of the BBC TV series "Meet the Ancestors" as he will be at the school at the same time. I told my Mother this evening on the phone I would be meeting him - she was bitterly disappointed that it wasn't Neil Oliver from "Coast" as I think she has a bit of a soft spot for him. I told her he is next on my "to do" list. Hmmmmm, perhaps I'd better re-phrase that...

Broughton Astley, Leicestershire

Broughton Astley (left), Rick's older brother, a mere nano-second before being run-over by bloody great car. Rick contacted him in hospital and told him he was never gonna give him up, never gonna let him down, never gonna run around and desert him, which I am sure you will agree was of great comfort to him as they tried to erase the tyre tracks from his trousers.

Leicestershire. What did I know about Leicestershire? It's cheese was red, David Gower used to play cricket for it, the Battle of Bosworth Field raged in it, and the Download Festival frequently rages at Donnington - which is in Leicestershire. Here endeth the lesson.

I had been booked to appear at the Orchard School in Broughton Astley, a village in Leicestershire which sounds remarkably like Rick Astley's ne'er do well older brother. I'd been recommended as one of the teachers at the Orchard has a sister who works down at dear old Knightwood School in Chandlers Ford in Hampshire and had very kindly informed her sister how good I was. How kind! My original plan was to travel up on the Monday afternoon, stay overnight at a Travelodge and then pootle up to the school fresh, awake and not knackered from a long drive. Wrong! I had looked up Travelodge on-line to see if their much trumpeted "bed for £19" offer was still going strong. Apparently not. As it is nearly half term the general price for a room (and remember this is just a room -nothing else) seemed to be about £55+. Not my idea of fun, so I decided to get up very early and drive up to Leicestershire and back in the day. Also not my idea of fun, but cheaper. Therefore I was up at 3am, in the car by 3.45am and soon rocketing my way up the M5. The much discussed "warning light" which had mysteriously turned itself off at the weekend, suddenly re-appeared approximately 75 miles up the road. But what the heck could I do, apart from press on. So I pressed it on, and it looked lovely. I arrived at Broughton Astley at about 6.45am, bought some petrol for the return journey, a newspaper, and some brekkie and parked up in a side road. After reading all about England's abysmal match against Mexico (How on Earth did we manage to win 3-1? Is this a good sign for the forthcoming World Cup? Can we really play that badly and STILL win matches?) I then had a little snooze in the car, which was just what I needed. Actually, what I really need is a night out with Lisa Rogers, but that just isn't going to happen is it?

Arriving at the school I was warmly welcomed by some really cool teachers. Such nice people! And all dressed up to the nines as terrific Tudor wenches - who needs Lisa Rogers? (ME! ME!) One of the ladies had a fabulous home made costume on dressed as a Tudor Queen. Her brilliant billowing dress allowed her to simply glide across the floor. I told her she looked like a Dalek, which was meant as a compliment. She rather ruined the illusion of Tudor grace with graphic details of her struggles to use the disabled loo, the only toilet large enough to welcome her and her hooped skirts.

Well we had a fabulous day - this is such a lovely school I cannot even begin to tell you how wonderful it is. The children were brilliant, hilarious, sparky, eager to learn and all of them in fantastic Tudor costumes as well. They had just been on a recent visit to the site of the Battle of Bosworth Field and were therefore already hugely enthusiastic about Tudor history before I turned up. The morning seemed to just shoot past - lots of laughs were had, especially by the teachers and classroom assistants! After a gorgeous lunch of roast pork, I was back on again and the whole day culminated in a really pulsating jousting tournament. The two gents teams who contested their semi final were, not trying to sound rude, truly awful. The two ladies teams were brilliant, so it was really obvious where this final was going to go. Yes, the gents roared to a great victory, coming from behind to pip the ladies on the line! See!? What the heck do I know! This now makes the score:

GENTLEMEN 21 - 26 LADIES

On leaving the school at the end of the day I managed to drop my stocks and break them, which did cause me to mutter a few words of choice Anglo-Saxon language. The drive home was remarkably easy and despite not leaving Rick Astley...sorry, BROUGHTON Astley until about 3.30pm I was pulling up outside my place in Crewkerne as the 6pm news came on the radio. Wonderful. So was going to bed that evening. Even though something was missing - LISA ROGERS! Down boy!

I next have a meeting with Matthew Applegate at Barrington Court (it involves a pub so there might not be THAT much work discussed), then next week I am at Leeds Castle for a Jousting Tournament from the Tuesday to the Sunday. Come and say hello! Especially if you are Lisa Rogers.