Once More Unto the Travelodge...

You wouldn't believe that two days of this drove a couple of people in a Medway town almost psychotically angry.  But it did!

I was at my parents in Wales from the Tuesday evening until just after lunch on the Sunday.  It sounded like ages when I first arrived.  A near whole week of being spoilt by my lovely parents - how wonderful.  And suddenly... WHOOSH, it was gone.  Where did that go?  In what felt like a blink of an eye my time had gone and I was back on the road again.  I'd had a lovely time with my folks, had dinner with them again up at the wonderful Flat Rock Cafe in the delightfully named Gwber, I'd wandered round various antiques shops to my utmost delight and even gawped at a few Estate Agents windows and some of the lovely houses in the area.  While I was in Wales my sister, down at Cynwyl Elfed, had a nasty surprise when BOTH of her kittens, now a few months old, went missing at the same time.  Not a sign of them was to be found.  My sister was absolutely devastated and there were many tears shed for these poor cats.  But then, on the Sunday, just as I was about to leave Wales, a call came through to my parents from my sister saying one of the cats had turned up, safe and sound.  At least they got one back.  Funnily enough, I have just got off the phone to my sister who has let me have the joyous news that the second kitten has turned up safe and sound - hungry and dusty, so obviously been locked in somewhere, but none the worse for his ordeal.  God, I love a happy ending.

So back to Sunday afternoon and my drive away from my folks.  My next two days were going to be in Hereford and Coleford, neither of them a million miles apart.  I was booked into the inevitable Travelodge, this time just south of Hereford City centre on the A49.  The drive over to there took me through the infamous "Heads of the Valleys" road, usually only ever mentioned on BBC travel news when there has been some horrendous multi-vehicle pile up, with resulting soiled underpants, or when it has been closed due to inclement weather conditions, and more soiled underpants.  The weather wasn't too awful on Sunday afternoon, just sort of bloody miserable - glowering skies, constant though not heavy rain and everything appeared grey damp and horrible.  Finally, snaking up towards Hereford, the countryside opened up into pleasant rolling hills and quaint villages.  I found my Travelodge, this time in the form of a converted barn, would you believe.  I was booked in by a very nervous looking young lady (who only appeared to be about 12 years old) and settled myself in my cell.

The drive to Riverside School in Hereford the next morning wasn't exactly taxing.  I hadn't realised just how close I was to the school - 1.6 miles it turned out in the end!  Riverside is a fabulous school, a really lovely ultra modern site, with some very artistic murals painted for the children throughout the building, showing various fantasy characters from popular children's fiction.  It was a nice group of three year 4 classes today, some of who were a bit more... erm... taxing than others.  But they were sparky, fun, excitable and ready to laugh.  We had a fine morning, but I was starving!  I forgot to get any breakfast in the morning and by midday when we broke for lunch I could have eaten a scabby donkey and chips.  I went to see the dinner ladies and was told in no uncertain terms to come back at 12.45 pm when they'd finished serving the children.  So I sat in the staff room, surrounded by teachers scoffing away on sandwiches, salads, curry's and tried desperately to stop my stomach from sounding too much like Mount Etna just before eruption.  It finally got to 12.45 and I wandered back to the kitchens.  They were washing up and putting everything away.  Any food left?  I asked.  No, was the answer.  Great.  But she could rattle me up a cheese roll.  She could have handed me a dog turd on a stick by this point and I would have eaten it.  The cheese roll was duly scoffed, and I was back to being Henry and still hungry.  The afternoon was great fun and finished with a wonderful jousting tournament in which an incredibly cocky gents team got smashed to smithereens in the final by a very good ladies team.

GENTLEMEN 11.5 - 19.5 LADIES

Too easy!  I loaded up the car and made the short jaunt back to the Travelodge.  Now, next door to the hotel, cheek by jowl so to speak, was a pub/restaurant called the Grafton Inn.  I was still haunted by the cheese roll at lunch and complete lack of breakfast, and so decided to do something about it.  And, boy did I.  I had a lovely meal of calamari and King Prawns with a sweet chili dip, followed by a delicious gammon steak, served with two exquisitely poached eggs.  I washed this down with a very agreeable bottle of Merlot.  It was a very merry, slightly sloshed King Hal who staggered the 50 feet back to his hotel room after that.  I slept very well...

Tuesday found me on my way back to Coleford in the Forest of Dean and a ninth appearance at Coalway Junior School.  Such a lovely school again, it was a delight to be back.   I was warmly welcomed by all the usual faces and the exquisitely named Rhiannon Bunn, teacher of one of the Year 4 groups today.  We had a really fun day all round, I was treated Royally and didn't even have to beg for a cheese roll.  I was given a fantastic tuna baguette with a massive side salad, which went down a treat.  The afternoon galloped past at a rapid rate and finished with another damn fine joust, but this time, just for a change the Gents finally won a race.  Thank God for that.

GENTLEMEN 12.5 - 19.5 LADIES

It is still very one-sided but that does help a little.

I am off to Essex tomorrow to see my lovely little boy, then on Friday I am back at White Woman Lane School in Norwich for another visit there - again probably about my ninth!  Really looking forward to seeing my old friends. I then have a couple of meetings with film maker Doug Boulton and the writer Sarah Morris on Sunday, before heading back to Somerset on the Monday for a get together with the talented Judy Picton, my costume maker in Martock.  I might also fit in some time to see the beautiful Elaine - I can't wait!  Life is pretty good at the moment.  Just wish the weather would improve.

Better Late Than Never. Apparently.

An apology, earlier...

I know I know.  It's been far too long.  Oh the amount of times I have heard that from a lady.  Actually, I am lying to be honest.  They normally climbed into bed clutching an electron microscope.  But enough of my chequered past, and to be brutal, probably equally chequered future.

I have to cast my weary old mind back to last week and the first gig, which was at the Maynard School in Exeter.  I have been visiting this lovely school for nearly ten years now and I always get to see the same teacher, a lovely lady called Keagh Fry.  The Maynard like me to start a bit later than other schools, so I don't have to be with them until about 10.30am, which suits me down to the ground as it means I can have a bit of a lie in!  It was a cold morning but a nice drive down to Exeter itself.  I was soon in the hall with the ladies (The Maynard is a girls school), but it was a very small group this year, just 14.  We had a fabulous early session, lots of laughs and some great knowledge from the ladies.

Lunch was, as ever, delicious at the Maynard and loads of the dinner staff remembered me from previous years and we had a lot of laughs.  It was good to catch up with Keagh over lunch and hear how her lovely kids Adison and Harley were getting on.  We ripped through a fun afternoon and finished with a good jousting tournament, but of course again, like Maltman's the other day, this being an all girl school, I can't allow the result to add to the year long score.  So next year will be my tenth visit to Maynard School, and I can't wait to see them all again.

My next bookings were the beginning of the next week where the Monday and Tuesday was to find me in Cheltenham in Gloucestershire.  Monday I was due at Dean Close Prep School and the Tuesday I was at St Mark's Junior School.  I drove up to Cheltenham on the Sunday and had booked myself into a Travelodge.  Now from those who have read this blog over the years, both of you, you will know my feelings towards Travelodge.  The different levels of quality in this hotel chain is enough to give you the "Trip Adviser Bends".  I have gone from a freezing cold crap splattered shack near Knebworth, to a brand spanking new comfortable plush set up at New Brighton.  Now, here at Cheltenham I was to move up to a new level of niceness. The new Cheltenham Travelodge was lovely.  A king size bed, plasma screen telly, clean, tidy, warm and with a working elevator.  What was not to like?  I arrived on the Sunday and after settling in, went downstairs to the Harvester Restaurant that was there.  I ordered a steak and some new potatoes.  New potatoes were off, so I had mashed potatoes instead.  When my plate came up, it was roughly the same size as a satellite dish, with a small round piece of steak, a bit like an ice hockey puck, skulking at one end, a small blob of mashed potato in the middle, and a rather depressed looking grilled tomato slowly disintegrating at the other end.  Haute cuisine.  I think I would have been better off going to the Kentucky Fried Chicken drive through next door.  Having said that, the wine was nice and the waitress rather pretty, very friendly and attentive.  I slept very well.

Monday at Dean Close was a good one.  Jon Harris who books me was as ever, very attentive, friendly and well organised.  We started the day in the Oaksey Common Room, as you do, moved briefly outside for the jousting, then back for the finale of the day, the stocks back in the Oaksey Room.  It was a lovely day all round and as we had an extended session for the jousting, we got everyone to have a go, timing them to see who the fastest 12 were, and then having a big final between the three fastest boys and the three fastest ladies.  Despite what the original timings had shown us, it was the gentlemen who sailed off with the win in the big final, much to the annoyance of the ladies.  Our score clicks over to:

GENTLEMEN 8.5 - 11.5 LADIES

So a bit closer again.  It would be most interesting to see what occurred at St Mark's School on the Tuesday. Stay tuned...

I got whisked out to dinner on the Monday night, picked up from outside the hotel by Justine Cotterill, a friend of Zarrina Bull's and a lady I have pranced around with at Sudeley Castle from time to time. It was down to Justine that I was going to St Mark's School in the first place as her son goes to the school and is doing the Tudors, so she introduced me, bless her!   For the meal,  I was under the impression it was going to be me and all of Justine's family, but as it was it was just me and Justine, so a big thank you to her husband and kids for the loan of their wife/mum!  We went into the centre of Cheltenham and to a very agreeable curry house.  One lovely curry later and I was back at the hotel, sitting on the bed looking like a ginger Buddha.

I set my alarm for about 6.30am the next morning so that I could get up early and rush around slowly, as my Mother often says.  Ooh!  Did you notice the pause in my typing there?  An advert came on TV with Fearne Cotton in it and I had to smash my foot through the screen and then grind the plastic debris to dust.  But I feel better now.  Anyway, back to me supposedly getting up early on the Tuesday, well sadly I slept right through my alarm and only got woken up with a text from Justine letting me know how much she'd enjoyed the meal the night before - at about 7.45am.  ARGH!  I had promised the school I would be with them just after 8am.  I hurriedly got ready, but it was lucky that I was just round the corner from St Mark's - less than a mile to be honest.  Well, we had a lovely time at the school - it was a fantastic place, really nice teachers, groovy kids and a lovely hall.  Not sure if it was because I was enjoying myself so much or if they had drugged my tea, but the day seemed to absolutely shoot past.  The jousting finished with a roar as the ladies stormed back to a famous victory, simply destroying the boys team in the final.

GENTLEMEN 8.5 - 12.5 LADIES

And so the drive home began, and it wasn't a bad one and I was home and hosed by 5.30pm.  And after a couple of days at leisure listening to England being ripped to shreds in the second test (oh the shame... being bowled out by Mitchell Johnson, a man with all the subtlety of a commode and the accuracy of an American air strike), and then I was off up to Essex on the Friday to see Amanda and James in another production of their version of "A Christmas Carol", this time at St Nicholas' Church, Laindon, a very atmospheric venue.  It was great to see them both enjoying themselves and getting so much out of performing on stage.  Here's to their next production - a version of Terry Pratchett's "Going Postal".  What a marvellous delivery.

North By North West. Then South a Bit. And East.

Good King Hal treating yet another child with the same respect he always does. 

Tights.  Don't you just hate tights?  They are the bane of my life sometimes.  For instance, on Monday just gone, I was at a school in Taunton during the day, and then at a small village just outside Yeovil in the evening for a visit to a WI group.  I wore the same tights for both shows, but they might as well have been completely different items of clothing.  During the day, they were a delight, fitting perfectly and staying in place.  In the evening they took on a totally different persona and were hell bent on heading south as fast as they possibly could.  Ladies, I know exactly what you go through.  Sometimes the damn things are so keen on falling off that you almost feel like you want to nail the bloody things in place to keep them there.  Perhaps stockings and suspenders are the way forward for me.  I'd better not.  I might have a heart attack half way through a show and die one day and then.... oh, the shame of what they discover when they get me to the hospital.

Anyway, the week opened last week with an early start on the Monday and a drive up to Bromsgrove in Worcestershire and two days at the lovely Aston Fields Middle School.  I was very warmly welcomed on both days and had a lovely time.  I had also managed to find a Travelodge to stay in that was (a) very nice, (amazing, I know) and (b) closer to the school I was appearing at than any other I have ever been to.  It was less than half a mile from the school gates.  Marvellous!  On the first day the children were a little restless and lacked a little bit of focus early on, but they came along wonderfully as the day went on.  By the end they were ready for a jousting tournament, and they were great!  Loud and frantic, it was a great tournament which a gents team just managed to win by the shortest of heads.  Our score for the academic year shifts on to:

GENTLEMEN 4.5 - 5.5 LADIES

Close.  The closest our tournaments have been for years.  I went back to the very nice Travelodge and settled in for an early night (and a glass of wine or two...).  Well, you have to...

Wednesday and my second day back at Aston Fields.  It was a different group of children and teachers today, but the welcome was as warm and inviting as the day before.  The children were a bit more attuned to the day from the word go on this morning and the day really moved along with a comfortable swagger.  Plenty of laughs all round, and one of the most bizarre answers I have ever received during my years on the road.  I asked the group if they knew the name of Henry VIII's second wife - and a young lad put up his hand like a rocket and blurted out "STEVE!"  There was a stunned silence for a couple of seconds, then a huge explosion of laughter.  It was akin to the old Monty Python sketch about where do Penguins come from.  BURMA!  Why did you shout Burma?  I panicked.  Perhaps this young lad did as well.  Anyway, after a fine lunch the joust proved to be every bit as competitive as the previous day, only this time the ladies just managed to snatch victory.  So the score goes to:

GENTLEMEN 4.5 - 6.5 LADIES

Has normal service been resumed?  We shall see...  I was not to be heading home, it was back onto the motorway system for a drive up to the outskirts of Preston in Lancashire as my next Tudor day was at St Mary's Catholic School in Leyland.  It was supposed to be about a two hour drive from Bromsgrove to the Travelodge I was next staying in, but with heavy rain and rush hour traffic, it took me closer to four hours.  As I climbed out of the car a chill wind howled round me.  Blimey, where did that come from?  It has been so warm for so long I had almost forgotten what cold weather felt like.  Well, that was one hell of a reminder I can tell you folks.  As I walked up to the main door into the Travelodge, an elderly lady sat outside in the cold smoking a fag and coughing in a desperately unhealthy rasping way.  Nice.  As I walked into reception she followed me in spluttering and wheezing.  She walked straight round behind reception and immediately said:  "Good evening, (choke hawk wheeze) can I 'elp yer?"  That's what I call a welcome!  This was a proper Travelodge with spattered carpets, gruesome looking smears in the bathroom and a stunning view out of your bedroom window of the side of a hill approximately 15 feet away.  I fully expected to find the Gideon Bible chained to the bedside drawer.

Great day at St Mary's School in Leyland.  Absolutely lovely teachers - friendly, gorgeous and great fun.  The kids were a lovely group to work with as well and it turned out to be a truly memorable day.  I was also inundated with requests for photos from the teachers during the lunch break!  I was more than happy to pose with all these lovely ladies!  The jousting was another belter, closely fought up to the final leg, when the gents team simply strolled away to a great victory.

GENTLEMEN 5.5 - 6.5 LADIES

This year is certainly proving to be a lot closer between the two teams than has come to be expected.  I packed up my stuff and then hit the road to head back down to Somerset.  I was dreading the journey, but it was actually OK.  I was going to use the word "a delight" but that is an epithet I could never hang on the M5 of an evening.  It was so good to be home.

Monday morning found me heading up to Taunton for a first visit to Norton Fitzwarren, which is a state primary school and not some long forgotten Victorian tragic actor.  I was there for the morning only with a group mixed up of years 3, 4, 5 & 6, which was fabulous, but means I won't be visiting them again for at least 5 years!  It was one of the most fun mornings I have ever had, loads off laughs, a great group of kids and some more delightful teachers.  A fantastic school.  The ladies won a pulsating joust that produced so much noise it damn near blew the roof off the school hall!  And so:

GENTLEMEN 5.5 - 7.5 LADIES

When I got home in the early afternoon it wasn't the end of my day.  In the evening I was booked to appear for Marston Magna (again, not a Victorian actor) WI group as their evening guest speaker.  I love doing WI groups as the ladies are all delightful and usually love a nice saucy laugh.  Well there was plenty of those!  I didn't get on until after 8pm, but the talk went really well and the ladies seemed to really enjoy themselves.  After I was changed I was asked to judge a competition of ancient relics (not the members of the WI before you all say it) but a collection of heirlooms and old items that members of the club had brought in, and I had to choose my three favourites.  Third place I went for a coachman's truncheon, carried by a coachman on the London to Plymouth stage coach in the early 1800's.  Second place I gave to an early almanack type of book dated from 1764. But for first place I chose a certificate of teaching competence awarded to a lady who had worked at Highbridge School, and then at Barrington School!  Wonderful stuff.  Next it was time for a cup of tea and a chin wag with some of the club members and then I was on my way home.  It had been a long day and a long week, but very satisfying.

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!

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.

Sent to Coventry and then a quick Bath...

Good King Hal and Natalie Dormer.  Good King Hal is the one on the right, just in case you were having problems telling them apart...

Ah, the jet set lifestyle of the rich and famous mock Tudor monarch.  One minute you're at a book launch, rubbing shoulders (and sadly no other anatomical parts) with Natalie Dormer, then you're prancing around at Blenheim Palace with a fine jousting team, next thing you know you're in Coventry.  Huh?  Coventry?  Yes, Coventry, that jewel of the West Midlands.  While the rest of the Knights of Royal England were going off to silly boring old Sweden, here I was in the ex-industrial heart land of Britain.  I drove up on the Tuesday, and it was horrendous.  There was something of a bank holiday weekend hangover, with lots of ****ing caravans plodding along in various lanes they shouldn't be in on the M5, then just north of Bristol, towards Cribbs Causeway, there had been a God-awful smash up and the traffic decelerated down to walking pace and then non-movement.

When finally through this impasse the rest of the journey passed without much incident.  It was still blisteringly hot as the weekend had been.  I was looking forward to getting to my hotel and unwinding.  I was actually at a Travelodge (yeah, I know, I know) in Nuneaton (yeah, I know, I know) and soon my sat nav was telling me I was nearly there.  I followed it's instructions and soon found myself driving into a very deserted looking industrial estate.  Could this be right?  I turned from bigger roads onto smaller roads and smaller roads, then my sat nav bonged happily and announced I had arrived at my destination.  I was in a dusty side road by a deserted former tyre fitting unit.  I got out of the car for a nose round, and sure enough, behind the deserted former tyre fitting unit and, more importantly, behind an impassable solid looking brick wall, was my Travelodge.  So I drove back to the main roads, which with it now being 5pm were absolutely chocka block and attempted to get to my hotel.  I eventually found it, more by luck than design.  It was just off the A444, hiding behind a grotty looking petrol station.  I shouldn't complain really as the petrol station was going to be my version of Claridge's restaurant for the evening.  So I bought some grub from the petrol station,  went back to my stiflingly hot room and tried to pretend that I had actually enjoyed freezing my b******s off back at Knebworth House.

The next morning dawned cooler, and a lot damper.  Rain had fallen heavily in the night and was continuing to do that for an encore in the morning.  I soon found the school - Whitmore Junior, and as I was there ahead of the teacher who had booked me, I brought all my stuff in and set it up in the main hall.  Anita, the lovely lady who booked me then arrived and told me I was in the wrong hall, as they had two halls for this school.  But with some help from two other teachers and use of a big trolley we moved all my props down to the correct hall.  The teachers at this school were really lovely all day and could not do enough for me.  It was very kind of them.  We had a fantastic day with a group of children just setting out on the subject of the Tudors, but they already had some pretty good knowledge.  We had a fantastic morning and an even more fun and silly afternoon.  The afternoon joust was a really good one and ended with that rarest of things - a win for the gents!  So thanks to Whitmore Junior our score goes to:

GENTLEMEN 16 - 23 LADIES

The journey home was back through some horrendous weather - driving rain and increasingly strong winds.  And there was me complaining about the heat less than two paragraphs ago.  I got home, had a Chinese takeaway and contemplated an early night, but this plan was scuppered by me, as I managed to fall asleep on the sofa and wake up at just after midnight.  And then when I got into bed properly, I couldn't get off to sleep.  Typical.

Thursday found me back at Bathampton School in the delightful canal-side village of Bathampton, near Bath, naturally enough.  It was a morning only with a combined year 2 & 3 group.  It was lovely to be back.  Last time I had visited was in 2011 and I had helped open a new set of classrooms for them, by cutting the ribbon in front of the assembled press.  It is a lovely school, and I am particularly fond of it as they have one of the most stunningly attractive finance officers I have ever seen.  He's called Bernard... No, he isn't.  He is a she and I shall keep it to that to spare her blushes, but she is just "goyjus".  (GKH blushes enormously).  Anyway, the morning was fun.  I did my opening Henry talk for the kiddywinkies, then they did a Tudor dance for me.  We then did my Tudor quiz, then they sang me a song or two, and finally after I had played my instruments back to them, we had a jousting tournament, just before lunch.  It was loud and fun, and once again, much to everyone's complete amazement, we had another win for the gents.  This must be the first back to back win for a long time.  Anyway, our score goes on to:

GENTLEMEN 17 - 23 LADIES

This could get very interesting.  I loaded all the stuff back into my car, then stopped briefly for petrol on the way home.  As I was driving out of the forecourt of the petrol station I happened to glance up and noticed the most revolting huge hairy moth parked not two inches from my eyes, just looking at me.  I leaped on the brakes and screeched to a halt.  Now some people have phobias about spiders - for me, nothing. Some people have phobias about snakes - ha!  I laugh in the face of a King Cobra!  But show me a big hairy arsed moth, with those horrible grippy clawed feet they have and I tend to turn into a loose bowelled screaming shivering wuss.  As I did here.  I clambered out of the car, trying desperately to look more like Chuck Connors than Charles Hawtrey, and on leaving the door open shoo-ed at the moth with a large piece of paper.  It dutifully flew off with wings making a similar sound to a Chinook helicopter power lifting a tank across Salisbury Plain and I managed to stifle an further girly screams.

And when I got home my voice started giving out, so at this moment I can confirm my manly testosterone fuelled roughtie-tuffty-ness as I currently sound like Barry White when I speak.  However show me a moth and Charles Hawtrey will come leaping back onto centre stage.  Good King Hal is back on parade at Barrington Court this weekend for another summer wander round the gardens.  I hope to see you all there.

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.

Meanwhile at Scott Base, Antarctica...

The cheery sign that greeted us as we arrived at Baldock Hinxworth Travelodge.

Back to jousting for the weekend, and what a weekend it was.  Freezing cold, a howling wind and misery personified. Myself, James, Shelley and Owen travelled up from the South East round to Knebworth House, praying with each mile that we clicked off that temperatures would rise and the fluttering flakes of snow on the windscreen would abate.  Would they heck.

On arrival at Knebworth we were followed in by Sir William of Antioch, much to Owen's delight and wound our way through the deer rich grounds to where the Knights of Royal England had parked their horse box.  On our first greeting we were informed that lots of them were struck down with the old dreaded "Nawab of Pataudis", after a particularly virulent chicken korma the night before.  Several of them were still back in their hotel happily barfing their way through the morning.

We did both shows on the Easter Sunday - and by heck it was cold, but we all agreed that by the end of the second show there was a definite rise in the overall temperature.  Shelley, Owen, James and I then drove up the A1(M) towards our overnight stop at Baldock Hinxworth Travelodge.  I had booked this several months in advance and was quite sure I had got a bargain.  I was wrong.  This was quite possibly one of the filthiest, grimiest hotel experiences I have ever encountered.  James and I  in our room were quite lucky - it was just the usual frugal room with the odd spot of mould in the bathroom.  Shelley's room was quite different - it appeared to have been cleaned on a regular basis by a group of people with the norovirus and amnesia.  There was quite literally crap everywhere - smeared walls, mould in the bathroom, splatter marks in the bathroom, large embarrassing stains in the bedroom, a broken leg on the bed that made the whole thing creak and even suspicious large brown splat stains on the net curtains.  Really, in retrospect I should have offered to swap rooms with her, but I didn't and I bitterly regret that.  I wasn't much of a gentleman.

We cheered ourselves up with a really genuinely nice dinner at a Beefeater in Stevenage, where the staff could not have been more helpful if they tried.  So nice were they that after our awful night at the Travelodge we went back to the Beefeater for breakfast - and James and Owen both got eggs from the Easter Bunny there, so everyone was happy.

Amazingly, the Monday at Knebworth was even colder.  My weekend was also marred with awful tights that kept making a break for the border (i.e. heading south) and caused me to be almost late for the second show on the Sunday.  By the end of the final show on the Monday I was in the Royal Box commentating with the owner of Knebworth, Lord Cobbold, and my hands were so cold I could barely feel the microphone in my fingers.  But we got through it.

I am off to Bourne Hall Museum in Epsom today for a couple of Henry's Horrid History Shows, then it is back down to Somerset for an appearance on Friday night at Mudford Village Hall (All together now: "HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD!") and then a few days in Wales with James visiting my parents.

OI! SNOW! NO!!

Captain Robert Falcon Scott (left) pondering on whether the antarctic frock he has chosen for "Birdy" Bowers (right) is up to the rigours of a south polar winter and a diet of pemmican...

My world record attempt to drive the furthest distance to as many shows as possible in the space of three weeks continued.  And to choose to do it during the depths of winter?  Surely I want locking up...  By the end of my first journey on Monday morning, I would whole heartedly have agreed.  Monday morning saw me getting up at 5am in Maidstone for a shortish drive to Dulwich College Junior School in South East London.  Now as you know, I hate driving in London and would much rather drive to a school there in the wee small hours, park outside the school and sleep in the car until the place opens, then go in and introduce myself.  That was the plan for Monday.  But the best laid plans of mice and Tudor despots can go a bit Pete Tong if the weather is against you, and this morning, it was.  It had snowed on the Sunday night, but hadn't settled too badly.  As I made my way up the M20 towards London I made very good progress, but then we got onto the South Circular and things began to slow down.  First of all, a heavily over ladened flat bed truck, piloted by some pikey looking types tried to squeeze through a too narrow space next to a Romanian lorry - the pikey promptly loses his side rear view mirror - and his temper.  He chases the Romanian lorry, then carves him up before slamming on his brakes in front of him forcing him to stop, before jumping out of the van to confront the driver.  I drove round them before any "unpleasantness" ensued.  The snowfall got heavier and the traffic got thicker and slower.  The final three miles of the journey took me about an hour.  However, I was warmly welcomed by Leiba Sabon the lady who had booked me, and the day began. 

It was great fun, an all boys private school and a group of about 45 pupils, nearly all of whom were ready to laugh and join in.  It was a delightful day all round and helped me forget about my appalling drive in.  The snow seemed to continue falling most of the day and I began worrying about my journey home, but come the time to leave I was delighted to find most of the snow had melted away.  It was a great day at the school, but I can't add the jousting result to our overall score as it is a single sex school - shame really as the boys need all the points they can get!  My drive home was much quicker and less painful than the drive up.

I had dinner with my lovely Shelley that evening, before hitting the road again and heading down to Southampton and a room I had booked at a Travelodge in the town.  I found the hotel quite easily, I had stayed there once before, many years ago when I worked for Skandia - it was the last time we had the fuel strikes when everyone ballistic because petrol went over £1 per litre - £1?  Ah, the good old days...  I couldn't get fuel to get to work at Skandia and so for two nights I booked into the Travelodge until it all blew over.  I went into reception dragging my very heavy suitcase with me (it's because I had two weeks worth of clothes with me - yes, I was still away in a trip that began in the last blog entry).  I booked in, was handed a key for a room on the 4th floor, and was then told the lift was out of service.  Out of service?  Why?  Apparently it had been trashed by disgruntled Manchester City fans the previous weekend after we got thrashed by Southampton.  I promptly decided not to mention that I was a City fan.  The trogs in Southampton seem a bit touchy about the whole "Man City are rich these days" thing, if most of the idiotic comments I regularly have to read on Facebook are anything to go by.

My drive to the school was only about two miles the following morning.  The school was called St Mary's and was right next door to the big gleaming brand spanking new stadium of the same name that Southampton play in.  For such a big school it was a small group - just 20 children, something which usually makes the day quite difficult with a lack of atmosphere.  But this was a lively small group and they all seemed to enjoy themselves.  The whole day went swimmingly and culminated in a very enthusiastic joust, but unfortunately, although a Gents team won, they cheated so horrendously on the final leg that I had no option other than to disqualify them - so that leads to yet another win for the Ladies.  Our score inevitably goes on to:

GENTLEMEN 11 - 18 LADIES

Some very kind lads helped me load my stuff back into the car at the end of the day, and then I was on my way - but not before I almost drove off without packing my big case of props in the boot first - oops.  It was also nice to see Jen Frost, formerly of Skandia Life, now working at the school as the main receptionist.  I chatted with her about my recent visits to Skandia to see old friends.  I mentioned how on my last visit it was the middle of "Mo-Vember" and I was horrified to see NAME REMOVED ON LEGAL ADVICE with a big droopy moustache.  Jen said seeing NAME REMOVED ON LEGAL ADVICE at any time was bad enough.  I said NAME REMOVED ON LEGAL ADVICE with a moustache gave an even bigger impression of being like Blakey from "On the Buses".  "I hate you, Butler/Charlie!"  Make your own mind up former Skandia colleagues.

I drove back to Somerset and finally got home after 10 days away.  My throat was hurting, my head was pounding and I couldn't stop coughing.  I was coming down with a stinking cold.  What I needed was a long day in bed taking it easy.  Was I going to get it?  No.  I was back up at the crack of dawn for a long drive up to Hereford and a return visit to the lovely Riverside School there.  Now from Crewkerne to Hereford is normally about 2 hours at most by road, but being a tight fisted penny pinching type I decided not to follow the sat navs directions over the ludicrously expensive Severn Bridge toll and press on up to the M50 and cut across country.  OK, it put about 20 minutes on my journey, but it would be worth it, wouldn't it?  WRONG!  The M50 was virtually one solid set of roadworks from start to finish and I got stuck behind a doddery old fart in an elderly Honda Civic who obviously regarded driving faster than 40MPH anywhere was likely to lead to a complete breakdown of the human nervous system.  By the time I reached the A49 up into Hereford itself the morning rush hour was in full flow and I was going to be late.  I finally arrived at the school just before 9am.  But it was worth it, we had a fantastic day.  I suffered a lot with my coughing and dry throat, but we got through it and everyone seemed to have a really good time.  And guess what?  The ladies won the jousting AGAIN.  Can you believe this?  The score goes to:

GENTLEMEN 11 - 19 LADIES

Amazing stuff.  I followed the instructions of the sat nav to the letter on the way home and was back in my flat in about 2 hours as expected.  I will never argue with it again.  I have now had a lovely day off, a lay in this morning and then a short trip into town, where it was lovely to feel sunshine on my face - and, most amazing of all, warmth.  Could this herald the start of spring?  God I hope so.  I am so sick and fed up with snow.  In the words of Harry Enfield, "OI! SNOW!  NO!!!!"  Friday night I am off down to deepest darkest Devon for an appearance at Saunton Golf Club for a Rotary Club Dinner.  Then it is half term - time for some real quality time with my lovely son, James.  I can't wait!

Nottingham and Knackered Bogs

A gratuitous pussy shot for the start of this latest blog entry.  How shocking.

After a week of not moving around very much down in the west country.... Oh OK, Isle of Wight, Chandlers Ford AND Taunton in one week?  Not much moving around?  It was a lot of moving around for a normal person but nothing for Henry to be honest.  So this week we are back on the usual insane treadmill.  For my first trick I will drive from Maidstone in Kent to Nottingham, blindfolded, carrying a cement mixer and whistling the more difficult parts of a Stockhausen symphony.  The weather was a bit lousy, but then I was blindfolded so what the hell did I care?  I was on my way to the luxurious august portals of the Travelodge at Trowell services on the M1.  I have stayed at many different Travelodge's over the past few years, but this was not one of the great ones.  The welcome from the lady behind the reception desk was very warm and genuine, but that was as good as it got.  The room was grotty, there were some rather worrying stains on the carpet and everything had a sort of down at heel feel to it.  The toilet was decidedly dodgy and didn't flush particularly well early on.  The water deluge into the pan was less of a deluge and more of a subtle trickle.  This was going to prove tricky if I was a big boy later.

The bed was comfortable it must be said but appeared to have been tucked in by the Incredible Hulk in a strop.  The sheets appear to have been welded under the mattress.  The added fun for the room was that there was only five working channels on the TV.  Now I know back in the early 70's we'd have given our eye teeth to have that many channels to choose from, but in 2012 it seemed a bit meagre.  I had bought food with me so I didn't have to go out and sample the delights of the local Burger King for my dinner, and that was a real plus point.

After a good nights sleep, I woke up bright and early for a trip to Southglade Junior in Nottingham.  I decided to finally test out the toilet's ability to handle a really big....er.... job.  Well it was the morning.  Right, slipway greased, bomb bay doors open, target selected and AWAY we go.  Message delivered.  Now was the time to see if the poor flushing capacity of this toilet could handle it.  I gripped the flush handle tightly, pulled it up to a big height, and keeping the fingers of my other hand crossed for good luck, plunged it down with a reasonable amount of manly force....  The handle promptly fell off in my hand.  Shit.  In fact, quite a lot of it to be honest.  Oh dear.  What does one do?  Well, when you're English and almost terminally embarrassed about anything to do with bodily functions you do what I did.  You take the toilet cistern apart with your bare hands and begin to re-assemble it, even though you are to plumbing what Abu Qatada is to Jordanian tourism promotion.  But, I am very proud to say I fixed the damn thing, and got it working again and flushing better than ever.  What a clever chap.  It did bring to mind an embarrassing moment from my past that I am here to reveal to the rest of the world for the first time ever.  Back in about 1993 I was living in Essex (that is not the embarrassing bit, before you say anything) and one evening I was invited to dinner at some friend's house in Billericay.  I really liked this couple and found them great company, but always looked up to them as a very sophisticated duo.  I was looking forward to the visit on the Saturday, but on the Wednesday evening during the week before, I was struck down with what Peter Tinniswood used to call a savage attack of the Nawab of Pataudis.  I had eaten something that violently disagreed with being eaten and was hell bent on escaping from me via whichever was the quickest route.  I was feeling extremely ropey even up to the morning of the Saturday, but by the early afternoon I had perked up enough to feel confident to take on a dinner party at my friend's house.  So the early part of the evening went well, but about halfway through the main course I could feel some turbulence building up and decided that I would be better off making a quick to journey to the toilet to ease my discomfort.  Sure enough once in the small downstairs toilet all hell broke loose and I was somewhat alike to Jeff Daniels in the toilet scene from "Dumb and Dumber".  It was not a pretty site and before I did anything else like cleaning myself up I decided to flush away what was in the loo.  I pulled the chain and expected a mighty deluge.  Wrong.  I got a pathetic trickle that didn't really flush much away, just sort of stirred it up a bit.  But that wasn't the worst of it, oh no.  The worst of it was the sound of the cistern re-filling.  Where you normally here a nice healthy sluice of water topping up the flush for another go, all I got was a gentle drip drip sound.  This was going to take hours.  I tried to pull the top of the cistern off to refill it manually with water from the sink, but it was screwed on.  So I waited and waited,  and waited and waited, and waited some more.  Eventually my friends started knocking on the toilet door.  Was I alright in there?  I assured them I was, but I couldn't leave the bog looking like it did.  Eventually the cistern was just about ready for another trickle flush, which made a slight improvement.  But I couldn't wait for it to re-fill again as my friends would be past the main course and the pudding and would be almost at the end of cheese, coffee and cigars.  I walked back into the dining room and thought I'd make a little joke.  "I'd give it five minutes if I was you!" I chuckled as I sat down.  There was a painful silence.  The evening never really recovered and as I recall I don't think I ever got a return invite.  Funny that....

And so to the school.  It was lovely to be back at this wonderful school in Nottingham, what with their properly flushing toilets and everything.  The kids were great - almost too excited to be honest, but hugely enthusiastic in the extreme.  The morning passed in a flash and I was soon sitting in the very comfortable staff room ploughing my way through a very tasty plate of home made lasagna and garlic bread.  Fantastic.  That set me up for the afternoon thrash and what turned out to be a fantastic jousting tournament.  The final with the ladies and gents ebbed and flowed with who was winning and who was losing, but finally a really good ladies team again stormed to another victory.  This brought the score to:

GENTLEMEN 5 - 8 LADIES

I packed my stuff away and then hit the road.  I am in Norwich tomorrow for a return visit for the first time in many years to Old Catton School.  I have driven about half the way from Nottingham to Norwich and am currently in ANOTHER Travelodge, this time near Kings Lynn at a place called Long Sutton.  And you will be pleased to hear that their bogs flush a treat!  Good night!

Edgar Stammers and Southglade (NOT a rock group)

Good King Hal and his daughter (Bob) wondering where all the glass has gone from the window behind them. What a pane (geddit???).

I told a friend of mine on the phone the other night that I was off to Walsall to do a show. He asked if after that I was moving on to Gdansk. I had to repeat myself and tell him I was going to WalSALL, not Warsaw. Mind you last time I was in Walsall I had got up so early due to an inability to sleep I probably could have driven to Warsaw to do a show. Not to be caught out again I had decided to drive up on the Sunday and book myself into the luxury that is a Travelodge so as to be fresh and early at the school on the Monday. I booked online and found out to my delight that a room at a Travelodge in Walsall at the beginning of December was only £12. What a bargain! The drive up to begin with was quite nice - cold and bright, with not much traffic on the road. However as I approached the Midlands the sky became black as Newgate's Knocker and the rain just hammered down. I finally sloshed to a halt outside the august portals of the Walsall Travelodge. Now, yes admittedly it was only £12 to stay the night, but they then immediately charged you £3 for the pleasure of parking there. There was a small cafe/restaurant downstairs that offered you breakfast. But this appeared to consist of a rather forlorn looking slice of bacon, a chipolata, some watery scrambled eggs and some toast for £7.95. I'd rather starve, so I did.

I had a comfortable night in my room on the 2nd floor only being disturbed by the drunken shrieking of some demented woman at about 11pm - she wasn't happy about something and obviously wanted everyone else in the hotel to know about it. I got up the next morning and drove round to the wonderfully named Edgar Stammers School. Now to me, the name Edgar Stammers sounds like a 1960's soul singer on the Stax record label rather than a nice primary school in the West Midlands. It was a really fun group on the day - about 40+ children and all very enthusiastic. All was going really well until we got to the end of the morning session. At this point, halfway through my talk, there was a barely audible knock on the door to the hall before it was smashed open and several scary looking women of advanced years and varying degrees of gold dentistry, stormed into the hall and began noisily chucking tables and chairs around while cackling to each other. Tables were crashed down, chairs dragged honkingly loudly over the floor and voices like Thames barge foghorns were projected. I made a comment fairly loudly about them being a tad rude in stomping in like that and was shot a look from one of the teachers that said "LEAVE IT! THEY AIN'T WORTH IT!" As they began to finally (and equally loudly) to leave I called after them "Why did you bother knocking?"

After lunch, and more loud haranguing from the antediluvian dinner ladies ("'Ere! 'Enry! Where's yer Mrs? Eh? Eh?") it was back to normality, or as normal as I can get without using make up. The jousting was of a very high standard and ended up with a good Gents team coming home first. Our score therefore now moves up to:

GENTLEMEN 10 - 11 LADIES

And of course with the next contest coming up very quickly. Edgar Stammers was a lovely school, great children, lovely teachers, and very scary dinner ladies. It was like Jurassic Park with tabards.

I drove from Walsall over to South Witham near Grantham where my dear friend Val Smart lives. We wandered down to the local village pub that evening and had a lovely meal at The Blue Cow Inn. I stayed there once before as you might recall from a previous entry in the blog. It was a cold frosty evening but we sat next to a blazing log fire and had a lovely meal. The only drag was when the pub manager, who looked like a gnome who'd lost his mushroom, noticed my Manchester City t-shirt I was wearing and came over for some good natured banter as he was a Man Ure fan. He then regaled us with tales of his past life, where he'd lived, what illnesses he'd had, which RAF stations his son has been posted to and for how long, why Mousehole in Cornwall is called Mousehole, how many light bulbs they use in illuminating the village in winter... At one point I didn't think he was going to stop and I was seriously considering trying to shove him into the fireplace in a desperate attempt to escape. But we did get away. I slept in Val's spare room on a tiny, but very comfortable bed.

Tuesday morning and I was again up at bloody-hell-o'clock in the morning for a drive up to Nottingham and my visit to Southglade Junior School. This is another lovely school and I was very warmly welcomed by the teachers and staff. The children were unbelievably enthusiastic this day. It was all that I could do to reign them in and keep them on this side of hysteria. They were the same sort of size group as the day before, but about 20 times louder. Perhaps their dinner ladies were 20 times louder as well. I hoped not. The morning did honestly seem to just shoot past and I ended up for the last few minutes being interviewed in the classroom by one of the two classes, as I sank slowly into an unbelievably squashy low chair. Thank God I had my walking stick with me as I might have needed a midwife to get me out of it. Lunch was pretty awful to be honest - an all day breakfast consisting of bacon (OK), wedges (dry), mushrooms (nice), beans (stewed) and two of the most tasteless sausages I have ever experienced in my life. I know schools have to cut down on the old sodium for the sake of the kids health, but this was just taking the proverbial. They were just flavourless greyish tubes full of mush.

The afternoon was predictably loud and popular and the jousting was a joyous occasion as two really good teams fought it out in the final. The ladies came through for a deserved win though, and so our score goes back to:

GENTLEMEN 10 - 12 LADIES

I left the school at 3.30pm and made steady if unspectacular progress, until I reached junction 5 of the M42 where a car had caught fire and two lanes were blocked. I got held up there for just over half an hour. But I was soon on my way again - until the Avonmouth Bridge on the M5 where about 6 or 7 cars had decided to smash into each other and closed another couple of lanes. I was held there for about another 45 minutes. I finally walked into my flat at about 8.30pm - that had been a long long day. But worth it! And I know I am far enough away from the Dinnerladysaurus to be completely safe - for now. Tomorrow I am driving to Essex to see my lovely son and then down to Leeds Castle this weekend for the first Father Christmas weekend of the festive season. Looking forward to grooving on down with my Elves to the "Santa Rap" - HOOO-HO-HO-HOOOOO!

Cheshire, Oldbury and beyond

Good King Hal, walking through the streets of Bridport with a large tree growing out of his head.

It is always nice in this business to visit new areas that you don't really know. So what did I know about Cheshire? Grinning cats? Check. Some sort of cheese? Check. Home for a lot of overpaid morons living in posh houses chasing inflated pigs bladders round a field? Check. Well, there you have it! All you need to know about Cheshire. I am of course, joking. I really honestly didn't know what to expect. I was heading for Nantwich near Crewe, which to a soft southerner like myself conjured up images of shunting yards and industrial landscapes. How wrong I was! True the weather when I drove up on the Monday was filthy - pouring with rain and miserable as sin. But the countryside did seem very pleasant with some lovely houses. I was booked into another luxurious Travelodge (ah, the excitement of showbiz folks) and for once it was quite nice! It seemed to be a brand spanking new build and seemed slightly better fitted out than some of the ones I have visited recently. Some of the usual things were there as ever - the confusing shower/bath combination thing that would need someone like Professor Stephen Hawking to work out how to make it work, the hot water that either comes out cold for several hours, or is immediately the same heat as volcanic magma and strips the flesh from your hands. But for once it was not just a lonely building in the corner of an industrial estate or a cow field - there were facilities! True, one was one of these God-awful plastic "family pubs" called things like "The Jolly Farmer" or "The Badgers Nadgers", and another was a Subway outlet selling sandwiches so full of salt they could exterminate an infants school with one mouthful. But there was also a nice looking Chinese take away and a Co-op Supermarket. Being the health conscious King I am these days, I put on my blinkers, walked straight past the Chinese and headed for the low fat food in the Co-op. What a good boy I am. I spent a restful evening watching "X-Men: The Last Stand" and having very naughty thoughts about Famke Janssen. (Dirty boy!).

The drive to St Oswald's Worlstone Primary was quite painless the next morning, though the rain was continuing to fall mainly in the downwards direction. It is a lovely old Victorian school building in a very leafy country lane seemingly miles from anywhere. The teachers who greeted me were lovely and friendly and it seemed pretty certain I was on for a good day. And I was right! It was a group of about 35 children and a mixture of years 3, 4, 5 & 6, and though they began the day a little subdued, they soon got into their stride! We had a fine morning,with lots of laughs and were even delighted to notice that the sun was coming out! Hoorah! Lunch was a delicious spaggy bol, and then it was back to the hall for more Tudor mayhem. The concluding joust was close, but won in the end by a very fine Gents team - and about time too! Our score for the year at this point was then:

GENTLEMEN 1 -2 LADIES

I packed my stuff away and headed for an hour long drive down to the Frankley Services on the M5 and yet another rendezvous with a Travelodge. This was much more like your usual text book Travelodge. A bit run down, a surly receptionist who kept tutting if people asked her questions and once you got into the corridor towards your room, an over-powering smell of fetid dampness. Frankly, Frankley Services were enough to make you want to chew your own foot off. We did have facilities! You could dine in the sumptuous surrounds of Burger King, or play very loud flashing fruit machines. I instead headed for the near deserted Marks and Spencers food outlet and purchased some more of my low fat grub. There was no Famke Janssen to keep me company this evening, so I ended up retiring to bed at 9.30pm (yes, it's that wild showbiz, rock'n'roll lifestyle again folks!). I am currently reading "1,000 Years of Annoying the French" by Stephen Clarke, which is a mildly diverting book about our "entente cordiale", or rather lack of it, with our Gallic chums over the channel. It is a hefty tome of some 700 pages, and I tend to lie on my back in bed when reading, but this does then bring you the danger of when you're nodding off of dropping your reading matter on your face. Not so bad if it's a newspaper, but a 700 page anti-French comedy book can do some serious damage. After bashing myself on the nose for the 4th time I decided it was time for sleep.

My second show on the road was at Perryfields Primary in Oldbury in Birmingham. To get to this place I had to drive down the M5 for about five miles to the next junction and then turn round and come back again up past the Frankley Service area where I had stayed the night before. It was such a delight to be on the motorway with all those friendly midlands motorists. I'd particularly like to say a big "hello" to the utter Merchant Banker in his glistening silver BMW who seemed to think he had a God given right to drive wherever he fecking wanted on the road and tough luck if you're in his way. I can only wish him my fondest regards, and hopefully terminal dysentery. The school was lovely - I was greeted by Miss Bridgewater who had booked me for the morning and was soon in with the 60+ children from years 3 & 4 combined. We had a great morning - really terrific fun. But the whole thing seemed to pass in a flash and before I knew it, it was over and I was on my way home! The jousting was a close run thing and had to go to TWO ride offs to find the eventual winners which was the Gentlemen AGAIN! So we are now at:

GENTLEMEN 2 - 2 LADIES

All square as I now head to Essex for a show at South Green Junior in Billericay this Friday.

Wednesday evening I met up with my friends Viv and John Rich from Crawley who are staying in Somerset for a little holiday at the moment. We went to the Mason's Arms at Odcombe near Yeovil and had a lovely meal, which John insisted on paying for. What a nice man! I hope they enjoy the rest of their stay.

On a final note I would like to send my best wishes for a speedy recovery to my old mate Pete Flanagan who is currently in hospital after a very nasty accident when he had his leg crushed by a car that hit him while he was out walking his dog. Hope you are soon back and firing on all four again soon, Pete.

Wolsingham? Canny!

Good King Hal (right), checking the number of fingers on Ms Boleyn's left hand, just to make sure it is really her.

It would seem that the repercussions of my visit to James' school for his "Bring Dad to School Day" were still being felt. One of the other Dad's there on the day was the former Catholic Priest who worked at the school. By all accounts during his time working there he was quite strict and pious towards most of the families. But, Lo! It came to pass that this priest didst gaze upon one of the single mothers attending the school and thought "Phew, what a scorcher!", tore off his dog collar and moved in with her. He is now a good little secular step father. He came to the "Bring Dad to School Day" and during the bit where we all had to stand up and tell the others what we did for a living, he announced how he used to be the Priest for the Catholic school but was now training to become an Anglican Vicar. Putting on my best stentorian and outraged Catholic voice, I shouted "GET OUT!" and pointed at the door, which brought loud guffaws from everyone else in the room. He looked daggers at me and has now probably booked me a nice little spot in Hell for judgement day. Still, I am sure it was worth it for all the laughs I got from the other fathers.

And so it was time to be Henry VIII again. On the Sunday morning I left for the long drive up to County Durham and my appointment at Wolsingham Primary school near Bishop Auckland. I was heading for Sedgefield as I was booked into another "luxurious" Travelodge - but this time for the bargain basement price of £15 for the night. Last of the big spenders, that's me. The journey up from Essex to County Durham was relatively easy, but very warm on one of the hottest days of the year. I reckon the highlight of the long drive was being overtaken by a gleaming De Lorean sports car looking as though it had just come off the set of "Back to the Future". I stopped off for some petrol and food for the evening when I found the Travelodge. I knew I was in County Durham for sure as on my arrival in the shop, the man behind the counter hailed me with a "Afternoon, wee man." And when I mentioned how hot it was he described the weather as "right canny". He could of course have been a stereotype placed there by the County Durham tourist board, but he wasn't just wearing a t-shirt and didn't refer to me as a "shandy drinking cockney man woman man". Or something. The hotel room was stiflingly hot and had windows that you could only open to a very small degree for "health and safety" reasons. So they save you from plummeting to your death, they just let you cook slowly instead. So I set myself on at gas mark 4 and went to bed.

I had a half hour drive over to Wolsingham, where the school was, the next morning. It was a pretty little town/large village, and the school was tucked right away down a tiny back road. It was a very small group today - about 31 children and they were possibly the quietest group I have ever encountered. I was a little worried about them at some points during the day, but they kept reassuring me that they were enjoying themselves. After a delicious roast dinner lunch the day finally got some noise with the stocks and then a rip roaring jousting tournament. Amazingly enough and for the first time in what seemed like ages, the Gents won! But only just. This makes the score now:

GENTLEMEN 24 - 31 LADIES

The journey home to Somerset from County Durham was going to be a long one. I left the car park at the school at approximately 3.15pm. I arrived outside my flat in Crewkerne 350 miles later at nearly 9pm. About the only thing that kept me going was listening to the frequent traffic reports of the 20 miles of virtually stationary traffic crawling away from Glastonbury after the festival ended. As I neared the end of my journey home down the A34 and A303 I saw many a "crusty bus" clanking along looking all funky and crap heading east back towards London and the home counties. When I stopped for petrol at the end of the A34 there was a young lad in the queue in front of me at the pay desk obviously on his way home from a long hard festival. His trousers were those trendy sort that look like they are riding at half mast, giving the poor unfortunate git behind him (i.e. Me) a fine and totally unwanted view of his grundies. He had purchased £10 worth of petrol, a bottle of mineral water, a can of Red Bull and some mints. His card was now being frequently and loudly declined by the machine by the check out. He eventually wandered off muttering like Kevin the Teenager about life's unfairness. As I got to my car he was leaning into the car n the bay next to mine trying to rouse two comatose travelling companions with oft intoned whiny nasal implications as to if any of them had any "wonga". Ah, the joys of youth.

Home for now, with my next Henry appearance this Saturday when I am working at Dillington House near Ilminster at a wedding, which should be great fun.

What a Blow Out...

Good King Hal's Mazda 323 but with tyres intact and not a pikey in sight.

Back to the south east again! Sunday 7th February I drive up to Essex to spend some nice quality time with my wife and son. We had a nice couple of days, but then come early Wednesday morning I was off at the crack of dawn heading up the merry old A12 towards Norfolk and a return visit to the wonderful Caister Junior School. The journey started off very well and I was making good progress, but it was cold outside and getting colder. We suddenly had a tremendous flurry of snow, but it didn't seem to settle. Getting up into Suffolk there was suddenly frequent announcements on the radio that because of icy conditions, the A47 east of Norwich was now shut - this is where I needed to go to get to Caister. I cut across country and was soon making even better progress - this was going to be a doddle! Then it snowed again. Almost as soon as it snowed the moisture on the road froze solid. A pleasant easy main A-road to drive along immediately morphed into a slick, sheet-ice, hell hole. A long queue of traffic snaked ahead of me and we crawled along at only just over 10 mph and keeping a big enough space to the car in front in case we needed to stop, something that would be virtually impossible on this surface. As 9am approached I phoned the school to explain why I was so late - they were great, very understanding and just said "get here safe and sound, that's all that matters". Well it was worth it when I got there! A big group of brilliant children, bright, sparky and full of laughter. Their costumes were as brilliant as ever. The teachers were lovely and welcoming as well, particularly Snow White! (She'll know who I mean!). The afternoon session was wild and full of laughter and the jousting was deafening! It was a rip-roaring success and ended with a very close finish with the Ladies team just triumphing. This brought our score now to:

GENTLEMEN 10 - 15 LADIES

It's getting interesting now folks!

Amidst more flurries of snow I headed up the now re-opened A47 and headed for Acle and my appointment with a Travelodge there! Now I hadn't stayed in a Travelodge since I did the Education Show at the NEC in Birmingham back in 2006 - well I was very pleasantly surprised. A big comfy room, double bed, en suite shower room, secluded lighting and a posh plasma screen telly on the wall. And all this for just £29! The receptionist was also very pleasant and charming and was very interested in my job as Henry! I veged out in my room for the evening listening to music on my MP3 player and reading the entertaining but slightly melancholy new Sue Townshend "Adrian Mole" book.

Up bright and early and over to Drayton for a return visit to another lovely school - Drayton Junior. Another warm welcome from Angela the lovely teacher and we were soon off and running. It was another superb group, very quiet to begin with but getting brighter and louder as the day went on and in the end we had a roof lifting jousting tournament. The Gents stormed to a resounding victory. This brings our score to:

GENTLEMEN 11 - 15 LADIES

This is getting closer and closer. Drayton was a lovely school to visit and I had a lovely chat at lunchtime with a charming young trainee teacher from Ireland. A wonderful young lady.

I began to head for Basildon and dinner with my wife and son. I made very good progress until I got just south of Colchester. While bombing along at about 75MPH my front right tyre suddenly blew. The car slewed sideways and I ended up rumbling along at about 20MPH desperate to get to a lay by. I finally stopped and got out to survey the damage. The tyre was shredded and hanging off the metal tyre rim in sad looking strips. I checked the spare tyre - it was a emergency space saver, suitable only for slow driving and about 50 miles in total, and I had to get back to Somerset. I was not a member of the RAC or AA. Problems. With several phone calls to my wife, my mother and a friend in Colchester, I was eventually a member of the RAC and awaiting saving. I had been sitting in the lay by for about an hour when a big vehicle suddenly screamed to a halt behind me. It turned out it was the Police asking me if I was OK, which was quite re-assuring. After they had gone the RAC phoned back and said someone would be with me within the hour. As soon as they had gone another big pick up suddenly screamed to a halt behind me. I saw a figure get out and starting circling round the back of my car. This must be the RAC bloke - the figure wandered round next to my door, so I wound down the window and said "hello". The effect was electric - the big figure dashed round to the near side of my car and for some reason began to look into the scrubby undergrowth next to the carriageway, as if looking for something. He then turned round, whistled nonchalantly, and waddled off back to his pick up. He drove off. What the hell was that all about? When the real RAC bloke turned up he said with absolute definition that the man in question must have been a "pikey" checking out my car to see if it was abandoned and if he could ransack it. Nice.

Well I eventually got the car sorted, a new tyre, and finally I was on my way - at just short of 9pm. The tyre had burst at about 5pm. I got back to Crewkerne at about 11.30pm and was just so exhausted that I immediately collapsed into bed. I was glad to be home, but too tired for any good this weekend, so my visit to the Lake District and return visit to see Andy and Kate near Penrith has had to be postponed.

Half term next week and a visit to Wales with my son to see his Grandparents. Should be fun!