Going Tudor again.

Even before we made our trip to 1559 and Kentwell Hall, K & M had decided that they wanted to visit Mary Arden's Farm and Shakespeare's Birthplace in their Tudor costumes, so I gave Granny a ring and asked if we could come and stay.  On Monday morning after we'd packed an overnight bag, K & M got dressed in their Tudor clothes and we drove straight to Mary Arden's Farm. 

Not surprisingly their appearance provoked something of a reaction and they were asked a couple of times by visitors if they minded having the photos taken.  We arrived in time to watch the Tudors on the farm having their dinner, one of the main daily events.  K was put to work, holding the cloth for them to dry their hands on after they'd washed them.

We've been several times now and much of what you hear at dinner is the same each time, but it's always slightly different, depending on who is there and there's always something new each time.

Walking under a roofed section between two out-buildings, we heard some very noisy birds and spotted a few tucked away.  We even saw one bird feeding a chick up there.

After we'd had something to eat ourselves, we went to see if the petting corner was open, but it wasn't so we had a wander into the other house and found another Tudor with some games out.  There were knucklebones, which M & I had a go at - very tricky and they only had three!  I also had a go at Nine Men's Morris with the Tudor man, who we stayed and chatted to for quite a while. 

K, a Tudor man and some games.

We told him that we'd been to Kentwell Hall and that was why K & M had their costumes and he said that some of the Kentwell Tudors had visited Mary Arden's Farm for an event a while ago.  I had already noted differences between the Kentwell and the Mary Arden's Farm re-enactors and discovered that they have different names.  The Kentwell Tudors are 'first person' re-enactors, never leaving their Tudor characters the whole time, certainly while there are visitors around, whereas Mary Arden's Farm has 'third person' re-enactors, who tell you about what they are doing from a modern perspective and will happily compare Tudor and modern life to explain things.  Apparently there were some clashes between the two camps when the Kentwell Tudors came to stay.

I can't remember how the topic came up, (I suspect it is something the Tudor man will happily bring up at any opportunity!) but we discovered that he has a famous right leg, as it was in the third Harry Potter film, the rest of him sadly ending on the cutting room floor.  K & M thought this was very funny and now, of course, want to watch it again to look out for the famous leg that they have met.

The famous leg!

Time for an ice-cream before we left.

Mid-afternoon we met up with Granny for a very welcome cooling swim, before the girls changed back into modern clothes and we went to have tea at Great Grandma's.  This was followed by a visit to see Uncle M, before we finally got to Granny and Big Grandad's house. 

Today was pretty busy too.  We went to the shops before it got too hot, with M spending some money at the sweet shop.  Then we finally made it to the nearest National Trust place to Granny and Big Grandad's, Coughton Court.  In fact Big Grandad worked there for a while, not for the National Trust, but as a driver for the family that still lives there, the Throckmortons.  We have tried to go before, but it was shut.

From the rear.

When we arrived, the girls were each given a 50 Things To Do Before You're 11 3/4 My Adventure Scrapbook.  I was really quite chuffed that although they've got a couple of years left before they hit 11 3/4 (2 years for K, about 3 1/2 for M) both of them have already done over 30 of the 50, from climbing a tree and making daisy chain to visiting a farm (it helps having farmers in the family for that one!), exploring a cave, finding a geocache and running around in the rain (that would be most welcome at the moment given the rather scorching weather we've been having for the past few weeks!).

We went in the house and right up to the top of the tower, before working our way down, looking at the priest hole, finishing the 250 piece jigsaw puzzle that they had out on a table (it was just over half done when M started, then K & I joined in).  We also added some words to the game of Scrabble that had just been started.  We hadn't got very long there, because we needed to get back for lunch, this visit was more a reccy to see if it was worth going back another time, so we didn't look at everything by any means.  We did have a quick look outside and made time for a couple of games of Pooh Sticks (another of the 50 things to do, not one we needed to do to tick off, but always fun).

After lunch, we packed our things and K & M changed into their Tudor clothes and we headed off for Stratford and Shakespeare's Birthplace.  Again K & M had their photo taken a few times and posed, along with the actors, with various tourists.  They even went back and ran up a path towards the house hand in hand for an American lady who'd tried to get a photo when they'd done it the first time!  We stopped and had quite a long chat with our Shakespeare Aloud! friends. 

On asking after some of the other actors we've met over the course of our numerous visits, and in particular Jen, the first of the actors we spent so long talking to on our first visit to the Birthplace just over a year ago that we were almost late getting to the theatre to see Twelfth Night, we discovered that she was in the house, so we went inside to see her and happily there was a bit of a lull, so we chatted to her for a while as well, before taking our leave and heading homewards.