Not always 'too good to be true'.

This weekend we went down to stay with my parents and went out for a lovely meal on Mothering Sunday with 4 generations of the matriarchal line, with my 93 year old Grandma, my Mum, me and the girls (now 11 & 9), along with A, my younger brother and my Dad.

A had taken Monday off, so we could have a family day out.  It's been a while since we'd been to Shakespeare's Birthplace, so we decided to go there and to Mary Arden's Farm, which opened for the season at the weekend.  It also happens to be Shakespeare Week this week.  This was extremely fortuitous for a number of reasons.  Last year I'd signed us up, but had forgotten about it until I saw mention of it on various home ed groups on Facebook and soon after that Passports to Shakespeare arrived through the post for K & M.  As I said, it's been a while since we'd visited any of the Shakespeare properties and our 12 month tickets had long since expired.  The passport had what looked to be a 'too good to be true' offer, a free adult pass for every 5 property child pass, which lasts for 12 months.  As both girls have Blue Peter badges they usually get in free and we pay for the adults, which is already a good saving on a family pass, which would be the best option otherwise.  This offer, however, which was indeed just as good as it appeared and saved us almost £20 (nearly £34 less than the family ticket)!

One of the (many) advantages of home edding is that we get to visit places when they are generally much quieter than during the school holidays or at weekends.  It does mean though that there usually aren't the activities that are sometimes put on for children at those busy times.  This time we had the best of both worlds, thanks to Shakespeare Week!

We went to Mary Arden's Farm first, so that we could be there over their dinner time, which is one of the best bits.  The Tudors all sit down to a meal, that you can watch the women preparing and cooking first, and tell the visitors about manners of the time and where so many of the phrases we still use today come from (lots with the word 'board' in particular).  Mistress Sarah said that 11 it's about time K had found a 'place' and said she could go and be a servant there with them, which K wasn't too happy about, so she went and hid upstairs, but still listened in to everything that was said around the board.

We also learned about what lent meant in Tudor times, namely no meat, eggs or dairy.  It wasn't so much about abstaining as that it was a lean time of year.  The hens would have been allowed to sit on the eggs to hatch chicks.  The cows would have been in calf and so there would have been no milk and they would be approaching the end of their stores of hard cheese and also preserved meats.  Since lent is longer than 40, Sundays were days off and considered 'practice feast days'.

M was disappointed to miss the falconry display, but we did meet an eagle owl.

There was a craft activity to do too, making Bottom's ears on a headband, although M went for a rather strange horn-like thing with an eye on the end and K made cat ears.

Next stop was Shakespeare's Birthplace, where the girls were keen to see the actors, who they consider their friends.  We had a chat with one of them in garden before heading into the cafe, where there was another Shakespeare Week activity, this time puppet making.  Both girls really enjoyed making their puppets and were very proud of the results.

M did made the lion and K the lady in the posh dress.

After a chat with another of the girls' friends, we headed back outside and enjoyed a scenes from Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing and The Taming of the Shrew, before we headed back to Granny and Big Grandad's for tea.

K & M were not happy to hear that it's going to be all change as regards the troupe of actors at the Birthplace, although two of them will be continuing to work there but with the education team, so we're hoping that we'll still get to see them.  I'm not sure when we'll be back, but I'm sure it won't be long.