Seizing opportunities.

Today we followed up on the letters we'd received last week and went to get appointments for the girls' routine eye tests.  They had appointments free just under an hour later, so we popped home and K & I got the eye model out that we've got on loan.

M is not coping very well with the heat at the moment and is consequently rather grumpy, to put it mildly, and because she hadn't wanted to come home before the appointments, she didn't want to join in.  She did tell me later though that she'd listened in to me reading the information in the instructions about the different parts of the model and she had a go at contructing the model herself later too, with a bit of help from K.  All was well with the eye tests and K asked about all the different lenses that the optician has and how she knows which one to use.  She explained that the things she looks at before using them gives her measurements which help her with this.  We also talked about what lenses do, i.e. bend light, and how much depends on the thickness of the lens, so each of the lenses she has is very slightly different from the others.

After lunch we finally had a go at the Grammar Game board game that we borrowed ages ago from C & D.  We were all going to play, but M didn't in the end because she wanted the yellow counter and I insisted that it was K's turn to get her first choice, as K had already let M have her way at least twice already today.  She just sat and watched reasonably happily though.  I discovered that K doesn't yet know the different classes of words (verb, noun, adjective etc.), but she's pretty good on punctuation (something that we have talked about in the past).  In my most recent BookPeople purchase, I bought a Basher book on Grammar, to go with the one we already have on Punctuation and K said she thought she might in be interested in having a look at it sometime.

After this we just had time to go foraging cherries in our local park before piano lessons.  We didn't get that many, but given we spent less than 10 minutes picking cherries within reach from the ground we did okay and there are plenty more not quite ripe yet.  Usually I go to the playground or for a walk along the canal with the one not having her piano lesson, but it was too hot today!  So instead we took Millionaire Deal and had a few games of that in the hall outside the room where they have their lessons.

M was still suffering with intense grumpiness in the heat, but she alleviated it herself, by asking to go home via the Co-op, where she bought an 8 pack of mini Twister ice-cream lollies for the family to share, which was rather lovely.  Finally, they had korfball after tea and then A finished off the chapter of William Again that he had started previously, while I went to my choir.

Exciting news!

Well I think it's exciting anyway.  Back in April at Fun Club, K & M each made a bee house.  It was rather tricky finding appropriate places to put them up and I must admit that K's is still sitting on top of the water butt, but M's went up fairly soon after it came home.  I have checked occasionally whether anything had moved in, but there was never any sign of anything, but today A came in from the garden with news. 

Ta da!

That bit of leaf is sealing up one of the holes and there was a bee crawling about in the one just above it.

In other news, we've been cracking on with Charlie Bone, read by me, with occasional chapters of William Again, read by Mr Fox on A's arm.  K & M went with A to Wollaton Hall, for K to buy a bow and arrows and they had a climb in the climbing tree while they were there.  And we watched Andy Murray win Wimbledon!

Settling back down.

Our trip back in time obviously really tired out the girls as we've had a couple of very late mornings, even by our standards.  The following morning, M woke up just before 9 (having slept with me because she was a bit overtired and fragile and when she asked I thought it was probably a good plan), I woke up half an hour later and K didn't wake up until M and I went in to check on her at half past ten!  K & M had gymnastics and they both achieved  Level 5 of the British Gymnastics Proficiency Awards (it goes from 8 to 1).

On Friday, I was up before both K & M, a very rare occurence and they didn't emerge until well gone half past nine.  We looked after my friend S's 10 month baby for the day, while she went to a wedding in these parts.  K & M aren't generally particularly interested in babies, but despite it being the first time we'd met, G settled in very easily and was a happy chap.  It was lovely to get my sling out when we went out, when we went out too.  We did manage a game of the Harry Potter Trivia game, which we're planning on giving back to C & D who lent it to us next week and a chapter of Charlie Bone (we're now on book three), while G was napping.  It was lovely to see S, albeit fairly briefly, as with 6 children between us, we don't manage particularly often, although it helps that she has relatives that she and her tribe stay with not far from my parents. 

Yesterday evening, I spotted that something at the cinema that I had been meaning to look into was on for the last time today.  It was a showing of The Globe's production of Twelfth Night, with Stephen Fry as Malvolio.  I woke the girls up at about nine o'clock this morning to ask if they were interested, it had to be all three of us or not at all, as A plays cricket on a Saturday during the summer, happily both were.  It tied in nicely with our Tudor day, as it was an all-male cast as it would have been in Shakespeare's day.  We all enjoyed it very much - K gave it 9.5/10, equal with the RSC production we saw in Stratford last year.  I thought it was really interesting to see the differences and the relationship between Orsino and Cesario/Viola was developed brilliantly, seeing Orsino's attraction to a boy and his struggling with that made much more sense of his very quick acceptance of Olivia's marrying Sebastian and his turning to Viola.  Stephen Fry was a brilliant Malvolio and Mark Rylance was fantastic as Olivia.  Since it started at midday, we had a cake in the cafe before hand to keep us going as we didn't manage lunch until half past three.  Over pizza, we talked about the play and also about Kentwell, about all the new things we'd learned there.  An ice-cream and a play in the fountain in Market Square finished off the afternoon nicely.

A bit more about Kentwell.

I have few things I forgot to mention about Kentwell following my post yesterday that I wanted to add.  As far the costumes are concerned, I had the impression that Tudor costumes were absolutely compulsory and you wouldn't be allowed to take rucksacks and the like in with you.  This definitely is not the case.  As you will have noticed from my last post, we took cameras in and I'm sure they weren't around in Tudor times!  Obviously all of the re-enactors are top to toe authentic Tudor, but the visitors' clothing varied hugely.  There were those, like us, who had obviously made their outfits, some absolutely brilliantly, others looked as though they had been to a fancy dress shop and were dressed as rich Tudor folk, others still might have raided their own dressing up box and put on the closest they could find or a combination of the above with the most appropriate of their own clothes.  Most people had made some sort of effort.  There were, however, some people in their normal clothes, without even a head-covering.  So if your child would not countenance the idea of dressing up, please don't feel that this means you can't go.  Having said that, I really would encourage everybody to try to make an effort, even if it's just the hat or some of the cheats that you are sent with the instructions on how to sew your own costume.  The reason for this is that one of the best things about the experience is the total immersion aspect of it, some of the time you could look around and all you could see fitted in and it really was those in modern dress that jarred somewhat.

Finally, I forgot to say that we saw a man fall off a horse!  He got up immediately and was obviously fine though, and later we asked one of the men who looked after the horses if he was alright and were told that he was fine.  Apparently he should have known better as this particular horse is known for this when separated from one of the other horses if he goes out with him.  The horse throws the rider, then stands still, looking down at the person on the floor, as if to say "What are you doing down there?!"

....to Kentwell Hall, 1559.

After a big breakfast in a Wetherspoons to keep us all going, three families went back to change into our Tudor costumes.

Tudor costumes outside the Travelodge.

Then we set out in convoy to Kentwell Hall and 1559.  Once there we changed some of our pounds sterling for Tudor money, 75 new pence to one old penny. 

One pennies, two pennies (which = half a groat) and groats.

Then we went down the Time Tunnel into 1559.  Coming out the other side it really was like coming out into a different time, everybody looked different and the most striking thing for me was that they spoke differently.  It was like talking to some from a foreign country who spoke English as a native language, but with a different dialect where the word order, use of verbs and some vocabularly were a bit different and there were no contractions.

There was so much to see.  We all had a go at dancing on the lawn in front of the big house.  We went to speak to the man who was in charge of coats of arms.  He did one for me, based on me and my husbands family, work and interests.  Things on there include a cross between a leek (A's dad is Welsh) and a shamrock (mine is Irish), a lyre (I play the viola), the torch of learning (I was a teacher), a wheel (A works in transport) and various other things too.

My coat of arms with some notes that he took.

Candle-making.

One of the most popular things, that most of us had a go at, was archery. 

M.

K.

Me - I hit the target with my third arrow, which I was very chuffed about!

We also got to see how it's really done and we learned about the bows and different types of arrows.

C & K waiting for others to have their turn at the archery.

By this time some of the small people (my two!) were getting hungry, so we headed in the direction of where we could buy something to eat.  On the way we passed plenty more things to see and sometimes stopped to talk briefly before we were dragged towards the food!

A spinner - "Just like someone was doing at Fun Club!"

Yarn dyed using different plants to get a wide variety of colours.

We all spent some of our pennies on shortbread biscuits, sticky oats (flapjack), men of ginger and marchpane (marzipan).  We also made use of the cups that we had attached to our belts by our cupstrings and found that you really need a long enough one!

We headed into the wood to see the hovel, where there were some people using every part of a coney (rabbit).  I knew that a rabbit's foot is supposed to be lucky, but I didn't know that the back foot is supposed to be unlucky, because it will never catch up with the front one, so if you have an argument with your neighbour, burying a rabbit's back foot on their land to bring them bad luck.

M helping with wood turning by the hovel.

 I was put in the stocks on the insistence of my child - I wasn't happy!

Among other we stopped to find out about was needle and pin-making.  It is mind-boggling how much work went into making them all by hand, but reflected in the fact that a small number of lesser quality pins or needles would cost a couple of days wages!

Looking at the pins and needles.

 We also saw potters, sotlers (they made the food on a fire outside to feed all the workers that was given to them along with their wages), a scrivener (who would do writing if needed by those who couldn't themselves) and more.  Then we headed to the house.  In the kitchen they had three different ways of cooking.  There were the bread ovens, the big open hearth and a fairly new invention the precursor to our hob.

The huge fireplace.

For cooking in pots without risking setting your clothes on fire!

We went into the grand part of the house and met a relative of the master and mistress of the house, who told us about chess.  I learned that until the 15th century the queen was called the prime minister and could only move in the same way as the king.

K, M and the posh lady!

We then moved into the great hall, where we met a couple who were neighbours of the manor, who sang beautifully, unaccompanied.  I learned that in Tudor times music notation was similar to ours, but the stalks of notes were in the centre rather than to the left or right of the note and from what I saw there was only common time and not common time, and there were no bars.

They were then joined by a man who brought out a viol and accompanied them for another song.

We then headed for the dairy, where we found that in Tudor times butter was made by hand - literally!  The dairy maid had a big bowl of cream and was mixing it with her hands.  She told us that it took a couple of hours in good weather, but up to about six in winter!

Making butter.

We went to see some other things and when we returned about 15-20 minutes later, she'd make good progress!

And the result!

There was also cheese there, a bit like we did a while back.  When I pointed it out to K and said we'd made some the dairy maid asked if we'd slaughtered the calf ourselves to get the rennet.

Cheese!

Breadmaking.

The bread oven.

You can tell that the oven is hot enough when you put your arm inside and the hairs get singed.  They push the fire to the side when it's time to back.

The master brewer.

Basket making.

We found out about the pre-cursor to photography in the camera obscura.

You can see the children upside down at the top of the picture.

The back of the house.

The children watching the young ladies of the house being taken for a punt on the moat.

By the time we'd seen pretty much everything, we had about half an hour left and the consensus was that the children wanted another go at the archery.  We then headed back to the hovel, where there was a rope swing inside and the wood turning.  Finally (with a slight hiccup when we lost K due to a misunderstanding, but found her again), we went and spent some more of our pennies and groats at the market stall.

We were all very tired, but all agreed that it had been an absolutely fantastic day.  Both K & M say that their best bit was 'all of it' and we all hope that they'll do another day for HEdders and we will definitely come back if they do and possibly even if they don't!

Finally, I just wanted to share the fantastic sculpture in the garden, I'm guessing it's not very Tudor, but I love it!

From 2013.....

I'll blog tomorrow about our Tudor day, but tonight I'll just do a quick post about yesterday.  As the first Tuesday in the month it was Fun Club and in July that means Sports Day.  We were very fortunate that the rain held off and actually, a rather grey day meant that the little folk running around didn't get too overheated!

K told me that she wasn't planning on taking part this year, and she didn't change her mind.  She still had a good time though, playing with friends, helping out for a while at the finish line and chatting with various people. 

M did take part in most, if not all, of the races for the 7-9 year olds and did very well.  Last year she was a bit down at times about being the youngest in the group she was competing against and we talked about this in the car on the way.  I said that I thought it was one of the few downsides of HE, but that there were many more positive things.  M replied to this that she knew one and when I asked her what it was she told me that HE means she gets to hug me more often.  In the races M came first in the sack race (she has very good technique) and the relay (teams were drawn at random), second in the long run (once around the field), and third in the 100m sprint and the obstacle race.

We also picked up the glass tiles that the children had made at Fun Club a couple of months ago, which have turned out really well. 

M's colourful crocodile.

K's pattern.

 

We had time to stay for a play in the playground at the park where we have the sports day, before calling in to the Scrap Store and then heading back home for piano lessons.  We finished off sorting out what we needed to take with us for our trip to Suffolk and then headed straight there from M's piano lesson.  We made really good time, found the Travelodge we were staying at, but went and found a pub for some food before checking in.  When we got there we found J, D, j & P already there and had a game of Uno with them and were just going back to our room next door, when we found that E, C, L & Ja had arrived too.  Once we were ready for bed a couple of chapters of Charlie Bone settled K & M down enough to get to sleep, once M had decided she needed to sleep in bed with me.

The calm before the trip.

Tomorrow we're heading off to Suffolk, as I might have mentioned once or twice, for the Tudor day on Wednesday.  Having got the costumes all sorted, we had time to do some other things today.  So this afternoon (with the tennis on in the background), I read a few more chapters of the Charlie Bone book. 

K finished off her subtraction worksheet, with just one mistake that she didn't pick up on before she checked her answers with the calculator.  I don't know whether she's going to want to continue with what we were doing, or if the Maths Quest books that she's read might mean that she wants to pick up on something she's met in them, we'll see! 

While K was busy with sums, I asked M if she'd like me to read one of the Maths Quest books with her and she did, so we read The Mansion of Mazes together.  Some of the questions she didn't have a clue about, such as acute and obtuse angles, but others she knew without thinking about, such as the term parallel (she told me she knew that from both ballet and gymnastics), she also identified a formation of blocks that had been rotated compared to a picture of them immediately.  Other questions she managed with a bit of prompting, such as the weights and measures questions.  She quite enjoyed the book, although definitely wouldn't have been up for reading it on her own, even though she would have been easily capable.

In other news, having talked about glaciers at the dinner table a couple of weekends ago, K has finally finished making the model that we picked up when we went to the British Geological Survey Open Day.