- Plan: The engine will be doing a set of tests that Shawn has been involved with right in the middle of the Derbyshire county half-term break in May.
- Shawn's response: This as an excuse to keep us in town (the real reason is we were worn out after Wales made 4 out-of-town trips in 4 months).
- Shawn's backup plan: The engine will run early in the week, so we could always keep our eyes open for a good deal within 3 hrs of driving.
- The reality: The engine test Shawn was involved with didn't run until late Friday night. Other than a brief phone call while making coffee cake with the girls on Saturday morning, Shawn's capable colleagues handled the (not entirely) unforeseen SNAFU just fine.
- The lesson learned: We should have gone to Scotland for the week. Okay, maybe not. The truth is we all enjoyed the chance for time off that didn't involve a major change of scenery.
Partly because of the fluid engine test situation, and partly because of my not being on top of things, we had to buy tickets when we arrived. That meant £24.00 each for Kristine and I, and £20.00 for the girls (Clare was free). I was not impressed at first. I've gotten used to the prices at the National Trust sites, which are much more economical (free for us now because of our membership, but on the order of £4.00 per person otherwise). That said, my stinginess thawed over the course of the day. One reason was the peacocks in the gardens at the front entrance. This was a first for the girls, who were delighted.
As a child, I frequently saw roaming peacocks at a popular stop on the drive from Nairobi to Mombasa. One of my powerful memories is of a particularly aggressive male attacking one of my siblings. I was more than a bit apprehensive with these ones. My apprehensiveness was unfounded. These peacocks were content to roam the gardens on their own side of the fence, display their colors, and make loud noises. The only downside was that their loud noises were awfully close to a crying child. And Clare, being a curious mimic, tried to figure out how to sound like a peacock. She proceeded to practice her peacock sounds for many days after we visited the castle.
The castle grounds have a pretty extensive set of Horrible Histories exhibits about life at the castle during different time periods. I had heard of the Horrible Histories (they were the basis for Elise's Year 3 curriculum at school), but had not had any direct exposure. Each exhibit had a variety of activities with varying levels of educational value. They also had two or three actors dressed in period garb, and in character for the castle during their time frame.
My favorite was the Gorgeous Georgians. Not because of the fancy hair activities (which the girls enjoyed greatly). I enjoyed it because I thought the actors did the best job. The young woman in the photo below was the daughter of the castle lord. She had an older woman acting as her chaperone. The woman had a real name, but the younger woman called her Lady Wobble-bottom in honor of her broad girth and love of eating cake.
At one point, on hearing Kristine say something to the girls, the young woman said (in a very loud, properly aristocratic voice) "Speak again! Where are you from?"
Kristine: Indianapolis.
Lady Wobble-bottom, they're from the colonies and they've come to visit.
Kristine: Actually, we live in Melbourne.
Oh, how lovely. They're from the colonies, and they live in other colonies, and they're here for a visit.
Evidently even the Horrible Histories don't know about Melbourne in England.
Each exhibit had cutouts where you could poke your face through for a photo. All three girls enjoyed this immensely.
Elise and Charis also got a chance to get put in stocks.
I enjoyed the mix of humor and education that the Horrible Histories look for. The instructions for how to build a longboat are a good example.
If you followed those instructions, maybe you'd get a longboat like this one.
A close second favorite as far as the exhibits was the trebuchet. They lose points for having the fellow on the other side of the stream use a microphone to make his speech (although that was perfectly understandable) and for the musical soundtrack that blared through the loudspeakers before his speech began. The fellow did a good job with his speech. It was rousing, passionate, full of important details about how the trebuchet would strike fear into their enemies' hearts and bring them glorious victory. Buried in that speech were two important statements.
The first one: It's assembled with no metal pieces. All the wood fits together. Like going to IKEA, except that you don't have any leftover bits.
The second one: Sometimes, wars are not won with weapons. Sometimes they are not won with horses and men. Sometimes, you just need an engineer.
Was anyone listening (say, young children who are intent on being authors, illustrators, and librarians)? And if they were listening, did that second statement stick in their brains? We shall see.
The trebuchet in action.
I'm not sure if it was because of being half-term break, but there were quite a few people at the castle. As a consequence, doing anything indoors felt extremely crowded. In general I wasn't very thrilled with the indoor exhibits we saw. There was a princess tower with an actress who guided the children through an exercise to free an enchanted prince from a photo and reunite him with his love. Parents weren't very impressed. I didn't hear the girls come out chattering about how much they liked it. No doubt my 8 yr old blog editor will disagree when she reads that line (although she can't make me change it since it doesn't have any spelling or grammar errors).
On looking back at the photos, I probably didn't give them enough credit because I was so busy feeling claustrophobic. These antlers, for example, are impressive (as are the weapons you can barely see hanging on the wall next to them).
Part of the reason for my claustrophobia was that a good portion of the larger rooms was blocked off. This was to protect the items on display, but didn't leave much room for making your way through the hordes of visitors.
There was space for us to pose for a photo with a wax figure of Henry VIII.
Sharon's boys were good sports about having to spend so much time in the stroller. By the time we grabbed a bench to sit down and eat lunch, they were ready to get out though. Elise and Josiah took advantage of the down time to run around in the courtyard. Crowded rooms with under appreciated displays are in the main wing of the castle shown. The (underwhelming) princess tower is accessed through the stairs to the left of the golden lion flag.
Being there with Sharon meant we were also able to get a rare photo of the whole family.
In addition to the actors at exhibits that run all day, like the Horrible Histories, there are several one-time performances. We got to see two of them. The first was a staged series of duels to earn the title Master of Chivalry. Two honorable young gentlemen in red squared off against a dishonorable gentleman and his young protoge in black. Each person on each team fought each person on the other team. It culminated when the dishonorable protoge looked like he would lose his second fight, so his mentor jumped in. The red fellow on the sidelines jumped in as well, resulting in all four guys fighting at once. The weapons choreography, which I got photos of, was impressive. Some of the other choreography (e.g., falling down when the other fellow's leg sweeps a couple feet away from yours) was a little obvious.
You see the crowds of people in the courtyard watching the duels? Right after the contest was over, the heavens opened and we had pouring down rain for about 15 minutes. This created stampedes for the few places that provided shelter (remember my previous comments about the interior being cramped). We wound up putting on raincoats, pulling covers over the stroller, and huddling under the tree behind the yellow flag here because none of the arches or overhangs had space to squeeze a party of six plus stroller. Fortunately, as seems to be typical of English weather, the rain passed pretty quickly.
We hung around the roped in field for an exhibit with birds of prey. The exhibit almost didn't happen because the rain would have made the birds' wings too wet for them to fly. As it was, the skies were clear enough that the birds were okay (although not clear enough that the folks watching took off raincoats or put down umbrellas). This owl is a baby - about six months old - so he's still in training. That meant he didn't have to fly around and return to the handler's glove to get a piece of meat. He just had to make a circuit of the posts in the field.
He may have been still in training, but he was remarkably calm about all the people gathered around to watch him. Since he didn't know how to fly from the field to a different handler, he got to go into the crate with the black walls that was at the top of the field.
There were several other birds in the exhibit, including an Egyptian Harpy Eagle and an American Bald Eagle. The sequence for them was to land on the handler's glove, get launched into the air, fly in a circle, and then return to his glove for some more meat. We were standing at the bottom of the field in the middle. This was great for seeing the birds and hearing the handler talk about them. It also meant we were right in the middle of their flight path when they returned to his glove. That wasn't a problem for everybody else. The girls enjoyed seeing the birds up so close. The only person it was difficult for was me. Let's just say that the flight path for a large bird of prey is not a comfortable location when you're 6'5." I would have gotten some good pictures if I'd had my act together instead of being so busy flinching.
The largest bird was this eagle from Kamchatka.
She was large enough that when the handler launched her off his glove, she had to fly to the top of one of the castle towers to be able to glide back for her meat. This had something to do with the moisture in the air from the rain, which added weight to her wings. Kristine and Elise climbed that tower after the exhibit was over. Here's the view.
And here's the happy (if somewhat bedraggled) Elise enjoying her climb.
And a final farewell shot of the courtyard where the chivalry duels were performed. It was a day well spent. Pricier than I would have liked, but I think the sophistication in the different exhibits gave us our money's worth.
No comments:
Post a Comment