Apart from Ebi-kun waking us all up with his night shouting, we all had a lovely nights sleep. Sir Stropalot woke up about 5.30am claiming to be hungry (his usual battle cry!), after a wee we managed to convince both young sirs that the rules said that everyone must stay in bed until 7am!
We had a great breakfast, filled our boots! The boys went out for more fighting to warm up for the day, it has to be said, for the boys it was an amazing experience, fighting from sun up to sun down!
Another perk of the glamping is that you can enter the castle grounds earlier than usual, we were headed up to the main part of the castle when we ran into a knight with his squire so we asked for a cheeky photo!
We started off the day with some Victoria schooling in the pumphouse. Highly amusing, the staff are brilliant, totally in character. I got sent to the corner and made to wear the Dunces hat, all because I said the word 'bottom'. Sir Stropalot didn't think much of the whole thing and was certainly not impressed when Di told him that this is what school is like - he starts in September! Poor kid!
We went back down to the Slimy Stuarts, the guy in the wig had us in tears the day before, hysterical! And in the morning, we were stopped by a member of staff and given a special key, there are only 3 of these keys in existence and they are to be given to exceptional members of staff. Although all the staff were brilliant, we decided that Slimy Stuart was the most entertaining. And here he is doing the Stuart rap before we presented him with the key.
Next up was exploring the rest of the castle, up and down all the towers, along the battlements, I was shattered! Great views from the top and some really pretty cottages.
Ebi-kun was all about the jousting and wanted to watch both tournaments in the afternoon. We knew the second time round where the best place to sit was and we also knew that they would be asking for favours for the knights. This time we were prepared and Di had a spare pair of bright pink lacy pants in her luggage! I'm not totally sure the knight was impressed even though they were clean.
And so the battle commenced....
The red and green knight were the Lancastrians (goodies) and the Black and Blue knight the Yorkies (baddies), the jester slits the audience so you can cheers for the one lot or the others.
Top Tip!
For best viewing, sit near the middle but towards the bottom end of the field, that way you will get a great view (get there early) and get to be on the goodies side - and they just happen to be the handsome knights!
There is lots of jousting and hand to hand battles, and lots of cheating by those scumbag Yorkies...
There is also spearing hoops on fire, skewering the peasants head and setting fire to the rancid pig bladders - what fun!
The knights are obviously great horsemen, all of them stayed mounted but there were quite a few broken lances. It is obviously all choreographed but it's really well done. The knights, king and jester are all wearing microphones and there is a lot of silly banter going on, plus the Yorkies have a go at the crowd too!
Of course the handsome knights win in the end! And as soon as it's all over the place is over run with little boys (mostly) knocking shit out of one another with their swords. Absolutely brilliant, best fun ever!
If you can, I highly recommend the glamping, not only are there lots of perks but spreading the time over 2 days made it a much more enjoyable experience, we didn't feel like we had to rush all over the place and try to fit everything in. For the kids it was an amazing experience, although Sir Stropalot will probably just remember it as 2 days of continuous fighting!
We didn't see much actually inside the castle this time, unfortunately we had left it until later in the day and the fire alarm went off and the castle was evacuated. It didn't make much difference really because we had plenty of other stuff to do.
And we'll finish with a nice shot of the castle because it really is quite pretty!
