Saturday 14 December 2013

King Arthur's Castle

medieval gatehouse debtors prison winchesterFollowing on from my victory parade in Arundel last week, we invaded Winchester, which is something the French never managed.
Through the magic of the internet we actually planned a train route instead of just turning up and guessing. We had 8 stops and a double tunnel to negotiate. We had the whole carriage to ourselves until Bullet-headed Thugbert (6) and brother Ugg (5) decided to sit RIGHT next to us to continue their internecine Thug-struggles. I completed Chapter 2 of the apocryphal epic "The Super Nappy" on the train.
medieval replica of king arthurs round tableWe joined a vast crocodile of humanity streaming towards the town which has some quite historical bits. We found sections of the medieval city walls, and the tunnels (rubbish) under one of the towers (destroyed) of the old castle (missing) and Eleanor's garden and the judge's bench and the round table of not-quite-authenticity and Ye Olde Gifte Shoppe of highly ambitious pricing structure and lots of paintings of kings.
stone statue winchesterI bought a toy catapult from the copper pencil sharpener range I know and love. It pings a Lego Hero shooting-ball for 4 and a 1/2 feet!
In the town I got hungry and had a cheese'n'bacon West Cornwall Pasty by the children's orchestra. It was actually real with actual flavour so I didn't like it. We finished it in front of the cathedral which charges for entry so we didn't go in.
boy with orange wristwatchFor days I have been going on about the promised watch. Ben has one, so why can't I? We found a watch shop and after much vacillation, deliberation and pontification, I chose a rubber-strapped analogue watch with big numbers and a sparkly bezel (not real diamonds) purely on the strength of its colour, because orange is my favourite colour.
statue street performer in winchester high street
As with everyone's first watch, I walked down the busy streets staring at my wrist, bumping into people and keeping Bud apprised of the time every 2 minutes and 38 seconds.
Eventually we found the charity shop area and scored 2 Lego items and 2 books but no bath fizzers.
Faced with a vast array of quality eateries from the Legendary Arthurian to Nepalese, I chose predictably and was served Poultry McNiblets by a man called Mash.
Curiosity is one of the driving forces in my life: few are more curious than me. So throughout the city are many statues in stone or bronze of kings, horse riders, bishops etc, and one of them was one of those bronze electrical animatronic ones because it moved and scared me. Further on was a white marble ballerina which went through a series of pre-programmed curtseys. On the way back the bronze statue of a chimney sweep accepted my £1 coin into his copper bucket, got off his box and said he was going on a tea break! He was a human all the time! I couldn't believe it.....
We got home after 6 1/2 gruelling hours of fun. This is the life!
After we'd had some more Risk game, life continued with special pasta and Phineas/Ferb and Bud lit a fire in the lounge and we lay in front of it with bare toes unfurled and there was severe relaxation until Bath Fizzer night of madness ending at approx. 11pm, approx only because my new watch was confiscated due to excessive babblage. Didn't stop me babbling until distinctly later....

No comments:

Post a Comment

Hi! I'm glad you want to comment, for I like messages from humans. But if you're a Robot spam program, Google will put you in the spam folder for me to laugh at later.