A Rockin' Castle!

I've been so busy this week! First, I went to Warwick Castle with Tilly and Lavinia! It was a two hour journey, but it was so worth it! The castle is gigantic and it's really old! It was first built in 914 by Ethelfleda the warrior princess! Ethelfleda was Alfred the Great's daughter.
The castle has been added to over the centuries because it's been owned by lots of different people.

The castle is absolutely massive! There's more than 500 stairs to climb! Me, Tilly and Lavinia (with Cat and Mom) explored all of the turrets and dungeons, but there were so many tiny stairs I thought I was going to faint! It didn't help that there was a group of screaming teenagers behind us in the tall, narrow tower! And they were all screaming in French!

When we first arrived,  I saw the best thing ever! The giftshop! There was loads of little, squidgy animals! Then I spotted a little grey-blue dragon! It was like love at first sight! I asked my mom if I could buy him and she said yes! So all day long I was carrying the tiny stretchy dragon!


There was also a Birds Of Prey Display! It was so awesome! I got loads of amazing pictures of the massive birds! The guy who was hosting the show had periguines, eagles and vultures! I got some cool picture of the periguine dropping down and a vulture sitting on the host's arm!

I also saw a medivial toilet! It was just hole in the floor! It was really drafty and uncomfortable!

Me on the toilet!

The display rooms were incredible! They showed what life would have been like back when the castle was really old! There was loads of wax figures which looked scarily real! I think my favourite part of the display rooms was the fake food! It looked so real and apettizing! I just wanted to eat it all!



"Would you like a jelly, my Lady?"

My lady in waiting! Can you see my dragon on the table?

After we had finished looking around the castle, me, Tilly and Lavinia went to the park! It was a pretty pants park, the only good thing there was a zipwire! The slides went so fast then stopped so quickly that I nearly broke my legs on it! And the really good slide which was really curly was ruined by a bunch of uncultured school children! They poured bottles of fruit shoot on the slide, making it soaking wet and sticky! It turns out the school children were even more disgraceful than I first thought, as they were bullying the youngest one and spitting on eachother! Two boys even punched and kicked eachother and swore! These kids were only around 6-7 years old!! What were their parents thinking?!



The next day, I went to the Eco Hub at Gamlingay! There was a real rock band there who gave us our own private concert! It was so awesome (and very noisy)! There was even a musical statues competition! The runners up got guitar strummers but the champion got a cd with all of the band's songs on it! There was only two people left, Tilly and a random kid. Me and Lavinia were chanting "Team Tillster!" over and over again! It must have worked, as Tilly won! Congratulations, Tilly!!!

Afterwards, all the kids went outside to play in the park. Me, Tilly and Lavinia started making mud ink and decided to open our own shops on the roundabout! I opened a noodle shop, Tilly opened a fast food shop and Lavinia opened a soap shop! It was really cool, but when a pack of wild school children escaped from prison-, I mean school, they took over all of the swings and castles and some of them even tackled the roundabout! Anyway, we were really tired so we all went home!



I'd also like to say that at Wrest Park a few weeks ago, Tilly, Lavinia and William helped me overcome my fear of the zip wire! Thanks to their support and encouragement, I can finally get to ride on the most fun obstacle ever! Thanks guys! :D



I conquered the Zip wire!

Another thing I'd like to mention is that I've applied for a Blue Peter Badge! I've written a massive letter and attached some of my pictures, so wish me luck!

I promised I'd tell you how the "No eating on the laptop" thing goes, and it's going good! I've managed to stop myself quite a bit!

A little bit more arty!

Lately, I've been making quite a few pictures but there are a few that I'd love to share! Here they are!

Notice how I don't use lines? It's a new style! It takes longer but it makes it look so much more realistic!


In other news, I got a new laptop! I decided that my old one was too broken (broken touchpad, broken internet connection, etc). My new laptop is a  Lenovo and it's so awesome! It only just came today but I've already customized it so much! It's silver, so I'm going to try to keep it clean by not eating on it! I'll tell you how that goes in my next post!

Kimbolton Castle, a Sleepover and Swimming in Sand!

Kimbolton Castle minus the moat!

A few days ago, I went to Kimbolton Castle in Huntingdon! Kimbolton Castle is where Catherine of Aragon lived for the last few months of her life. Catherine was Henry the VIII's first wife. and a Now, Kimbolton Castle isn't actually a castle, it's a school! I admit, I would quite like to go to school in a castle!

The gallery where Catherine was held prisoner

Me, Tilly, Lavinia and some other home-educators had a tour of the castle, and there were even a few questions to answer and a Tudor Trail questionnaire to fill in. The day before, I  had researched everything about Catherine of Aragon, so I knew most of the answers! There was a man who showed us what the Tudor's used to wear. Apparently, little boys wore girls dresses until they were about 6 years old and didn't get their hair cut so they really looked like little girls! Really rich children wore mini versions of what the adults wore, like dresses and expensive jewels!

The stairs up to the main banquet room

The castle was really awesome, it was just a shame so much of it was changed over the centuries. A whole corridor full of portraits and pictures had been removed!  Even an entire wall had been moved to fit in a giant staircase! We did get to see what the wall used to look like! It was made from massive rocks and stones which were cracking and it looked very cold!

The exposed wall and tiny widow

In the Tudor times, it was often very dark and cold because they only had candle for lights and a single fireplace to warm up the entire castle! Also, the windows were so small that they didn't let in much light or warmth from the sun.
The water in the Tudor times was very dirty and contaminated, so poor people drank beer and rich people drank wine! Even the children drank the wine and beer!


A few years ago, there was a burst pipe in the castle and they had to remove a wall, which uncovered the original stone castle wall in a corridor! Catherine of Aragon would have walked down that corridor and looked out of the tiny window into the outer courtyard! When mom imagined Catherine walking down the dark, damp and eerie corridor she felt a shiver down her spine! Maybe the castle really is haunted!

The creepy corridor and genuine Tudor wall!

Actually, people say that they see and hear the ghost of a mysterious man in the castle grounds shouting angrily and shaking his fists in the air. He is wearing Tudor clothes and he is the ghost of a previous owner. He was a horrible bad tempered man and one day he was so angry he threw his own baby out of a top floor window on to the concrete below!

Anyway, it was really awesome to see a castle up close! It was a bit eerie though, I kept expecting to turn around and see the ghost of Catherine!

There were lots of stone carvings around the castle including  ugly gargoyles and griffons.

After that, we went to Grafham Water for a play for a bit. Mostly me and Tilly just messed around on the swings because there wasn't much else to do and I didn't feel very well.

When it was time to go home, Tilly came with us for another sleepover! It was only for one night, but it was really fun! Tilly got to hold the guinea pigs and we played some Nintendogs instead of Sims and Minecraft because my laptop was acting up!

Noah!

Dan

The next day, we had to get up early to go swimming at Oasis. When we got there, the queue was massive because the schools were out.If we waited in the cue, and it would be a l-o-n-g wait, we would only get one and a half hours swimming which isn't nearly enough time to swim about!
So instead we went to a park that's basically just a gigantic sandpit with a slide! It was so much fun there, but a little, bratty schoolkid kept annoying me! She kept kicking sand into my face and filling in all of my holes that I dug! Thankfully, she left us alone after a while (well actually, Lavinia told her to go away and it worked!)

We dug a deep hole and it took ages!

Lucky we had our swimsuits on already!

I loved playing in the sandpit and digging holes, but in the end there was sand all over me!
We decided to go back to Oasis, hoping that the queue had gone down, but it hadn't! Pesky school kids.

Since the queue at Oasis hadn't went down at all, we decided to go to another park! I've forgotten the name of this park, but we've been there before! Oh wait, it's Priory Park! It has a gigantic forest at the back of it, so me, Tilly and Lavinia just played in there. We decided to be survivalists and we had to get weapons (sticks!) and make our own shelter! In the end we didn't actually have time to make a shelter because we spent too much time just collecting sticks, but it was still really fun!

Me and mom got home really late so we had takeaway for tea.