Witches, Ponies and a couple of Castles!

Macbeth
Macbeth is the most recent Shakespeare play that I went to see at Tolethorpe Open Air Theatre and it is definitely the best one I've seen so far! All of the actors were really impressive, but Lady Macbeth's  was definitely the best. She played an insane woman very realistically. She really looked like she'd gone mad! The three witches were also incredible. Their costumes were impressive: they had long, spindly fingers with sharp pointed nails; wild hair with twigs and feathers tangled in it; and they croaked their lines and played their parts very well. They were quite scary and they looked amazing!
Wild west Pony Club

After many weeks of missing Pony Club, I finally got to get on a horse again at the eight-hour-long Wild West Day at Willow Farm. All of the children that came were either dressed as Cowboys or Indians. I decided to go as an Indian. The main reason why I went to the event was because we got to ride bareback! We only rode for about twenty minutes or so, but I think any longer would have killed me. We did lots of trotting bareback and after not riding for so long, trotting hurts a lot, especially if you're riding bareback.

Everyone was exhausted by the end of the day, we had hardly stopped at all! We built dens, played games, raced each other and at the end of the day we had a waterfight. During the waterfight, I got two whole buckets of water dunked on me. It was very cold, but very refreshing at the same time.
It turns out that eight hours of running around means that you can barely move your legs the next day!

Rockingam: Vikings Invasion

Rockingham Castle

Now you might be wondering where the castles come in. Well, the other day mom and I visited Rockingham Castle again. There was a special Vikings and Saxons event on, so it was quite busy. We got to see a demonstration of the Vikings invading and killing the Saxons and it was really impressive! They were definitely going all out in the fights. It was a bit scary, actually!

When we were looking around all of the tents and displays, the armour and weapons tent caught dad's eye. There was a woman dressed up as a Saxon wife and she was letting people try on the very heavy  helmets and hold the shields. Dad just couldn't resist the offer!

This guy had lots of animal pelts including a lovely whitr Russian Fox!

Dinner Time!

Kenilworth Castle

The magnificent ruins of Kenilworth Castle

The next day, it was Tilly's 13th birthday. To celebrate, we visited Kenilworth Castle for the Kenilworth Seige. Kenilworth Castle holds the title of the castle that was under the longest ever siege in England. It lasted for 6 months! It would have lasted longer, only the people inside the castle were starving and ridden with disease. There were performers re-ennacting the siege and it was very intense; there were flaming arrows, swords, and best of all, Seige machines that launched huge rocks at the castle walls. It was a really good performance.

Later, I loved exploring the castle ruins. It must have been very grand before it became a ruin as Queen Elizabeth 1st used to stay there for a holiday!

There were lots of tents with people dressed  in medieval clothes. Some were cooking on open fires, or weaving tapestries. There were men demonstrating their weapons and their heavy chain mail. There was also a medieval "doctor" who told us about leeches and amputations! He went on a bit, but I got to see the leeches close up!

Leeches!

It's a shame the castle is a two hour drive away for me bit I think we will be going back when it's less busy!