Castle Times

Today has been a long and lovely day! After collecting Aussie, Beth and her friend Kaz, we embarked on our trip to the county of Warwickshire. The sun was been out today, but there were also been lots of clouds, making for unpredictable temperature changes. I was really glad I didn't wear the skirt I had picked out this morning, my legs were cold enough in jeans! But it was a lovely day nonetheless.

We arrived at the castle and had to walk about 15 mins (or at least that's what the directional signage said) to get to the front gate. We had a quick cup of tea and proceeded into the castle grounds to catch the tail-end of the bird of prey show. The eagles in the show were absolutely enormous! We took a closer look at them later on and they were certainly imposing creatures. Our next stop was the trebuchet show. Warwick castle has a massive 22-tonne oak trebuchet. It is operated by people walking in a hamster wheel. It was pretty cool actually (more on that later).

After the awesome trebuchet, we wandered through the Great Hall and State Apartments. Th rooms were closing early today because of an evening wedding. The tables (complete with place settings), wedding cakes and ceremony hall were already prepared for the happy couple. We had fun taking pictures with suits of armour. Next, we explored the waxwork displays about the Earl of Warwick preparing his people to fight for the House of Lancaster during the War of Roses. To be honest, I didn't really learn very much about this process because Aussie and Beth were taking hilarious pictures with all the waxworks! We saw a poorly-cast play about 'The Sword in the Stone' and climbed up to the towers and walked along the castle wall. We saw archers and peacocks and the many gift shops and even a group of children trying to throw toy rats through a wooden hoop. Finally, we enjoyed some delicious icecream while watching the trebuchet show for a second time— this time, the projectile was on fire!

After watching the trebuchet show, we wandered down to see the machine up close. By now, we knew quite a bit about the great oak war machine. Quite an attractive young knight (sorry, we forgot to take pictures) walked by and he must have heard us giggling, because he said "Hello, ladies! Do you have any questions about the trebuchet?". "Well, actually," I replied, "We've just seen the show for the second time, so we're experts by now." The dashing knight began to quiz us: "What kind of wood is it made of?" "Easy. It is made of English Oak, except for the arm, which is Ash, a more naturally 'whippy' wood. Also, we know that it isn't bolted to the ground because it is heavy enough on it's own to stay in one spot." "How high is it?" our knight queried. "18 metres high," I answered, not without some hesitation. "You deserve a gold star!" He praised. He was faintly impressed with our knowledge of civil war weaponry, but the conversation died quickly after he adjusted his thigh-high boots and told us of his evening plans to teach a group of American children how to sword-fight. W said goodbye to our knight and strolled back to the car.

We drove into Warwick and found a lovely pub, where we gratefully relaxed and chatted over our day.