and the winner is…

this weekend we went to hastings, ok we went to Battle, and attened the English Heritage re-enactment weekend of the Battle of Hastings. It is true that the result was somewhat a foregone conclusion, but you never know We stayed in a premier inn the friday night. Had planned to camp, but finished work a bit too late for that, and putting up tent when cold in the dark is not a relaxing thought!

This meant that after the most enormous all you can eat breakfast we made it early to to the abbey at battle, and tht felt unusual! as we walked in the site, sb read the signs to us and we noticed a dad thought that was a good idea. think his elder daughter not so impressed as she then was reading them all to her family! onarrival we stopped at the viking ship for a bit. the lady there very informative about the navigation aids and chatting to the kids. Then the manor borns arrived to great joy

The kids took part in a pretend norman/norseman naval battle which looked fabulous fun and the chap leading it was v good. we then went up to the more children’s area and painted some shields, having heard the earlier banter, they told the kinght handing out shields their names were banana, gertrude and chicken! great painting done and just in time to listen to a storyteller recount the battle for pevensey. i loved he kept being interrupted by a tiny boy telling on ppl climbing walls [often bb] but was fantastic, and then he lead the kids battle. whilst the storytelling was ending the deependers joined us, also fabulous I seem to have missed them saying they were travelling there by train – possibly as all this working means i am just not keeping up properly!

we were peckish, and once the word tea had been mentioned there was no distracting some of us so tea and picnic lunch in a patch of shade as it turned out to be a scorcher of a day. BB then did archery and SB and i wandered around re-enactors selling area, not knowing which wool might be tudor and seeing lots of things to buy. C bought a fab double lucet and i bought linen thread.

We all joined to sit behind saxon lines for the big reenactment. initially it seemed like poor placement due to the view being almost all backsides! however since the ending is in the saxon area, we got to have a fab view of the end of the battle photos for this included as were on iphone.

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we had a final cup of tea and wander around a reenactment area, where the older kids were being shown how to do tablet weaving [i did try really hard to remember jax! but it is a bit beyond me!!] and we watched before saying good bye to the deependers catching their train, and looking for a handy restaurant with the manor borns

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what we hadn’t counted on was the reenactors booking out all the restaurants! we did take the last 2 tables at the curry house and had a lovely meal there before going on to a travelodge. a kerfuffle over lack of bed numbers made me remember why the premier inn is better… however a v comfortable night was had.