Saturday, August 05, 2006

Day at Hampton Court Palace

Spent the day with Lord H in Hampton Court Palace - a great day out. Beautiful gardens - very English and neat, and magnificent house facades (though the interiors seemed rather empty to me). Also enjoyed the regular costumed tours/mini dramas played out around the grounds - particular the Henry VIII and Thomas Wyatt wrestling match (shame they weren't naked though ...), the bowls and the archery sessions. Loved the way the actors kept up the story of the King/Wyatt/Anne Boleyn crisis in each section - great stuff.

Managed to whip through the maze with incredible skill due to my traditional policy of always turning left - stick with me, people, and I'll get you out of anything. Also enjoyed the real cooking going on in the Tudor kitchens - and what a huge number of those they had. A kitchen for each type of food you can imagine - meat, pies, puddings, pottage (soup), the lot. Ah those were the days. One of the chefs told us that whenever the court descended, the whole of the surrounding area had been planning for their visit for ages and any available food and livestock was requisitioned for the palace. Which caused a real problem if they decided to stay longer than usual. And apparently all the foodstuffs and provisions were counted in and counted out of the kitchens - so no room for siphoning perks off there then ...

And, talking of food, we had a much needed cream tea lunch in one of the cafes - bliss!

Back home, had another email objecting to the ranting review of "Maloney's Law" on the You Write On (http://www.youwriteon.com) site - so have asked the site administrators to look at it and see what they think. So thank you, Charles, for the suggestion! We'll see what comes of it.

Today's three nice things:

1. The wresting match
2. The cream tea lunch
3. The supportive email.

Anne Brooke
http://www.annebrooke.com
http://www.goldenford.co.uk

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