Warwick Castle, once the centre of power in England, the abode of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, known as Warwick the Kingmaker. During the Wars of the Roses, if you wanted to be king, you became buddies with Warwick.
It all ended messily though, after falling out with Edward IV he restored Henry VI, who was totally loopy, to the throne but then got himself topped at the Battle of Barnet in April 1471.
Nowadays it is a major tourist attraction so we set off with the two boys for a bit of culture. After having enjoyed the spookiness of the dungeons and the naffness of the Merlin tower and having downed a hot dog apiece we were ready for the truth about medieval warfare.
It seems that they used wooden shields and, rather than swords, a poleaxe or a mace,
it looks as though they just used swords for wood chopping but I may be wrong.
There was a huge great sparrow on the lawn, goodness only knows what bird food they put out.
The finale was the international joust.
My compact camera is excellent in many respects but it has one annoying habit, there is a lag between pressing the button and the picture actually being taken
so I got lots of pictures like this.
But eventually managed a few action shots.
Eventually, oddly enough, the English knight won the tournament having beaten the French representative, although the scoring was decidedly dodgy.
So having wrung the last thrill from the day we set off for home,
It looked as though the boys were going to be detained for a while but fortunately their parents had arrived and bailed them out.
Watch this space..............
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