History Lessons

Yesterday, partly because the sun was shining and partly because I am determined my children will not waste the unexpected extra week we have in England watching the telly, I dragged everybody off to nearby English Heritage stately home. I don’t know how much they learned of their own English Heritage but I do know they loved belting up and down broad staircases asking questions I couldn’t answer. When they got bored – and I’ve been a mother long enough to know that the slightest hint of boredom must be respected and fended off with food – we sat in the sun and had a picnic whilst the resident peacocks surrounded us like Red Indians round a Totem Pole.

I don’t know if the children will remember much of what they learned about the place itself but they won’t forget that Ben put a tennis ball in his mouth and posed like a Gargoyle on the castle wall (to the astonishment of several passers by) or that a peacock bit Mum in an attempt to steal her salami sandwich. Perhaps the memory of one will prompt the history of another?