tudors and tow paths

A couple of weeks ago, I booked the three eldest on a Tudor morning at Trowbridge Museum. At this point, I should point out that except for playing Time Travel we have barely touched the Tudors. We seem to struggle to get past ancient history, and who can blame us?

There is so much history.

Here in lies the bonus of home education. I knew we were going to this workshop so we halted our long, drawn out Egyptian project (I swear they keep on with it because they love the gruesome aspects of mummification) and spent a few minutes swotting up on Henry VIII and his family. We read a few books, dressed a few ladies and generally mused about how awful life must have been. By the day of the workshop, I knew that the boys in particular had stored every revolting fact about Tudor life into their ever expanding brains.

It was no surprise to me then that they choose to tell any one who would listen that people drank from the very rivers they threw their pee and poop into, that they ate otters and snakes, killed any one caught stealing the eggs of birds of prey and several other not nice facts. It should state here that I love local museums, possibly more than the fancier big ones, because instead of worrying about the floors you won't get round, you can spend oodles of time pondering the minor details.

The workshop itself was lovely - the right mix of educational and crafty. We came home with mini Tudor houses, cress knot gardens, banquet menus written using real quills and some butter made Tudor-style as well as a few more disgusting facts - ears were some times pinned to the stocks of particularly naughty people, and it was perfectly fine to throw excrement at the poor people.

We spent the rest of the day in the sun and shade at Caen Lock. It made your mind boggle. Caen Hill is a flight of 16 locks, this is just the main flight - there are 29 within a 2 mile stretch of canal and it takes about 5-6 hours to go up the hill. It inspired me to learn more about the engineer who developed this uphill system, so I've reserved a copy of his autobiography from the library.

There was plenty to sit and gaze at. Dragonflies, damselflies, an ongoing argument in a duck family between a mother and two nearly adult babies...not to mention day dreaming about living on a house boat.


On the way back to the car, Od found this spider web (?) on a nettle. We couldn't find it's creator, and we both wondered if it was a baby spider nursery - any ideas?


It was a rather fine day.