1066 and all that!

Yesterday was the 940th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings and to celebrate the event there was a huge reenactment of the battle in the very field that Harold got it, all those years ago. Now, I don't know about you, but whenever I have seen TV footage of people all dressed up in medieval dress prancing around a field and pretending to slaughter each other, I've just thought sad nutters!!

Well, my opinion changed yesterday having spent the day in the company of around 3000 Saxons and Normans. Those taking part take it all very seriously. We got the low down from a professional Saxon (such a nice man, a real pity he was going to end up on the losing team!) They are under instruction to always be in character. They are not allowed to use mobile phones or eat and drink out of anything other than bowls and goblets. He also told us that there were around 15 different nationalities involved in the reenactment, and we certainly heard Polish, French, German and Dutch being spoken. There were a few Americans too.

Even the very young were involved.

It took a lot of blowing, but he did get the fire started in the end!


When Callum spotted this fire he thought he would make himself at home. Little did he know at the time, but these guys were Normans!

This guy tried to sign Callum up to the cause, however, once Callum refused he told him he was off to burn his country!


So, on with the battle. The bloke on the horse is William, who was actually booed by the watching crowd!

We left before they had finished(it was expected they were going to be at it for two hours!) in the safe knowledge that we knew how it was going to end!

All in all a great day out - we really did enjoy it and Vic is already talking about next year!