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Trying to get the kids (and me) away from screens we used my English Heritage membership for about the 4th time in 5 years and went to Wrest Park. Even though it's only half an hour away from our house I had never heard of it before. But it was half an hour away from our house and that was the clincher for me.
The kids were very reluctant to go, just as I was very reluctant to do anything like this as a kid, just like you were very reluctant to do stuff like this as a kid. But then when we were there they seemed to have lots of fun. In between saying they were bored and wanted to go home.
We took a tour round the gardens, but bailed after about half an hour because it was a little bit too dry for the kids. They were bored looking at the trees. I thought the trees were beautiful. I took pictures of some of the trees. I totally let down the 11 year old me who would have thought anyone being interested in a tree was a ridiculous old fool and anyone taking a photo of one should be incarcerated.
There were a couple of amazing Redwood trees. In 1986 I spent the summer in a huge forest of Redwoods in Northern California on Camp America. On the last day I even saw one burst into flame as the camp partly burned down. Yet weirdly seeing one on its own, in the wrong setting, was more impressive to me than seeing thousands of the fuckers, even if you set one of them on fire. Also I was 19 then and now I am 59.
We peeled off at the fruit orchard (no pun intended), where the fruit is left to rot on the trees because they have no licence to sell it. The kids were distracted by a statue of Atlas, wearing a cloak, but in his haste to hold up the world neglecting to cover his genitals or arse.
Phoebe wanted a photo of her next to Atlas indicating the unimpressive nature of his penis by holding her fingers close together. Ernie decided to do the same but from behind, implying what? That Atlas had a tiny anus? I don't know if he understood what Phoebe had been doing or if he was subverting the joke. He did the same thing for every bare-arsed statue we saw. He knows the power of a call-back.
Phoebe also noted that from behind the statue looked like a man with a huge round head, holding his pumpkin head in his hands as if in despair.
We squeezed every last bit of comedy out of this statue. These kids were having the time of their lives.
Catie wanted to walk to the domed building at the opposite end of the garden to the mansion house. The kids moaned and grouched and didn't want to go in because it looked scary. And then, of course, once we were inside, they loved it, finding these crazily thin wooden spiral staircases and finding out where they led. I went up one of them and it came out to a tiny empty room in the roof, which was somehow more unsettling than finding a skellington.
Ernie made a vlog where he pretended to be a ghost hunter and Phoebe hid at the bottom of some stairs and scared her mum by standing in the dark and lighting her face with her phone. You can hear Catie scream on Ernie's video.
Sadly I can't share his masterwork with you, but safe to say that he will be replacing me in all my podcasts before the decade is out.
Suffice to say that the minute we left the building they hadn't wanted to go into but that they'd had the time of their life in, they said they were bored and wanted to go home.
Before finding the next thing to amuse us or the next weird building to look in. It was definitely better than brain-rotting at home. There were a few moments of tension, but overall we had a day of laughing together as a family, which I suspect will be an increasingly rare jewel, at least for the next decade.
And tonight we all watched the second episode of Pottery Throwdown.
Watch it here.Spoilers incoming.
This was an enjoyable show to watch, mainly because they had kindly taken out all the bits where I got frustrated and stroppy about how impossible stuff was. I think they should leave a little bit of that in, as as therapeutic as lots of it was, it was also very hard and put us all under a lot of strain. You'd think I was a nice person watching this cut though, which I suppose is more in tune with the ethos of the programme.
I really enjoyed transforming my slightly scary clown money box into something just slightly unsettling, with the help of paint. Whilst my stuff had a bit more detail in terms of texture and additions and was more cohesive as a set, I still am not sure I would have given me the Potter of the Week on this one. Fatiha and Denise did amazing work. If they do another series I think they should give points out for the challenges too. I generally did average to bad on these and though they are taken into account in the final scoring, it feels like the top two should get some credit.
So I was incredibly flattered to win again, though felt a little awkward and confused. I like the fact that Keith and Rich score it all by what they consider to be the best, rather than taking the leader board into account and evening out the points. But I'd have been tempted to give the win to one of the others given that it was so close and they'd done well on the challenge.
I had been assuming I would go home before the fine- possibly hoping I would as you still got paid the same for doing less work if you missed the last show, but 4 points, I think, mathematically meant that I was bound to be in the last show now.
My clown is in our kitchen and used for our loose change and even though I didn't enjoy putting the sprigs on the composter, I use that thing every day (though am glad I didn't have to make the composter itself).
What a crazy ride this show was. It's such a lovely thing to be a part of. Do watch it if you get the chance.
