Henry the 8th i am i am

apparently that is a song... according to Jeremy, can someone confirm this? or is Jeremy just going mad?

We spent the day at Hampton Court Palace today, which was one of Henry the 8th's many palaces that he lived in throughout the year. its massive and has an amazingly beautiful garden.


we got two guided tours through different parts of the palace, the guides were dressed in period costume of the era the rooms were (Henry the 8th and William and Mary) they were really knowledgeable and told us heaps of cool information about the Palace and the court life. did you know that they had to keep moving to different palaces all the time cos after a few weeks in one place it would smell too gross to stay??? and did you know that Henry the 8th had a chap called the groom of the stool whose job it was to wipe his bum!!! haha but apparently everyone wanted to be it cos you got be spend heaps of time with the king!!!!

there wasn't as much gold today but there were some amazing tapestries hanging on the walls and heaps of massive paintings everywhere. some of the rooms were laid out exactly as they would have been in the time of the kings and with the original furnishings, like his actual throne and his actual bed!!! so we walked in the footsteps of actual kings and queens today, it was really exciting (especially for me cos i reckon royal people are super, in case you hadn't already figured that out!!!)

One of the most famous things about Hampton Court is the gardens and the Maze. we did the maze which was pretty cool, but it didn't take very long, the remaining maze now is way smaller than the original one. the rest of the gardens were stunning, each of the important rooms in the palace looks out onto a vista along the garden and they are laid out so beautifully.

And then we got WET, really WET just as we were leaving to go back to the train station it made thunder and lightening and bucketed down, we got soaking cos the wee umbrella doesn't protect from lots of rain cos it all falls off the sides of the umbrella onto you anyway!!!


this will probably be our last post for a few days, we're heading to my Auntie Kaths tomorrow and then up to Silverdale in the lakes district. we will probably next have internet once we're in the youth hostel there, in four days or so. we might try to post some photos then too so you all can see what we've been going on about!!!

lots of love Gem and Jez