The Robin Hood Pageant

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Saturday 26 October

Today we went to the Robin Hood Pageant! We went on the train to Nottingham in the morning, and when we got to the castle we had our picture taken with a statue of Robin Hood.

At the pageant there was archery, sword fighting and jousting, just like in A Knight’s Tale! We didn’t go and see that, but there were people dressed as knights, noblemen, noblewomen and peasants from history. Jude got a bow and arrows so that she can learn to do archery, and I got a wooden toy sword! And I also got a historical Robin Hood colouring book.

A woman showed us how she was making something on a loom, and there was a spinning wheel. Mum bought a little loom so that we can make our own cloth!

We saw a potter, and he explained to us what his different pots were for. He had a great tall pot which he said was for putting pears in, to store them and preserve them for the winter. He said that you would fill up the pot with pears and then pour alcohol into it, and they would last a long time, and make a nice dessert.

Jude bought a money box from him which had a slot, but no hole in the bottom for money to come out. You have to break it to get the money out. The man said you could use a knife and some jam to try to get a coin out, but I think that would be difficult.

People were milling grains with a big mill stone, and they explained to us that they used to make very white flour for the rich people by putting all the milled grains into a piece of cloth to sieve out all the brown pieces, and the rich people would have white bread while the poor people would have the wholemeal bread flour which was left over. She said that as a result, the poor people were much healthier than the rich people.

I got dressed up as a knight in chain mail and a helmet, which was very exciting. I had my picture taken and it was great. A knight’s armor is very heavy, so after I had taken it all off I felt queasy, I don’t know how people could walk around in that stuff, and fight battles.