Hampton Court Coolness! (Blog 533)

Yesterday, I went to Hampton Court Palace with my dad, brother, sister in law, three nieces and nephew! The first thing I noticed when approaching King Henry VIII’s mansion was that a large part of its entrance was being rebuilt. It’s hard to imagine how the king would put up with that for long without beheading someone, which is why I think the restorations were started in modern times. Unless maybe he requested the building to be updated and he died a few days later. You’d think his failing health would be his main concern. What I knew for a fact was the electricity warning in the building HAD to be a more modern update. If not, I have drastically underestimated medieval technology! Shortly after entering the building I noticed some kind of menu, somewhere. I don’t know why it was there as I wasn’t really paying attention, to be honest. But what I do know (because I made a note of it) was there was something called ‘embezzled meat’. I can’t work out what that means. Stolen meat? Was King Henry VIII known for stealing other people’s meat? You’d think he could buy his own… Very odd. Maybe he had kleptomania? If so, no wonder he was so paranoid about people poisoning him.

The first garden area we came to boasted of once containing ‘marvellous beasts’. Wow, fascinating. But as the garden didn’t actually have any animals at the time of viewing, it was a let down, obviously. We could have all found that fact out at home and for free. Perhaps because she was freaked out by the marvellous beasts that were once there, my youngest niece fell over and cut herself. Would you believe my oldest niece had plasters on her?? A very practical and mature niece! My sister in law is actually a nurse, so it’s hard to imagine a more first rate medical experience for the casualty. The plaster was applied in one of the building’s toilets. A new toilet I mean, not a medieval one. It would be too unhygienic, wouldn’t it? Especially as I think king Henry died because of a lack of hygiene. He would be a lot worse if he spent all of his time in his toilet. A depressing end.

In the palace’s huge art gallery, I was thinking how easy it would be to destroy so much art and so quickly, causing millions of pounds of damage. All I needed to do was sneak a hammer through security. That’s not an appropriate way for someone of my age to behave, is it? I told myself such bad thoughts were really subconsciously projected onto me somehow by the children and my brother. Soon after that, I saw the king’s bed on display. I was a little bit surprised that it was more or less exactly the same size as king sized beds you can buy in shops. I’m sure many people buying beds don’t realise that the king sized beds they’re interested in would be perfectly reasonable for a monarch! I think adverts should definitely point that out. After the bed gazing, we all walked in on a play being performed by real actors! Personally, I find the idea of watching a whole play to be kinda boring, the fact I most likely missed a very large chunk of it makes the idea even less appealing. To put the final nail in the coffin, I find it hard to pay attention to plays anyway.

So, a play I’m not interested in, I largely missed, and can’t pay attention to? Only a fool would stay around for that, right? My family seemed to agree and moved on… Moved onto another play, but being played through speakers. Argh! Even worse! Surely the least relevant part of the whole experience had to be the pictures the children could take with a mysterious creature called ‘Peter rabbit’. Surely King Henry VIII didn’t spend ANY time with a man dressed up as a huge rabbit, how would anyone take him seriously as a leader? The fizzy drink I drank in the foodery shortly after wasn’t very King Henry VIII either, but to be fair carrot cakes have apparently been around for a while. Lastly, our group was split into boys and girls by the more competitive of the nieces and we tried to find our way around a maze in the quickest time. We must have been there for at least 20 minutes, I just followed my brother. In the end we all got out of the maze obviously, but how? Not sure. And that was the trip out, bye!