Lulworth Castle

The Boyfriend and I spent last Sunday at Lulworth Castle catching one of the last summer jousting shows (*GASP! We left the house! We went outside and saw real life people!). I think I must have been spoiled by castle trips as a kid because Lulworth is rather heavily restored and I kinda feel cheated if a castle is more pine floors and plaster and double glazing than teeny spiral staircases and massive holes everywhere. Perhaps that's just me. Having said that, we had great fun on the outside of the castle. We wandered around the animal farm while waiting for the show to start, where among the pygmy pot bellied pigs (very cute, but rubbish at posing for photos) and many many peacocks, they had angora goats...

...and llamas.

...Or possibly alpaca. I couldn't find a sign and I don't know the difference.

We also had a go at the archery which I thought I was doing pretty well at when I had two arrows on the target and Martin was still shooting clouds and grass, but then he got into his stride and shot it three times in succession. Smug feeling gone. Dang it.

And then, at 12 o'clock, the knights!

who wore shiny lamé 'armour' and had heroic hair!

and galloped toward each other with big sticks!

and rode backwards and occasionally upside down on their horses!

and thwacked each other with wooden swords!

The blue knight is the bad guy by the way (obviously, he doesn't have Hero hair), but he got kicked in the balls at the end of the routine, so everything turns out for the best. It was horrendously cheesy and utterly utterly brilliant. Worth the price of admission by itself. Martin now wants me to make him a knight costume because he is 12.

In other news, my uncle emailed me a few days ago to say my cousin Laura has popped and she's given birth to a gorgeous baby boy called Oliver Theo. I finally got round to sewing the buttons on my cardigan yesterday (it had been sitting buttonless for about a week after sewing in all the ends annoyed me enough to shove it in a bag and forget about it), I've made some matching booties and today I'm finishing it off with a matching hat. Oliver's the first baby in the family and my first opportunity to knit baby clothes and they are soooo adorable. I keep catching glints of terror in the boyfriend's eyes when I squee over them.