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Friday 6 February 2015

Home Schooling - Our Mishap Adventure


So on Wednesday I looked out of my window and the sun was shining; Perfect weather to go on our Home School castles trip.
Our given target was one of two castles within a 10 Mile radius; How Lucky we are to have these right on our doorstep.
So lunch was made, bag was packed (Thanks to our new Harry and Jacks promotional bag) and the Boys and I were wrapped up warmly; off we went, with a skip in our step, to Upnor Castle.

We followed the signs, parked up in the free parking, and started our walk to the Castle.

This is when it all started to go wrong!

The path between the car park and the High Street suddenly changed just around the corner of the above picture; the path suddenly went from accessible to inaccessible within a matter of inches. It slopped to steep drop.
(One of my biggest bug bears is when access is classed as accessible when in truth it is impossible for anyone with mobility problems to manoeuvre)
This didn’t stop me though; we were on our School trip, we will have fun, a steep slope won’t stop me. William and James both helped me where they could to proceed safely.
(They're such great kids when they look after me)
We were faced, simultaneously, with a beautiful and quaint village setting and a cobbled road. (Again; great route to have for people with accessibility problems!)

As I said above though, nothing was going to stop us! We had the Castle gates in site, the cobbles nor the slope going down was going to stop us; we were Boys on a trip to see a Castle! Whooo!

With help, and a couple of on the edge of your seats moments, we managed to get to the bottom; we were at the Castle Gates…….Let the exploring begin!

Until we saw the sign on the gates…..

Upnor Castle Opening times 29th of March – 2nd of November

Oh dear!
I will tell you now; I was not impressed.
The thing was though it was kind of my fault; the other castle on our doorstep (Rochester Castle) is open all year round and they hold many events within the castle gardens; I thought that it was best to choose Upnor because I knew we hadn’t been there before. I took the presumption and paid the price.
However; I decided though not to let this ruin our day trip. Being a Castle that is against the River we decided to walk along the track alongside. Along the path we found a nice bench to sit down and have our lunch on; in having a break I discussed the idea of Castles being placed on the River. William had great ideas and knew that the castle was placed there to help defend against invaders on ships.

The trip wasn’t a waste after all; we spoke some on Castles, explored the river front, had lunch on the bench looking at boats and enjoyed the sunshine.
What I have taken from it is to always make sure I plan a head and not to just jump in the car and go on an adventure. You would think after my previous post on *planning* that I would have done this. Alas not but I will do next time.

The day out though was lovely; both boys were beautifully behaved, funny and incredibly helpful (especially on the mountain trek back to the car)

We did find something though that I think summed up our day:


Just because our school trip changed it didn’t make the day any less special and in truth a trip out can be just as nice a visit to the castle.
The picture says it all for me: Every man’s home is his castle and every trip out is still an adventure.






12 comments:

  1. Great post and well done for not letting the problems ruin your day. Fabulous photos too! I look forward to Libby being interested in castles, we do go to them but she is a bit young to really understand.x

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  2. Thank Natalie! We were so determined to have a good day. It almost ruined it but the sun was out and we still had a great time. Thank you, was really pleased we still had a chance to get some great pictures out of it. I think now that the boys are older it is easier to do day trips out to such places as castles. They're always fun, whatever gender, young and old. I think once she is a bit older you'll all enjoy the trips. :-)

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  3. Way to roll with it, Martyn. Aside from the great day you had with your boys, you showed them how changing circumstances shouldn't get you flustered. Cheers!

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    1. Thanks Mathew. It definitely was still a great day. And although the boys are used to it moments like this shows them that nothing would change we still carry on through love.

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  4. Great job calling that audible! I'm sure the boys were just happy to be with their dad. You're lucky to be so close to some castles, not too many castles in America.

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    1. Thanks! We all enjoyed ourselves and was a great daddy sons time by the end. We are really lucky not just to have it on our door step but to have so much history to go and explore

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  5. Wow looks lovely! And you had a great day for a walk! Boys looked like they're having s blast! Beautiful photos!

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  6. They did have a great time and it did eventually turn out to be an lovely trip out. It still hasn't stopped us from going on our next Castle adventure but at least now if anything happened again we can shrug it off and just know we can have fun. Thanks for commenting!

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  7. Great post Martyn. Finding the positives, that's what Oliver and I like to hear. Glad you didn't let it beat you and that you all had fun. Yeah I'd probably check opening season next time though lol

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    1. Thanks Tommy!! Ha I know I really didn't think. Some are open all seasons. But wont chance it again lol it could have gone incredibly badly but glad it didn't!

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  8. How amazing that you're choosing to home school. It's something I'm considering more and more especially with everything going on in schools at the moment. My other half is a teacher and it's just absolutely ridiculous which hoops they have to jump through rather than actually teaching the kids. Castles seems like such a great idea, we live about 5 miles from Castle Rising and I can't wait until my little one is old enough to take it all in - he currently just runs round the grounds. Fab post!

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    1. Thanks for commenting. I was so worried about home schooling especially being a teacher. But it is so freeing that I'm glad I did it. If you ever do decide it I'm always here to help :-)
      Castles is one of the standard topics within the year group so it was an obvious choice but having two boys has made it extra fun...Definitely one we can jump on board with. They're great days out. You'll love it when your little one is old enough!

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