We woke up that morning in our cosy, comfortable beds. I think the mattress was memory-foam, because when I awoke my body was making a dip in the bed where I lay, and when I turned, the rest of the mattress was bundled up higher than my eyes.
Before we knew it, we were driving past many motorways and country roads. The winding tarmac was soft under our wheels. Soon, we were parked in the car park gazing up at a beautiful castle. “Raglan Castle,” said Mummy proudly as we entered the Gift Shop and Reception. “Syt wyt ti!” said the lady, or something like that. “Um -” we said mildly. “Oh, hello! You are English?” asked the lady in a very Welsh accent. “You know, I have always wanted to visit England.” “What do you mean?” Mummy said. “It’s just over there. You can see England out of the window. Look – it’s there!” “Oh.” said the lady, in a little voice. “I – I knew that.” then she actually started babbling about important castles, and not places you’ve been meaning to go to which are five minutes away. We found out that Merlin was acted there, with Angel Coulby acting as Guinevere and Bradley James (or something like that) acting as King Arthur. You should see it some time.
From the outside, it looked like a ruin and it seemed quite small. But when we got in, it was absolutely amazing. It had a load of awesome passageways and cool courtyards. It was dark and gloomy and wet – just like a cave! It started off raining, but soon the sun came out, and we had a picnic in the grounds. It was a school day so we had it almost to ourselves! There were loads of things to climb up, and loads of views over Wales and England. The archers going up to their arrow slits must have been able to see for miles!
We followed an ‘Edward the Inventor Trail’. There’s an app you can download the app to a phone and listen to it. The lady showed Mummy how to do it, and there were plenty of other trails that we didn’t do, if that one was too hard or easy. You had to crack the code at the end. Next time I think I’ll do a harder one, though, since there were some pretty odd questions. Once there was an invention Edward had made which was a large box with loads of metal keys on top. A long chain attatched to a long metal stick with a little wider bulb on the end. In case you couldn’t find the right key in the dark, you would bang them with the stick and listen to their sounds, to memorise which key was which. The question was ‘How many spoons are on the construction?’ The answer we gave was ‘zero’. The correct answer was ‘1’. Can you guess how?
Out of all the inventions, only one of them was really invented by Edward. That was the Chair. ‘The Imprisoning Chair’ was a large throne for guests of whom he was suspicious. He would seat them in the marvelous velvet chair. Their weight would press down on the seat and connect to the tight metal hand cuffs that only looked like hand rests. The wire and string made the cuffs shut tight over your wrist. That would mean that Edward could chat in peace, and not in constant anxiety!
Next we went to Castell Coch (or The Red Castle, in English, named after the architect’s shock of red hair, according to the audio guide).
It was such a lovely castle. Apparently, it was in ruins but was rebuilt in Victorain times by a man called John, who was the Marquess of Bute and was very rich. He lived in it with his wife Gwendylin! I’d love to live in a castle. It was modern and a bit fairytaleish! Even the audio guide was saying it could well have been the Sleeping Beauty (Aurora) Castle! In Victorian times, people thought that Medieval castles were brilliant. So John made the castle again with murder holes and arrow slits, even though there weren’t any enemies! He put a doorbell there specially so that his friends could come when they wanted. He decorated the outside in old-fashioned ways, and the inside was lavishly decorated in a very modern way. Yet the decor was not exactly black and white zigzags and glass windows like usual. There were only shutters at the windows to keep away draughts, and the drawing room was so brilliant it deserves an empty, new paragraph.
It was so beautiful I can barely describe it. It was a circular room where the bottom of the walls were teal-green panels. On each panel there was a plant or insect painted on a gold backing. Above the around metre-high panels, there were scenes from Aesop’s Fables going about the walls for at least two metres. Above these, it turned to night, with pretty butterflies fluttering in neat lines to the middle of the domed ceiling, and birds flying round, little bluetits and yellow ones too. In the middle of the ceiling there was a bright golden sun, and hanging from the sun was a wonderful candle chandelier. It was beautiful!
When we got back to the youth hostel, we were exhausted. We had battered fish broccoli and potatoes! Then we went back up to Isobel’s Room, and lay down in our beds for sleep.
