Friday 7 October
We’re on another holiday in Hastings! It’s about two hours away, so instead of driving straight to our holiday homes, we went to Scotney Castle. At the beginning there was a short walk to where the owners lived; you see, they decided that the small Tudor-looking castle was falling to pieces so the later Victorian family built the mansion and lived in it instead. Then the Husseys, the family who last lived in the house in the 1950s, thought that the castle in their garden ought to be burnt or knocked to ruins, simply for the romantic appearance of it. They knocked it down accordingly and began to modernise inside the mansion, where they made some of the rooms (especially seen in the kitchen) look much more 1950-ish.
The castle was kept mostly in ruins, and was never lived in again since the Hussey generation died. I think if I had a castle in my garden, I would keep it all how it was, and I could explore it every day and find new hiding places in priestholes, and would hide in them and pretend I’d got missing. But the Husseys certainly liked the idea of ruins in the grounds! It sounded quite amazing. “Wouldst thou care to come to tea?” “Oh! And overnight? I wouldst, though what shall thy do?” “Play in Scotney Castle, by the grounds. Thy would love it.” “Thy fairytale dolls’ house?” “Nay, the castle in my back yard.” Just think how truly pleased you might feel, to invite your friends round and play in the castle in your garden!
After we had been in the castle, we drove the half an hour to our holiday home. It’s a park filled with caravans – Coghurst Hall Caravan Park. It’s really great, and even though our caravan is smaller than last time, it’s certainly much nicer! It has a better layout and location, since last time it was certainly very lazily put about, what with the clear door window so every one could see in, and it’s situation by the main road! This place is far more approving, what with the lovely beds and squishy-er sofa, and the covered glass in the door. It has curtains and blinds and, even though the mattresses on the three beds are hard and pokey, they’re still comfortable with a spare duvet beneath. I’m really excited for dinner (spicy bean wraps!) and a new day tomorrow.
Saturday 8 October
The real reason why we went to Hastings in a caravan today was this. I had won the talent show last time, and had won a free caravan stay to compete in the Coghurst Hall Finals! It’s from Friday to Monday, and the performance is today! To enter in the performance, you had to do a rehearsal in the morning, otherwise you couldn’t compete. I thought it was a bit silly, but then I suppose they had to find the right kareoke backing tracks for some of the juniors. I went right up on stage doing my poems with the microphone! I was competing with quite a few people, two of which were doing some brilliant acrobatic dancing, which I found a little hard to win against! Hopefully later I might be able to please the judge. They’ve organised with someone from a show called The Voice coming on to judge! I’ve never seen it before, but apparantly it’s like Strictly.
After the rehearsal, we went out to Battle Abbey. We’ve been there before on our last holiday in Hastings, but this time the battlefield was closed due to the event on the 14th, but we took a different, shorter route through the abbey instead with our audio guides.
We skipped most of the audio panels that were situated in the closed-off field, and went straight to number 15 or something. The audio guide told us all about how Battle Abbey used to be a monastery, and how when Henry VIII came to reign he knocked it down. He did this because he wanted to build the ‘Church of England’, and destroy any Catholic monasteries, churches, and cathedrals. It led us through all the mainly preserved ruins, where we found ‘black wasp’ nests all round the monastery. Black wasps are like girnormous black crickets, but actually if you look closely they have stripes on them and a big stinger on their lemon-shape bulb-like body. We knew that the wasps were the occupants of the nests because a few days before, I had got one on my bright cardigan sleeve, and Mummy had looked it up. They’re huge, and tremendously scary! We tried desperately to dodge them – they were everywhere!
When we got back, I competed in the Coghurst’s Got Talent finals, all dressed up in my pink and black dress, with my hair styled. The two acrobatic dancers I was competing against (there were many others, but these were the best) were all dressed up in belly-tops and bangles, sparkling leotards and chiffon above-the-knee-length skirts – I must admit they looked slightly strange! But I stood up in front of Adam (from The Voice), Amber (the host’s mum), Kelly (the host’s boss), and Brad (I think he was also from The Voice), the judges. The lights were so bright I couldn’t see anything. I just had to look somewhere to the left, and try not to look much more anywhere else or I’d be blinded by the blue, yellow, orange and white lights. It was tremendous!
But, guess what? I got 3rd! I left with £25, two certificates, a medal, and a heavy marble trophy! Summer and Ashley, the two acrobats, got first and second. Summer left with £100 pounds! It was just incredible! I was really happy to get 3rd, even though it was last place; I still had the video of me reciting, and that was all that mattered!
We watched the teen and adult talent show… adult! It was hilarious! There were four people doing it, and I think that Daniel should have one – he sang Devil in Disguise, and did it so well! “Dedicated to my wife,” he said, and they started leaping round like crazy!
Sunday 9 October
The next day, today, we went into Hastings to have a walk round the Old Town. In the normal town they had entertainment arcades and big new shopping centres, but here in the Old place it was beautiful. They had many an antique shop, and so many lovely things – I bought an ancient green ointment pot, a blue-and-white china plate that looked wedgewoody, and three doilies. That’s just the sort of me there is! Tilly got a horsey bag for her friend Katie, and some folders to use as photo albums and scrapbooks. They had so many antique shops that they were all filled with clocks to my joy, due to my obsession! I really wanted to stay there forever. My second favourite shop (the first being Robert’s Rummage, where I got my pot, plate, and doilies) was an Indian shop. It was so great I believe it deserves a nice, new, long paragraph.
Inside the walls weren’t even visible. There might be plenty of imagined reasons for this, but really it was because they were covered in Indian draperies, tapestries, hangings and garlands. The tapestries, draperies, and hangings all had intricately designed pictures of elephants and so many bejewelled illustrations that when a toddler walked in, she said, “Oh, it’s beautiful!” She was so sweet! Anyhow, the garlands and hanging things were all on ropes, chains, and threads, and hanging from the ropes, chains, and threads were elephants in intricate, exotic, unheard-of colours! On the end of the ropes, chains, and threads, and the feet and tails of the elephants were tiny bells that went ‘ching…dingaling…chingdingding…mingdaling…chingching…’ each time you rang them, in such small voices! ‘Bing….ding…ringdingaling…mingaling…dingbingring…mingaling…’ it was so funny!
Now we’re back in our caravan, about to enjoy hot chocolate while Mummy teaches us her talent – ‘advanced list-making’. We’ve got some cute little notebooks (mine being turqoise, and Tilly’s pink) and we’ve started with an Index, our Key, our Future Log, our calander, and everything! It’s called a Bullet Journal, though some call it a BuJo. You should look it up and try one, they’re great! You can take it around everywhere with you, and write ideas and events!
Monday 10 October
Today we came back home from Hastings. We have swim lessons at two, so we had to be by then. Instead of going to the place we were expecting to go to Charles Darwin’s house, which was on the way home, we had to postpone that to another day and head to the Roman Villa near to the stately home. Romans had once lived in the place; it was in ruins, but still it was great.
Inside there was a large floor layout, with perhaps foot-high walls. This was because it had of course been ruined during the hundreds of years between now and then. It was quite a large and luxurious place; what with its baths, the hot and cold plunge, and the civilised changing rooms, and the probable bedrooms and bathrooms, and the granary and so on! It was amazing. They had a load of dug-up skeletons that archaeologists had found, and it was so sad, sometimes. There was the skeleton of a newborn baby that had died and (umm…) been buried in the garden of the villa! There was that of a dog, goose, and a young man with his shattered wife next to him. The poor people in those days died quite soon. You were lucky to live to ten if you were a child. However, if you did manage to live till you were ten, you could manage to live to quite a long time.
When we got back, we were just in time for swimming! Now we’re all snuggled up, about to watch Malcolm in the Middle 🙂