Corfe Castle - 16th June

Today we drove over to Corfe Castle. It's one of the landscapes that I love, and it was just gorgeous. One of the first things we saw on the way through the village was a plaque on the wall of the church, commemorating the 1000th anniversary of the murder of King Edward in 978 AD. The kids had no concept that there could be dates as old as that!

It was the children's first view of a castle... so not particularly impressive, given that it was blown up in the Civil War! But as far as ruins go it's great. There's lots of little nooks and crannies to explore.

It was a beautiful day. Nicholas was terrible to control, he just wanted to climb on walls. They're nearly one thousand years old, I'm sure they can take it, but I am not ready to deal with any more accidents!

A rude villager inflicts punishment on the poor unfortunate in the stocks

After we were done at the castle we took a steam train down into Swanage, where the kids came face to face with even older history! 

They didn't have a clue about Alfred the Great or why the Danes might have been invading. So I gave them a quick history lesson, and I count that as educational and totally justifies them being out of school. And then I gave them their first seaside ice-cream. It was messy!

I had all sorts of plans to spend days on the beach; but given Ellie's arm those plans had to change. I think this picture in Swanage Bay was as close as we ever got to the sea!