Story Search Results

To the Manor Born #77

...y. In the summer months we always had garden parties, courtesy of the local church or Women’s Institute and in November we remembered, remembered the 5th of November and Guy Fawkes’ Night with a huge bonfire and jacket potatoes, which the whole village seemed to come to!  Quite handy having a large garden! My brother Gavin and I in the garden   The house itself consisted of three main reception rooms and a small kitchen at the back.  The front two rooms were a study and dining room and had lovely wood panelling around the walls.  The front door opened onto a staircase and entrance hall with a door leading through to the kitchen and rear hallway at...

HUNTIN’, SHOOTIN’ & FISHIN’ #6

...ng!  One summer there were over 30 bats whizzing around the house trying to find nests for their young.  We had just had a burglar alarm installed with infra-red beams which kept going off in the night.  I think our cat set it off once or twice but the bats caused most of the upset and my poor dad had to keep getting up to see who had broken in – fortunately the only thing broken was his night’s sleep!  The bats eventually settled in a large light fitting bowl which hung over the main staircase and were left in peace to rear their young.   Don’t miss next week’s instalment: Calendar Girls and Front Covers – Subscribe now and please share with yo...

VENTURES NEW #10

...ring that summer my parents auditioned for a King, a jester, entertainers and singers and by August they had a team of ‘am-dram’ actors ready to start rehearsals.  They also advertised for wenches and serving girls of which I became one – at 14 years old this became my new weekend job!  But the banquets were about to change all our lives - for better and for worse...   If this is your first visit to my blog site and you would like to read from the beginning of the story, please click here! Don’t miss next week’s instalment:  Let The Banquets Commence! - Subscribe now and please feel free to share with any friends that might be interested in my...

LET THE BANQUET COMMENCE! #11

...LET THE BANQUETS COMMENCE!: It was the end of the summer season and rehearsals had started for the new venture of Mediaeval Banquets.  All the cast would come round to the house each week and my mum and one or two other ladies were busy making the skirts and blouses for the wenches, although the main costumes were bought.   My mum also made about 200 bibs which the guests were going to be wearing as eating five courses with a dagger can be quite messy!   We had a King, a Jester, a Fire-eater, a Halberdier, an organist and various wenches and serving ladies.  To launch the banquets my parents decided to hold a Press Reception about a month before and so we...

The Graveyard Shift..... #24

...uring the summer months Kev and I would open the house to the public.  As well as a bad atmosphere between my parents there was also a bad atmosphere between me and my mum and mum and Kev, so we were all trying to avoid each other!  My mum had taken over the West Wing apartment when the tenants left, leaving my dad with one less rent.  She was also putting Yale locks on all the rooms that she used in the house as well as any storage rooms used for the banquets.  This infuriated my dad who obviously didn’t have access to them once the locks went on.  One of these rooms was the cupboard off the Entrance Hall which held the meter boxes, so we now had no acce...

THE TAX MAN COMETH #29

...uring the summer months there were always a few barn dances to go to and we even put one on ourselves.  These were usually in a local farmer’s barn with a disco and lots of real ales – they were good fun and went on to the early hours.  One of our friends was a farmer’s son and his farm was in the next village – after one such barn dance we all did a conga around the farmyard and woke all the sheep up.  Then we conga’d into a field full of cows – we thought it was hilarious until the ‘cows’ started to chase us; they were actually bulls!  The cows were all in their milking shed waiting to be milked – as we didn’t finish until 5am our frien...