Saturday 19 March 2011

On the Hunt for Robin Hood!

For Jason's birthday this year we decided to embark on an adventure to hunt down Robin Hood and his merry men.

We mapped out key points in Sherwood Forest (which is ridiculously humongous by the way!) where Robin Hood is said to hang out. We started off at Thieves Wood where he and his merry men often plunder the riches of travelers. We then found Prince John's Palace (or what is left of it)...Robin was nowhere to be found. Next stop was The Main Sherwood Forest area (by Edwinstowe) where we saw Major Oak. Jason was so excited he wanted to break through the fences and give Major Oak a hug....despite the fact he is VERY old now....his branches are held up by steel beams. Not a good idea to break through to such a volatile old bean. He thankfully settled for a picture instead....phew!

The next leg of our journey of discovery was in Nottingham. Here we went for a tour around the galleries of Justice and toured around some very old (and shocking) prison cells and living quarters. Not nice I can tell you! None of this tv, playstations and goodness knows what else! You had to get friends/family to bring you food or else you didn't eat and there were 30 people to a cell of around 8x6 feet! Urgh! Things have certainly changed!



From there we decided a hefty meal was needed to recover from being locked in the stocks. Onwards to the oldest inn in England...Ye Old Jerusalem (Ad 1189!!!). We had a lovely feast with the company of a suit of armour and the resident ghosts :)


Just outside of Nottingham "castle" (theres not even ruins of a castle there now but they still charge entrance fees to see the "castle") we found Robin Hood!!! I decided to plonk myself right on his knee and have a good ol' chat to the guy behind the legend. He was charming!


Next was Jason's turn.....

Robin Hood didn't seem too keen on Jason! I guess Jason didn't understand that NO means NO when he persistently asked to join his Merry Men....better luck next time hubby!

We had a lovely weekend, explored a few random country roads t find some little hidden gems, visited friends who are greatly missed (we love you Meryl and Greg!) and stopped off for a compulsory midnight pot noodle (it had to be done....when you get the craving it needs to be fulfilled!).

It was a fab fun filled weekend with lots of little surprises along the way. Key ingredients of a fantastic weekend of discovery :)