Basing House & Story Writing

Wednesday we had a bit of quieter day, 'M' decided she doesn't want to go to gym any more and to be fair I was expecting it. In her words she wants to go to big girls gymnastics. So I've sent a few emails off to find her another class.

With our now free morning I got the kids making little books and creating their own stories. A bit of hidden English work for them as I don't think especially 'H' realised he was in fact learning!
'C' wrote a pretty short book, only 2 pages long but at least I got him to put some effort in,  he really doesn't like writing. I wrote as 'M' told me her story which changed plot a number of times.
'H' is still going 2 days later on his, he's currently on page 9 and insists he is going to fill the book right up until page 10.

That took up the morning and we spent the afternoon visiting grandparents.


Yesterday we took a last minute decision to head to Basingstoke for the day. We couldn't pick between Milestones or Basing House. After weighing it up we decided to go for Basing House as we haven't been there before. We were all pleasantly surprised. I don't think any of the leaflets we have seen have done it justice. I for one was expecting to find some sort of posh house and not much else. We had a lovely walk from the car park down the side of a stream, saw some ducks and played pooh sticks. It was a nice sunny autumn day and we found a bench to have lunch before going in.

The first thing we saw was a huge Tudor barn, on entry we were made to feel very welcome. I don't think they had many visitors that day. The kids were taken off to a corner by a staff member while I signed in on my pass. They were shown a new scheme 'The big draw' which is encouraging kids to draw what they think will be in the museums in a hundred years time. We then spent at least the next half an hour sat in the reception area drawing! They did really well though but I did have to explain to them in the end that we hadn't driven for an hour just to do drawing...

Eventually we headed out to what used to be a farm, a lot of the buildings remain and we had an audio show in the big barn telling us a fascinating story of what happened to the barn during the civil war. I wont spoil it for anyone who hasn't been.
The site is huge and we had to cross a road to get to where the Norman fort used to be, built around 1100, the site is also where basing house used to be (there was no posh house like I had thought :-)) and a further extension added by the Tudors.
In a small building again not expected was one of the biggest Lego models we've seen outside of Legoland of the former Basing House.

On we went exploring the ruins and we found another small museum in a corner of a garden containing  items found on the site.
Back for another walk alongside the steam and some more pooh sticks, and off home we went to get back in time for swimming lessons where they collected their 5m swim badges.

We have spent Friday morning working though some history books. With dad home now for the weekend, family down visiting from Wales and a big storm predicated I expect we will have a busy weekend.