Castle Bilstein

It's that time of year again when the year 4 residential comes along, so last Wednesday we set off for Castle Bilstein.  We went a few weeks earlier than last year, which meant it was a bit warmer, however the weather was actually worse, because we had constant drizzle for the entire trip.  It was a shame, but the kids still had a brilliant time.

Last year I was in the actual castle on my own, but this year I was in the gate house on my own instead.  Those two windows that you can see in the photo above were my bedroom windows, overlooking the courtyard.  A much nicer (quick) walk back to my bedroom this time, and no scary castle to roam around in the dark! 

The trip was good fun, but very tiring.  We played lots of outside games, had a tour of the dungeon, painted sheilds, and had a banquet where some of the kids were our servants for the night!  They were performing servants, and even did a few dances for us.  We had a campfire one night and because of the rain it was taking ages to get it lit.  The kids were all waiting around to toast their rolls and were getting a bit restless, so I taught them some campfire songs that I remembered from Scout family camp, many many years ago.  They loved the songs, and the 'Everywhere we go, people always ask us, who we are, where we come from, and we always tell them, we're from St. Georges, mighty St. Georges' song was very popular, and ended up being sung throughout the entire trip, even when we were getting off the coach to meet the parents when we got back.  I'm sure that song will be driving everyone mad within a few weeks, when they still haven't forgotten it!

They were even asleep by 10 o'clock on the first night, and 10:30 on the second!

We went to an indoor playhouse on the Friday, which I joined in with on the bouncy castle and jungle gym - it was really fun playing and messing about with the kids.