We took Old Nick and the Powder Monkey to visit some local attractions today.
We started off with a walk around Connaught Water, a lake in Epping Forest named after Arthur Duke of Connaught (he was the eldest son of Queen Victoria, who never became King as he died before she did) who was the Lord High Ranger of Epping Forest.
Having come prepared with a bag of bread we were immediately besieged by birds including a pair of Mute Swans, one of whom (the female otherwise known as a pen, the male is a cob) got so angry with a Coot that it grabbed it by the neck in her beak and gave it a good shaking before casting it aside. I know swans can be aggressive but I have never seen that kind of behaviour before. So we gave them some more bread and scarpered with a squadron of Canada Geese in hot pursuit.
I had taken a pair of binoculars with me so we all had a good look at the waterfowl on the lake. Aside from the swans and geese we saw: Mallard, Pochard, Tufted Duck, Moorhens, Coots, Black Headed Gulls and a Great Crested Grebe as well as a very pretty little brown duck (seen here hiding behind a Coot) that we could not identify from my British Bird book.
We also saw some Magpies, Carion Crows, Feral Pigeons, Jays and Sparrows.
From there we went on to the Royal Forest, a Georgian coaching inn that is now a Brewers Fayre. As ever with these places if you stick to steak there isn't much they can do to mess it up and we had a good feed with drinks for about £50 the four of us.
However the jewell of our trip out was Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge next door. It was built by Henry VIII, but he never used it much as by the time it was finished he was 51 and so fat that he was four and a half feet round his waist making him England's fattest monarch.
The Lodge is the only standing example of a three storey Tudor hunting lodge and was known as the Great Standynge. Wealthy noblemen would use it as a hunting platform to shoot deer with crossbows and generally have a bit of a party with lots of food and ale served in tents outside. According to local legend Elizabeth I (of England my Scottish pals) once rode up the stairs on her white horse, she was a bit of a girl eh?
There are some informative displays about Tudor food, fashion, buildings and hunting on the different floors and its free to get in (Huzzah for free things!) Anyway the Powder Monkey had a great time dressing up in Tudor costume and seeing all the replica Tudor food on display and I got a Tudor Cookbook so watch out for some culinery experiments coming to a PC near you soon!
If you want to visit Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge you can find it in Rangers Road, Chingford London E4 (Tel020 8529 6681)