Castle

We were supposed to go to Warwick Castle in the summer. We got tickets and everything but we didn’t quite make it and so as a Christmas treat my brother and sis in law bought us a night in a hotel in Warwick so off we drove through the rain!

Since the summer the then two year was the now three year old and so required his own ticket, I began to struggle with this dilemma – would it make me as morally bad as Starbucks to sneak him in? Technically it would be stealing...

But £22 for a three year old to see a castle? When he’s already a member of English Heritage?

My partner had no such concerns and was busy telling him to pretend to be two with the six year old joining in and maybe over doing the ham acting!

When we finally got there (after what felt like a life time of ‘when are we there yet?’) we saw a large amount of children arrive in push chairs that were abandoned on passing the pay desk!

We had a really lovely day despite the drizzle and lack of trebuchet (Summer only) and my two little knights enjoyed climbing and running around the walls, watching a sword fight and posing for photos with a range of waxworks including the Queen – who they didn’t recognise despite loving all the jubilee stuff this year.

Then on to the hotel – a new one – not known by our Sat Nav after ‘reaching our destination’ for the third time on a deserted industrial estate we called in google maps and made it just in time for dinner. The three year old yawning and visibly tired even saying, ’I’m sleepy Mummy!’ through bites of sausages.

Did I dare to think my partner and I could share that bottle of wine, watch a film, read a book or have a bath... well they were sleepy?

Back in our bedroom only moments later the sleepiness seems to have disappeared. The boys refuse to go into their own beds so they come in with me, I find a Disney cartoon and think they will drift off while watching it... of course they don’t. They get wrigglier, more tired and grumpy and begin to fight.

I send them back to their own beds, they scream and sulk. We end up abandoning the glass of wine, reading books etc. And lie in the dark hoping the grouchy petulant pair will finally sleep. It takes me to lie with first the three ear old then the six year old before sleep finally comes – by this time I’m too exhausted to read any way and sleep for an hour or so before the first one creeps back in!

Still, we look forward to breakfast ...we all manage several courses, the table littered with toast plates, croissant plates, fruit plates, cococ pops (which they’re not allowed at home of course!) yogurts and of course a cooked breakfast for my partner and I.

Over breakfast and despite the pouring rain my partner slips into conversation that Kenilworth Castle is so close it’d be a shame to miss it, he didn’t like to mention it before in case I was all castled out prefering to wait for the warm glow of veggie sausage and poached egg to put mein a receptive mood!