Portchester Castle......Yes, We Have Well Proper Castles.... III

Ok .......... another boring post, but I want to get this one down........

Friday saw us load the nippers up again and head for Portchester Castle, we LOVE Portchester castle, its free unless ya wanna go into the inner inner Bailey and thats often difficult when we have tots...... but the walk around the outside of the castle next to the water is lovely, and I promise to take any doodles there if ya one day visit..... and then ya go inside the gates to the inner Bailey and there's a moat and the most beautiful church and graveyard in one corner...... in the summer they have reinactments and stuff there... one of me maties got married in the church a long time ago, I remember it was well windy and her mums hat blew off and the limo ran it over lol it was just sooooooo funny.......

Its a place me sister and her boyfriend (later to be her first husband, whom I love with a passion today and he lives in the States) use to take me and me brother there when we was kids......... we go there now in the winter months and buy fish and chips from Mother Kellys and eat them out of the paper whilst braving the wind sitting on the old churchyard wall.......

So we took the nippers there on Friday, its only about 15 minutes drive up over Portsdown hill through the back lanes, me matie Ann who aint a local laffs cos I know all the back ways to places where as she would of driven the main road ways and it would of taken yonks....... stick with me girl I will show ya the world lol



First stop the ice-cream van LOL



This is what ya see from the little car park..



This one was from a few weeks ago......

Ya see, around these parts there is just so much heritage, so much to see, SO MUCH HISTORY....... I love old things, I love roots, but that dont mean it would take that much to dig me up and plant me somewhere else......I know the area and surrounding areas where I live like the back of me hand, I gobsmack me maties sometimes, we can just be walking along somewhere I I'll say something like 'did you know that in 1842 so and so this that or the other' or 'see that building there, did yo know that at the turn of the century blah blah blah' or I will walk around Chichester when we are crimbo shopping (amazing cathedral there) with me head to the sky, looking above the shop fronts (Chichester is well old) and I will say 'hey look at that gargoyle up there as a rain shoot' - me maties that I hang with aint into history or old things or chickens or country or views etc....... so they just nod at me and smile and say 'off she goes again' and we end up laffing.......... me and me maties are like chalk and cheese, but god do we laff...... very often at my expense I will add lol........ I let me kids explore and push themselves and climb walls and trees and try to jump moats etc...... they think Im mad, when Tom once when he was younger fell out of a tree and smashed his elbow beyond reconition they said maybe he shouldnt of been 20 foot up a tree on a rainy day LOL......

I broke me collar bone once as a kid, was playing down the dumps with me brother and his friends, we was playing war I was as high as a house up in the old oak, and someone shot me with an air rifle LOL it plum made me jump out of me skin and hence I fell as high as a house out of the tree, it sure knocked the wind out of me, lucky it was just me collarbone I broke, but I was to scared to go home so I didnt tell for 3 days until they picked it up at school lol........ boy was I in the shit at home, not for not telling, but for going down the dumps when I was not suppose to be down there...... so with me arm in a sling I still got a beating of me life, had to take the rest of the week off school and had to say cos me collar was hurting but its cos I was covered in bruises lol...... but it was worth it.... I had flown like a bird that day, even though it was straight down to hit the ground LOL







Anyways, whilst we was in the castle grounds my Jacob ALWAYS climbs the walls always, he HAS to do it, even though all the signs say NO CLIMBING THE WALLS lol, its something that must be in his blood, cos thats what I use to do there, he loves being up high, just like me....... I should of been a bird ya know lol



This is Jacob sitting above the DO NOT CLIMB SIGN lol....... luckily the blokie was not around to shout at him and tell him off, he was gutted that me matie wouldnt let her girl (Jacobs best friend) climb the walls, in case she fell, yeah well if they fall ya deal with that then :) life is about pushing oneself..... anyways the moat was there to catch them lol it would of made a hell of a splash...... lol



ya can see how The Castle sits on the waters edge.......

I dont usually lick and stick but this is what is written about Portchester Castle.....

*Portchester Castle’s commanding location has made it a major factor in the Solent’s defences for hundreds of years.

The most impressive and best preserved of the Roman ‘Saxon Shore’ forts, Portchester was originally built in the late 3rd century. It is the only Roman stronghold in northern Europe whose walls still mainly stand to their full height. Subsequently housing a Saxon settlement, the huge waterside fortress became a Norman castle in the 12th century, when a formidable tower-keep was built in one corner.

Portchester was in the front line throughout the Hundred Years War, serving as a stagingpost for expeditions to France and repelling cross-Channel raids. Richard II transformed part of the castle into a palace in 1396 and Henry V used it as a departure point for the Agincourt campaign in 1415. Thereafter it saw little action, but was used to house troops in the Civil War, and prisoners of war during the Dutch and Napoleonic Wars*

Ya can see why I LOVE IT and so wanna share it with ya all one day.......

Only 2 nippers fell in the moat on Friday and one got stuck out the back in the sea, well the mud cos the tide had gone out lol..... only lost one shoe in the mud, so all was good.....

We taught the kids how to make daisy chains and just enjoy doing simple things without computer games and spending money, we taught them how to try and fly a kite with no wind..... we taught them that being with each other and running around free and getting wet and muddy and stickie with ice-creams is what being a kid is about.......



This is Sprite, I have her and her brother 9 hours a day, Ive had her since she was 6 weeks old and have had her brother since he was 18 months old...... they are a part of my family, her brother has slight special needs and has the most difficult to understand speach impediment, but he has come on leaps and bounds with me, I talk to him NON Stop........ they love me with a passion as does their mum and dad, and I love and would die for them both as I would me own lads.....

She is called Sprite cos she looks like the little sprite gremlin thats on one of our Fizzy drinks adverts on the telly, EVERYONE now calls her Sprite :) even her mum and dad LMFAO........

Sorry Im was Twaddling and Waffling boring old rubbish today, like a loon, dont know what thats about lol

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