August Bank Holiday Monday means a trip to
Military Odyssey in Detling for the Family Knight... complete with a rental mobility scooter to help me stay active for longer (
and Alice loves travelling in my lap as well, although that's not really what it was designed for).
Military Odyssey is a three-day event, celebrating living history and military re-enactment from Ancient History right through to the modern day - with the usual predominance of Second World War groups.
The weather did us proud, especially after last year's torrential downpour that
left Alice looking like a miserable drowned rat.
As ever with these affairs, the variety of stalls are often just as entertaining as the displays (
what sort of household would proudly display mugs with Hitler's face or swastikas on? Not the sort of thing you'd break out for granny when she pops round for afternoon tea!)
One of the highlights of the day though was when Rachel got "kidnapped" by a pirate and locked in the pillory so I could take embarrassing photos that would then end up on Facebook and here!
As Rachel was gamely playing along, I think the pirate and his mate would have quite happily left her shackled up while I went off and did a bit more perusing, but somehow it didn't feel right.
The pirates, authentically smelling of booze, were great chaps, clearly enjoying themselves (
as you can probably tell from the photo above).
In fact, everyone we spoke to was entertaining and often educational. We had discussions with re-enactors about Western frontier living, Medieval Japanese food, film costuming, life on the Home Front (
always a favourite of Rachel's with her penchant for vintage fashions) etc
And, as ever, Alice was a great ice-breaker, enjoying the variety of costumed laps she could jump into and different doggies she could play around with (
as quite a number of the displays had resident canines as well).
Another surprising highlight came when a 60-plus pony express rider in the Wild West encampment saw my T-shirt and, without any prompting,
recited the Green Lantern oath.
I certainly wasn't expecting that!
You can find more of our pictures of the day over on my Facebook page here.