"Use of armoured war elephants has been approved"
I was away for the weekend at Knaresborough (Yorkshire) where Bryony’s aunt & uncle live (well one set of them, there are many copies and they have a plan).
As well as a restful stay with good food, a bit of walking and being plied with good Belgian beers etc I had a day at the Royal Armouries museum at Leeds.
It’s well worth a visit with some great displays (including an armoured Indian war elephant). There’s a lot of stuff to get through, I spent most of the day there and didn’t see everything. Of the interactive shooting things, I was poor with a Lewis Gun, not bad with the Lee Enfield (couldn’t be exact as some of the targets seemed to fall without me firing) and good with a scoped hunting rifle. I scored nothing on the Bren but think that that one wasn’t working (I could see my strikes hitting the targets so don’t know what’s up with that).
The museum is fairly well laid out with a tower stairwell at the end, the inside of which is covered with mass displays of different types of weapons - impressive to stand at the bottom and look up. The different galleries are good as well - the museum has a very impressive collection of weapons - both in terms of numbers, type and quality of preservation - some fantastic stuff on show.
The shop was excellent and I had to resist temptation to spend far too much money (there was a good book selection too). I was saved from buying some of their ‘battle ready’ swords as they weren’t good enough - too heavy, no attempt at balance and a loose pommel on the one I tried. Some good kit for children, decent wooden axes, swords and longswords and some not bad leather armour and caps. Some good archery kit as well. Annoyingly I heard two different mothers explain why they couldn’t buy their kids a sword - “It’s pointy and dangerous”. Fancy taking a little kid to a sword museum and then not letting them have a toy sword?
I did say to one mother “My mum wouldn’t let me have a sword when I was little either, I’ve ended up buying five real ones as an adult”. I don’t think I got the message across.
On the way home today (via Leeds) I did nip back to the museum and buy a child sized crossbow, longbow and six padded arrows for each. A few quizzical looks at work today, I have promised not to shoot anyone unless they especially annoy me.
As well as a restful stay with good food, a bit of walking and being plied with good Belgian beers etc I had a day at the Royal Armouries museum at Leeds.
It’s well worth a visit with some great displays (including an armoured Indian war elephant). There’s a lot of stuff to get through, I spent most of the day there and didn’t see everything. Of the interactive shooting things, I was poor with a Lewis Gun, not bad with the Lee Enfield (couldn’t be exact as some of the targets seemed to fall without me firing) and good with a scoped hunting rifle. I scored nothing on the Bren but think that that one wasn’t working (I could see my strikes hitting the targets so don’t know what’s up with that).
The museum is fairly well laid out with a tower stairwell at the end, the inside of which is covered with mass displays of different types of weapons - impressive to stand at the bottom and look up. The different galleries are good as well - the museum has a very impressive collection of weapons - both in terms of numbers, type and quality of preservation - some fantastic stuff on show.
The shop was excellent and I had to resist temptation to spend far too much money (there was a good book selection too). I was saved from buying some of their ‘battle ready’ swords as they weren’t good enough - too heavy, no attempt at balance and a loose pommel on the one I tried. Some good kit for children, decent wooden axes, swords and longswords and some not bad leather armour and caps. Some good archery kit as well. Annoyingly I heard two different mothers explain why they couldn’t buy their kids a sword - “It’s pointy and dangerous”. Fancy taking a little kid to a sword museum and then not letting them have a toy sword?
I did say to one mother “My mum wouldn’t let me have a sword when I was little either, I’ve ended up buying five real ones as an adult”. I don’t think I got the message across.
On the way home today (via Leeds) I did nip back to the museum and buy a child sized crossbow, longbow and six padded arrows for each. A few quizzical looks at work today, I have promised not to shoot anyone unless they especially annoy me.