Spent Monday in Colchester, visiting the Castle (Norman Castle begun shortly after the battle of Hastings—1066 and all that-- on the remains of a Roman temple) which was very interesting. But we had nearly as much fun just sitting on a bench in the beautiful park outside the castle, looking at beautiful flowers and listening to the English speak as they passed by. We enjoyed the young woman who called her husband a grouchy sod (I concurred); and another lady who said that she was "a bit peckish" (hungry). Then there was the narrator of our tour of the castle who talked about "hayteen-oh-six" when Nelson won the battle at Trafalgar; and also someone we met in the campground who kept saying "crikey". We must give equal time to the opposite point of view however. Sitting on the bus this afternoon, a gentleman who heard us talking asked if we came from New York? Ron asked why he would think such a thing, just because we talked of having a cup of cawfee, walking our dawg, and looking at the skoi!
We learned two important things in the Castle Museum. First, the exhibits pointed out that the reason that so much bronze age debris has been found is that the introduction of iron made obsolete all those old pieces of bronze that had been put away in the earth for future re-use. Makes sense to us.
The other great thing we learned is useful for all fans of swashbuckling movies. All Norman castles had staircases that curved upwards to the right. This was a design feature that gave an advantage to the right handed swordsman if he had to fight on the stairs. Since being left handed was considered a handicap, all swordsmen were right handed! The intruders had to fight their way up on the narrowest part of the stair and were unable to swing their swords without hitting the wall on their right side! 12th century technology!
