18th century vandals ... (Now that's a good name for a band ..)

Text from my Mum this morning to see if I was taking the girls to Flatford today, as she and Dad thought they might tag along as the weather is nice. So arrangements were made for Mum and Dad (And Lady their dog) to pick up Charlotte, Bethany and me (And Jackson our dog) and we'd head over to Flatford.

As the girls had been twice before (3 times in Charlotte's case as she'd been there and spent the night on a school trip) they decided they were leading authorities on Flatford Mill, so gave their aged grandparents the guided tour.

The main thing about Flatford in Bethany's eyes is the opportunity to play 'pooh sticks' (Read your A.A.Milne if you're not familiar ..), so we headed across to an area where we knew there to be lots of sticks good for pooh.

Bethany also took the opportunity to show Nanna her 'stage', and to demonstrate the moves you could throw on it. (At times I wish I was 5, nearly 6)

So armed with sticks we headed back over the the pooh stick bridge, with the girls explaining the rules to their grandparents ("You don't throw on 3, you go 1,2,3 then throw" "No Grandad, not 4 ..")And please note the nappy sack containing dog poo in my Mum's hand; we are responsible dog-owners and Mum carried that for a good 30 minutes (And yes we did the poo/pooh joke).

I stayed off the bridge, fearing carnage and bloodshed from my competative children and even-more-so parents. No idea who won, but I think they enjoyed it.
We headed down to look at the lock, and for Bethany to jump in some puddles, and then back to the bridge for more pooh sticks (2nd half apparently) only for Bethany to fall over and bang her knee - only a trip to the tea rooms with Nanna and Charlotte to get ice creams would fix this knee .. (Dad and I took the opportunity to dispose of the dog poo).


We then drove over to Dedham, a little town a couple of miles down the road from Flatford as my Mum swore blind she'd never been there before and I swore blind she had (Needless to say I was right ...). There are a lot of very old houses there, and my Dad noticed some 18th century graffiti on the front of one of the houses.

"W.Watson 1789"

So yes my American friends, we Brits (G.Taylor 1777 in particular) were writing graffiti on our houses around the same time you got a country ...!