Wilfred in Windsor Castle

Hello!  It’s me, Wilfred!  It has been such a great week here in London. 

 

Me and some Ravenstone classmates

Every week at Ravenstone we have an assembly, when all the kids in the school from forms 1 and up gather in the studio.  At assemblies, the Head Mistress, Mrs. Heath, makes announcements and talks about school stuff and hands out certificates.  At assemblies, we always have a special theme or a presentation – and even parents are invited to come if they want.  This week my form, form 2, presented our play about Florence Nightingale.   I played Florence’s Dad.  Dad and Poppy came to see me and they said that everyone was very good.  Only Julie who played Florence got to wear a costume, but Poppy said that was okay because he could tell from my dad-way of speaking that I was Florence’s dad.   Mrs. Heath said that we were all splendid (and Dad said he liked me the best).

Me and Mrs. Heath, our Head Mistress

For our adventure this week, Daddy and Poppy and I took the train to Windsor to see Windsor Castle.  If you don’t know, Windsor Castle is where the Queen lives on the weekend.  Kings and Queens have been living there for over a thousand years and it is the largest and oldest castle still being lived in in England.

To get to Windsor, we needed to take a South West Train.  The South West leaves from Waterloo Station which is in Southwark on the other side of Thames across from Westminster and Big Ben.   We took the underground to Embankment and then transferred to the Northern Line just to go one stop.



Me and Dad in Waterloo Station

Waterloo is a big station.  Pretty soon, Daddy and Poppy and I will have been in every train station in London!   The South West is a commuter train and thousands of people who live in west London take it every day.   And then guess what they do?  Lots of them get on their bicycles to ride to their jobs or school – there are hundreds locked up in the bike garage right at the station door!  Can you even believe it? 

Me and the bikes!

 

At last!   All Aboard!

Windsor is only twenty miles from Waterloo, but the train stops every few miles, so it takes 45 minutes.  You get off at a rail station called, Windsor Eton Riverside.  It is called that because it is between the castle and the Thames River and near a famous school for boys, called Eton College.  

Eton College students

Eton is called a college, but it is a school for boys aged 13 – 18, so it is like our high school, except that a lot of famous people went there and it costs a lot of money and you have to wear a fancy suit to school every day.  Prince William and Prince Harry went there, maybe so they could visit their Grandma on the weekends.  Windsor Castle is just up the hill!

I showed Poppy how to work an Ipod

To get into Windsor you have to go through security like at the airport.  Then, everybody gets a headset to wear and an Ipod  that explains what you are seeing.  Adults get one that tells them adult stuff, like about the art.  I wore a kids’ one that told me cool things, like the slits in the castle walls were for shooting arrows through, and about the moat and what a coat of arms is. 



The Moat is now a flower garden

 William the Conqueror, a long ago king, built the castle as a fort to defend London from attackers coming down the Thames River.  There are still soldiers there protecting the Queen.  They are called Guards and we got there just as the night time guards were changing with the day time guards.  They have scary looking guns and crazy looking hats. 

I found a good seat

Inside the castle, the first thing you see is Queen Mary’s Doll House, which sounds like something mostly girls would like but it is very cool.  It is a scale model of a big castle-like house with a fleet of cars in the garage.  It has real electricity so that all the lights really switch on and real plumbing – so if you pull the chain on the miniature toilet – it flushes!  Queen Mary was our Queen’s grandma and people used to give her miniature stuff for presents when she was a grown up.  Dad says that it was always for adults to look at and children never played with it.  UNFAIR!


This is a doll house - CAN YOU EVEN BELIEVE IT?
  



See!

Inside, the castle is HUGE!  They say it is like a small town.  500 people live here.  The rooms were bigger than the Jackman gym.  Sometimes, Dad or Poppy would stop to look at stuff that their Ipod was describing and sometimes I stopped and looked at stuff.  Poppy liked the furniture.  Dad liked the paintings.  I liked the armour.

Dad was amazed that the Queen owned paintings he had only seen in books 



Dad and I sat on the Grand Staircase to wait for Poppy to catch up.

 Daddy and Poppy came to see Windsor Castle a long time ago.  In the olden days, you could only see the outside of the castle.  But there was a big fire and part of the castle burnt.  Lucky, the Queen wasn’t home.  It cost a lot of money to fix the castle and so the Queen decided that she would let people come in to help pay for it.  Now you can’t even tell there even was a fire.


The Fire!!



After the fire



Now

Dad and Poppy could not believe that I walked all through that huge castle listening to my Ipod.  But I really liked it.  My legs didn’t even get tired and I listened to the whole thing! 

 If you ever come to England you should go.

But the thing that made this week extra special was I got so many letters from my friends back home in Canada.  First Larry and Carol, who work at Poppy’s school, sent me a letter with a cool 3D colouring book and a wind-up machine.  Thanks, Larry!  Thanks Carol!  And then I got letters from everybody in my old class at Jackman!  Ms. Csamer’s class room 205! 

So….. thank you, HARRIET -  my favourite place in London so far is the Science Museum!  Thanks, TOM - the trip to the Bata shoe museum sounds so cool! Thanks, RUBY and no, I don’t have an accent…just my Canadian one!  Thanks, LUCAS - yes, we do have borrow-a-book here – I have two to read every night!  Thanks, STAVROULA  - my new teacher is named Ms. Sanders and she is VERY nice! Thanks, ALISON - can I join your singlespikeguys club when I get back to Canada? Thanks, ANNIKA -I’m glad baby Lily is growing and yes, we have tests, too – spelling every week!  Thanks, IAN – I do have friends here, but I miss my Toronto friends – say, hi to Matteo for me!  Thanks, RAYMOND – I haven’t seen “Tooth Fairy”, but I went to “Rango” – it was funny, too!   Thanks, CHARLIE -- it is fun being in another country, but London isn’t so sunny!  Thanks, MADISON – I don’t live in a house in London, I live in a flat, but it’s pretty cozy, except when a workman fell through my ceiling!  Thanks, GAVIN – we are learning about words too in “Jolly Grammar” and “Jolly Phonics”.   Thanks, NORAH – you are learning ball hockey at Jackman and I am learning field hockey at Battersea Park!  Thanks, ROBBIE – wow, you guys a saw an opera!?   Thanks, ROLAND – I am still going to Ravenstone, right across the street from us in London.   Thanks, DEAN – we have Math, too, but in London, they call it Maths (with an “s” on the end).   Thanks, EVAN – on my birthday (2 weeks from today!) I will be 7!   Thanks, ALEX – I am having LOTS of fun!    And thank you, MEGHAN – I miss you, too.  I miss all you GUYS!

And thank you to everybody who leaves a comment on my blog!  It is so nice hearing from you. 

Well, that is all for this week.  Talk to you again soon.  Wilfred