Well what are bank holidays for but to look for a traffic jam. Luckily with a little map reading from Sue we avaioded the worst of them and had a lovely day with glorious weather. We were joined for the day by another family from the village and our two exchange teenagers (big ones) Karolina and Bram.

First stop was Pickering Castle as we are members of English Heritage and they were putting on a Wellington's Redcoats demonstration.

All that remains of the central part of the castle

View from the top.

The Redcoats were magnificent, and we were treated to a wonderful demonstration of how the light industry manovered and to several volleys.

Drawn up on Parade

Firing a volley


The amount of smoke from a few muskets was incredible, what it must have been like in a real with thousands of muskets I hate to think.

Afterwards the redcoats invited the crowd to their camp to have a look at their equipment and find out more about the life of one of Wellington's Soldiers.

The camp. Each tent held at least 12 men.
A musket
The Flintlock Mechanism, with flint and striker.	The striker is opened to reveal the powder pan.
Some of the other equipment a soldier had to carry.

All in all they had a pretty tough life and the uniform they were wearing was the only one they had so would have been worn in all climated from UK to Spain. Very Hot.

We move on to Downholme for a picnic lunch by the ford and had the pleasure of being seranaded by passing steam trains on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway

Jane	Kim, Peter, Emily and Scampi
Karolina
The Picnic
The North Yorkshire Moors Steam Railway
Some of the reluctants on a walk after lunch (ice cream used as a bribe)