Romans and Countrymen

With such a lovely large holiday house, cake tins stuffed to the gunnels and fabulous views out across the valley, you could be forgiven for thinking that if it chucked it down with torrential rain on the first day of the holiday it might be a wise idea to stay home.

Although I reckon you'd change your mind soon enough if you had six boys under the age of 10 who had been up since the crack of dawn and needed to get out.

So out we went, although our choice of location was perhaps a bit misguided since we ended up in Trimontium museum in Melrose, a jammed packed treasure trove of roman history.

And when I say jammed packed...

The museum is a pretty small room with a whole load of glass cases displaying small pieces of dug up metal accompanied by vast chunks of text on boards above your head. Interactive it ain't. Apart that is, from the Newstead Charger, which is "available to ride".

However, fair play to the museum, the centurion at the door, and the five lively boys (the littlest was mainly contained within his buggy), they absolutely made the most of it and all in all we must have spent near on 2 whole hours in a room which was smaller than the open plan living room we had left behind. It just goes to show you that if you lay out a tunic and some armour for dressing up and place the horse Newstead Charger in front of a mirror, you can keep little boys interested for hours.

My eldest, who has been learning about Romans at school loved the whole experience and even purchased a post card to send home to his teacher.

Over lunch we had a good old conversation about Romans and celts and the battles and invasions and how the celts are sharpening their swords once again.