'We marched up the Roman Road that's known as Watling Street'

Mostly, when I ask Ferdy and Gil what they would like to do on Fridays, we have to find a compromise: go to Narnia becomes go to the woods; meet some dragons becomes make some dragons and I haven't yet found one for fight Storm Troopers.

So when Ferdy informed me that this Friday he'd like to go to Watling Street, where Boudicca's battle purportedly took place, I was pleased to realise that this was something we could actually do.

But first we did some division games:

We commenced with a division grid game (a bit like scrabble but with numbers) and then Ferdy set me a division sum, his task being to subsequently swap around the numbers to make them into a times sum.

Next, Gil had a tummy bug so Ferdy decided to read him all his new Alfie books.

After all this sitting down (Ferdy isn't a fan of sitting down unless it's to read books), Ferdy needed to do some dancing to his new Horrible Histories music.

He has perfected the sword fight with Commander Paulinus.

Watling Street is very long, but it part of it runs near us so we went in search of it and the Roman ruins nearby.

I wasn't sure whether Ferdy would be disappointed in what we saw (was he expecting so see men in sandals and togas, and traders lining the streets?), but he was excited to find a street sign (albeit in front of some very modern looking houses) for Watling Street.

And in the ruins of the town Letocetum, which consisted of a bath house and a mansio (hostel) with a cobbled street leading to Watling Street running inbetween them, an elaborate game ensued involving Emperor Nero, his mother and a plethora of slaves, legionaries and, of course, Queen Boudicca (my role). I should have known that Ferdy can rely so much on the stories in his head, he doesn't really need many props...

Ferdy stands next to the bath house with the mansio over towards the chuch

Over a coffee and a brownie (Ferdy was a little bit shocked to learn that chocolate hadn't been discovered in Roman times and that they mainly had boring fruit for pudding), Ferdy invented a quiz about the Romans. My reward if I got 10/10? A cuddle and a bit of brownie.

1. What did the Romans believe in?
2. Who did not want his Mummy?
3. Who wanted to kill the Romans?
4. Where was the battle?
5. What was the only thing the centurion (in Horrible Histories) didn't like about Julius Caesar?
6. What did the Romans invent?
7. What did the Romans wear instead of hats?
8. Who were the traitors in the battle of Teutoburger Forest?
9. What did the Romans use to wipe their bottoms?
10. Were ladies allowed to be in the Roman army?

I got 8/10. I got a cuddle (because that's a good try, Mummy) but not even a crumb of brownie.

Ferdy has requested that for our next trip we find where Boudicca is buried. Archaeologists believe her burial site may be in Kings Norton, under the McDonalds, so it'll be a dormouse big mac to accompany our history lesson next week then...

(title of blog from The Battle of Watling Street song in Horrible Histories the Movie)

Conquering Rome in two days

Last week, before Ferdy got ill on Friday (hence no blog), he and I just managed to have about an hour in the Dewa Roman Experience in Chester.

tl clockwise-middle: food; Baths; a warrior in his chariot; a slave in prison;
meetingthe legionary; poo sponges; watching a drummer;
swapping hats with the legionary; holding a shield

We had listened to Horrible Histories: Rotten Romans on the way, so it felt like we arrived having already amassed a vast knowledge of these ancient warriors. We learnt that they used sponges on sticks to wipe their bottoms; that they ate hare, dormouse (ahhhh nooo), lobster, wild boar, flamingo and ostrich; that they wore NO underpants; that they went to the Baths naked (no swimming costumes) and that they washed their clothes in their pee.

As well as dressing up as a Gladiator and making me into a slave, Ferdy was thrilled to discover the poo sponges at the museum. He also delighted in meeting a real Legionary who swapped Ferdy's Storm Trooper hat for his own Roman helmet and sword and didn't even ask for any denarius...

This Friday, we carried on with our lesson on the Romans.

Picture by Gil

And because the Romans seem rather a misogynist bunch (women were not allowed to vote or fight or hold political office), and I think it's important for my boys (who have no sisters), to appreciate and respect strong women, we learnt about Queen Boudicca and her powerful army. Ferdy was slightly disappointed to learn that, despite her army being a lot bigger she was eventually overcome by the Romans (he was on the side of the Celts), but cheered up when we learnt about the battle of Teutoburg Forest in which the Romans were defeated.

He then requested that we go to Teutoburg Forest, so we did (kind of).

After being chased by Claudius's legionaries and finally taking shelter near a stream ('let's pretend it's the sea because the Romans thought that monsters lived in the sea so didn't like it'), we had a rather tame picnic tea of no flamingos or baby pig, just chocolate chip biscuits and carrots.

Later on, after Ferdy had randomly written his own Aesops Fable, and we had done some division, for Friday night family film night (a ritual introduced by the boys), we watched the very funny and at times gruesome Horrible Histories movie. Ferdy's favourite bits were the feminist anthems sung by Kate Nash as the fiesty and empowered Queen Boudicca and Gil's favourite bit was Derek Jacobi's Emperor Claudius falling off his sofa.

I don't seem to have learnt much history in school, so some of this is pretty new to me too, but I'm thoroughly enjoying us learning about history (herstory?) through its gory and quirky details.

The Romans conquered Africa, the Romans conquered Europe, the Romans conquered Britain, why did they stop conquering? 

Because they ran out of conkers....

Looking to see where the Romans marched and conquered