So it’s the May Bank Holiday and I’m sitting up in bed sipping a mug of tea (made for me by my lovely Rod.)
I’ve got Charlie on my lap
(sitting on a silk scarf because I don’t like cat fur on the quilt)
and Mabel sitting under the dressing table
(because she doesn’t do laps).
BBC Radio 2 with Miranda Hart and Jon Holmes is making me laugh and then they run a feature on this day in history and...
“Yessss!” I say. Charlie opens one eye in a moderately disinterested way. “That’s what I’ll blog about today!”
And this is it... except that I’ve done a bit of research and discovered some different events so that the BBC can’t complain about me ‘stealing’ their script (assuming that the BBC even know I exist.)
Did you know that on 30th May...
- In 542 King Arthur died following a battle with Modred (assuming that either men actually existed!)
- In 1431 Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake in the market place at Rouen, France. (She was only a young girl of 19. Humans can be so cruel.)
- In 1536 Henry VIII married Jane Seymour. She had been the lady-in-waiting to Anne Boleyn who had been beheaded just 11 days earlier. (Like I say, humans are cruel.)
- In 1821 James Boyd patented the rubber fire hose. (Not amazingly interesting but the only item from the Radio 2 programme that was verifiable!)
- In 1842 John Francis tried to assassinate Queen Victoria. (How different the history of our monarchy would have been if he’d succeeded.)
- In 1939 the Labour Party had their first General Election win. (In those days many people despised working class men and thought they wouldn’t be able to rule the country. Haven’t we moved on.... erm... have we moved on?)
- In 1989 Cliff Richard released his 100th single record called ‘The Best of Me’. (No, I’ve never heard of it either but you can see an ever-youthful Cliff singing it on the You Tube link below.)
- And in 2011 in Leicester UK it poured with rain (which means that Rod’s vegetables are coming on a treat. The broad bean flowers are almost ready to turn into yummy pods. I may even blog about our first home-grown meal of the year.)
