We British are never happy with the weather are we? After complaining all week about it raining and hoping for a dry weekend we then spent all of the Tatton event saying it was too hot.It did get up to about 30 degrees so there was a big difference between that and the grey wet weather earlier.

Thankfully we were camped near some very shady trees so spent a lot of the weekend in this beautiful spot, sitting catching up with friends before roasting on the battlefield.

I managed to do some interviews for my doctorate, among them the man who plays King Edward at Tewkesbury, Mike who is a gunner and a new member of a friend’s group, Sian, who was skinning and tanning rabbits.

This is beautiful tent belonging to Dave the king, the paintings on the hangings are done by his wife.He has very impressive fluted armour which looks wonderful on the battlefield.

Here is Mike with his flintlock, he is normally a hand-gunner in the battles and also has taken part in displays with larger guns as part of the gun crew.

Sian was skinning and cooking with the rabbits on Saturday and on Sunday the heat had meant that she was able to start the process of de-fleshing the skins to use the hide, normally that would take 3 days.

This is one of the larger skins from a previous tanning, it is so beautifully soft.

In this photo you can see the difference between the skins still with the flesh on them in the left of the picture and the finished skin. It was fascinating to watch her doing the whole process.

I know that I normally include some lovely costume pictures for you but it was so hot we were all dressed down for most of the time, here is our friend Dave in a fetching combination of medieval undergarments, sunnies, straw hat and trainers back at camp.

We had a lovely weekend and are really looking forward to next weekend when we are going camping in North Wales, just a little holiday for Ellie and I visiting some Trust properties though friends are at an event at Conwy Castle so may pop in and see them there.

Hope you have a great week ahead and thanks for visiting.