Happy Wednesday everyone! I’m back with another Where’d I Leave It Wednesday, today’s will be the next part of my time up in Southampton/Portsmouth and more specifically for today’s story, my trip to the Mary Rose Museum at the Historic Dockyard.
The day began with meeting Henry VIII in the middle of the street before we’d even gotten to the Dockyard. It was the strangest feeling, my family and I had just been talking about how places like Hampton Court Palace had people dressed up as Henry VIII and his queens, then I look up and right in front of me is Henry VIII. That was a pretty surreal start to the day. I got a photo with him, this Henry VIII actually sounded northern which was interesting, then he asked where I was from and I told him. His answer was “this must be a busman’s holiday for you lot then”….. I didn’t get it but my family laughed. Henry VIII said he’d see me in the Mary Rose Museum and then headed off for the Post Office.
When he said he would see me again, he meant it.
At the time I just thought I might see him in passing because he must be somewhere in the Museum. What I didn’t expect was Henry VIII jumping out at me multiple times.
The first time was on the middle level, the level that you enter the exhibition on – I’d just seen the Mary Rose herself which is a chilling experience and we were heading towards the lift to go down to the bottom level. There were a few other groups in the area as well. Then the lift opens and who steps out but Henry VIII and he of course spotted me immediately.
“Pretty girl, I told you I’d see you here”. Yes, he did, though I wasn’t expecting him to step out of a lift towards me.
He spent some time having conversations with me and some of the other people there, one of them was actually called Henry – nice coincidence.
The next time I saw him, or rather he saw me, was the other end of the bottom floor where he was stood with his hands on the bar in front of him and he was looking out over everyone going in and out of the different floors.
The final time I saw him, he snuck up on me. I was on the top floor of the exhibition. In this part you are able to look over the railings at the Mary Rose but I couldn’t see very well that way. So, I had knelt on the floor to look through the glass at the Mary Rose at the better angle from me. I’m there minding my own business when from down the end comes:
“Olivia, what are you doing on the floor!” bellowed at the top of his voice. I instantly stood back up, it was like being shouted at by a teacher at school. I’m sure my eyes were as wide as saucers, then he took me over and showed me how the map has raised parts on it that I could feel with my fingers and helped me to visualize parts of the ship that couldn’t be brought up.
That’s it for this story, I hope you all enjoyed it!
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