Windsor and dinner at Land's End

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FROM GOANNA: We called in at Windsor Castle for tea with Lizzie and Phil, but they weren't home. Never mind, we took the chance to have a really good look around. No photos allowed on the inside, but take our word for it, they are not short of a few treasures in there.

The State Apartments were divine, there was so much to see in there that even Little Cocky was kept busy for a good three hours. He loved Queen Mary's doll's house the best, as everything in it works, even the lawn mower! However, I think that he was a little puzzled and disappointed that the doll's house was never intended to be played with by children. He was most intrigued by the Knights of the Garter, and really got into the displays of their armour and coats of arms around the palace. He had fun spotting the knights in the Great Hall who had been up to mischief and had their colours greyed out in shame. He also loved looking at the knight's colours hanging in the choir stalls of the chapel and trying to read the ancient English texts on the historic knight's plaques and tombs.

More fun was to be had for all of us outside in the grounds, admiring the gardens and "Busby-spotting" as the Queen's guards went about thier business around the palace.

To celebrate our last night in Reading with Margery and John, we went to the Land's End pub for dinner. The pub is located next to a ford, which was rather deep and flowing quickly. Little Cocky enjoyed a brief moment to make a couple of friends and throw some stones into the rapidly moving water before we went in and had a bang-up pub meal.

LITTLE COCKY’S COMMENTS: Windsor Castle is the Queen’s house. She lives there with her husband Prince Philip. You can tell when the Queen is at home because they fly her flag on the top of the castle as well as the Union Jack, which is England’s flag. We went to see Queen Mary’s dolls house, it had real electrical lights, the toilets and taps worked, even the vacuum cleaner and car motors worked just like real ones! We also walked through State Apartments, which is a collection of rooms used for official royal meetings and parties. They were very old and had lots of expensive things inside like gold chairs, paintings, statutes, swords and armour, fancy dinner sets and big lights called chandeliers. The castle had its own church, which had banners and shields for all of the Queen’s Knights of the Garter. They also shields in the castle, if a knight had broken the law, his banner was removed from the church, and his shield in the great hall was painted grey for punishment.

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