Today I ticked a point off my bucket list playing two ancient boardgames in the park with a friend. We played about five games of Hnefatafl and one of Fox and Geese in the War Memorial Park in Coventry. Hnefatafl, also known as Kings Table, is a board game popular in the Viking period. Fox and Geese is a similar game but is heavily weighted to the Geese player and so fell out of popularity in the Middle Ages. Both games are asymmetric games with unequal forces and different winning goals. They challenge the player to be competent, keep focus and work towards specific goals in pursuit of the eventual objective of winning.
My friend is called Arron and despite it being his first time playing (and having just come off a long drive from work) did very well indeed. I obviously play these games daily as part of my job and I did not cut him any slack but he soon picked up the rules and the game and after an hour was making it very hard for me to win.
It was a very enjoyable time with lots of good conversation and game play. We got a lot of interest as well from other park users. One boy sent his mother over to ask if he could have a game. In the future I would like to play more in the park so if anyone would like to join me drop me a message in the comments section.
*Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning, I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my Disclosure page for more info Chester’s Roman Garden is located just outside the city walls. It’s a place I would highly recommend visiting. Its made up […]
Britain enthusiastically adopted the Roman tradition of writing curses on lead (or sometimes pewter) tablets. Maybe that tells us something about the British character. Maybe it doesn’t. Either way, because lead doesn’t rust, they left us a record of daily life, or of one odd corner of it anyway, that we can snoop around in. […]
At the beginning of August I was privileged to join Britannia, the best Roman Reenactment group in Britain at a site near Hull called Petuaria.
Petuaria is now called Brough, a pretty little village near Hull. The event was a celebration of the excavation of the site, which is ongoing and a chance for reenactors to strut their stuff, see below. I must add to the organisers that it was one of the best and friendliest events that I had ever attended.
What was incredibly surprising was that the archaeologists let me have a go in the trench doing some digging. It was great fun and I found some interested things. But more about that another day.
King Henry VIII after Hans Holbein (Photo credit: National Portrait Gallery) Dispelling Tudor Myths: King Henry VIII As part of the Dispelling Tudor Myths series here on The Freelance History Writer blog, it’s time to address two items regarding the reign of Henry VIII, both of which were debunked long ago but continue to be […]
In today’s blog post, I wanted to share a six episode documentary series called Life On A Tudor Monastery made by BBC. All episodes are aired and free on this amazing YouTube channel called Absolute History, with the permission of the BBC and its content creators. It was a very enjoyable series detailing what life […]
A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 May, 1940. Already weakened by failures in Norway, the successful blitzkrieg in Holland and Belgium sounded the death knell for Chamberlain as Prime Minister. Reluctantly King George VI offered the position to Winston Churchill, a man adored by the public […]
This fantastic model was created during the first lock down of 2020 by an incredibly talented Coventry resident. I saw it at Coventry Central Library but it is now on display in the Frier Gate building.
You might have seen that I have not posted for a few days and this is because a few of my posts have generated a degree of negative feedback. Quite honestly I needed a bit of time to suck it up and come to terms with two key facts. First not everyone likes my style or what I write about. Second, yes I made a couple of mistakes and those have got to be owned unto.
I can do nothing about other people. One person said that it sounded like I was drunk when I wrote my piece. Another suggested that I had relied on wiki. Yes it is hurtful, and no I do not rely on wikipedia I do proper research and come to reasoned conclusions but people are entitled to their own opinions just as I am entitled to mine. My opinions in the future will be more closely guarded and I will be less likely to spout them out on Facebook.
Thinking about my actual mistakes is a bit harder because I am very proud of my work. I put a lot into it and spend a lot of time on it. To be shown that I have got it wrong bruises the ego and by the end of the day my ego was very bruised. On that day I was visiting Stone Henge and I sat in the car raging. When I eventually calmed down I began to thing about it I began to think about one of the most useful books I have ever read. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People tells me that I can not control what other people do or say but I can control how I react to it. I am in fact responsible which is to say ‘able to respond’. So I began to calm down and thought about the most effective way to respond to these criticisms and came to the conclusion that it might be better to look at what they say and then change what I am doing to accommodate those criticisms, where they are just and ignore them where they are not just.
To be honest I have not found this easy. I would like to report to you that I am a humble and modest man but that would just be adding lying to my vices. I am egoistical, self important and that makes me fragile. My fragility ruins lovely days out and now I think it is time to try to learn the lesson and become the humble and modest man who learns from his experiences.
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If you did not like it or if you can see a mistake please leave a comment. I try to do my best but sometimes make mistakes and if you bring it to my attention I can look into it. I tend to approve most comments and try to respond to all of them. If I edit the post in light of your comment I will mention you and address your points.
Thank you again for your time and interest. It is honestly humbling that people are interested in what I write.
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