T i m e L a p s e

First of the videos that I took of the Hall being set up/taken down and the King dining has now been edited, you can find it over at the Gallery...just click on the thumbnail to get there:

Sorry for the appalling picture quality, but it was a very gloomy day and the lighting was awful, that and the fact that I'm using a small pocket camera not a video camera all combine to give the effect of Henry dining on the event horizon of a black hole!!
That aside, you should get an idea of what went on...and "get" the "Lenin's tomb" reference. The 31st was really the day that everything came good I suppose. Teething problems with the layout of the Hall were dealt with, visitor management was spot on...great work by the team from Past Pleasures who man the "upstairs" parts of the Palace, absolutely first rate stuff, with just the right levels of solemnity and levity I felt....the State Apartment Warders and Conservation and Collection Care teams were also running like a dream too (not that they weren't before, but by the 31st everyone, including me, had relaxed somewhat and the atmosphere in the Hall seemed to reflect that).

Still more videos to edit, but that may have to wait whilst family stuff takes over for the next few days (hmmm, decorating, can't wait....not!), but when you do see them you'll see that very little changes....we'd got it just about right. That is not to say that it was perfect by any means....but as I've maintained all along if you were to have asked me, this was the beginning on a new road to the way that food and meals within the context of Henry VIII's Court are interpreted. There is still a L O N G way to go to get anything like an accurate presentation, but these tentative baby steps are a start......and much much closer to history than what was done in the past.

Hopefully, the powers that be at work were equally happy with the event as I was, we'll just have to wait for the debrief meeting to find out, but all in all I think we can safely say B-, could do better!

What would I change?........I think that can wait for another post, possibly with the last video, to give me time to think.

TTFN