The Butter Trebuchet

Yesterday it was very nearly sunny again and we went to Carew Castle, which is a very pleasant castle near Tenby with a huge millpond, because there’s an old tidal mill there too, which I found as interesting as the castle.

Here’s the castle in the foreground, the millpond and the mill on the tidal river in the background.

When the tide was in, lots of water was stored in the millpond, and then when the tide went out this water could be used to power the mill wheel to grind the corn.

Here’s Emily looking out over the tidal river:

Inside the mill was Swallow Cam, a camera focused on a swallow’s nest with all the chicks. Some swallow chicks from a different nest decided to fledge whilst we were there: they came out of the mill and off they went across the millpond to practise their flying for their long journey to Africa.

There were some re-enactment people in the castle giving demonstrations of what life was like in the Olden Days. Of course, one of the things they did in the Olden Days was to attack castles with a machine called a trebuchet which fired great rocks over the castle walls.

Emily has invented her own version called the Butter Trebuchet. It is mainly used between courses at breakfast and dinner in the hotel. You take a fork, lie it on its back and put a pat of butter on the other end. The forks at Park Hotel are particularly suitable for this as they have flat handles.

Then you press down suddenly on the tines of the fork and the butter flies into the air in a surprisingly spectacular manner. Of course, this kind of thing at dinner is not Manners. I blame the parents.