Boos Mummy

Here's our next monarch all finished, this time it's Stephen... Stephen was the son of the Count of Blois and Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror. He was sent to England to be raised at the court of his uncle, Henry I.   A fter Henry I died in December 1135, the leading lords and bishops welcomed Stephen as the new king as they weren’t comfortable with Henry’s daughter Matilda being the ruler.  Stephen was not a natural leader. In 1138 Robert, Earl of Gloucester, took up arms on Matilda’s behalf. Stephens early victories faded when he lost the support of the church and Matilda invaded England in September 1139.    The tussle for the throne continued until Stephen gained the upper hand and in 1148 Matilda left England. Unfortunately Stephen didn’t have much control over most of the kingdom and couldn’t enforce the law or mediate between the warring nobles. He hoped to secure the succession for his son Eustace. But Matilda’s son Henry invaded England

Well the kids school holidays are done as well as the sun disappeared halfway through them :-(  We did get quite a bit of stuff done in the 6 weeks, though not all of it fun for the kids. New windows for the house, DH and I used quite a bit of his week off to do jobs around the house and garden much to the kids disgust but we'd been putting them off since winter.  We did go out and about so there are a few photos and I even managed to get some stitching done which resulted in a couple of finishes..yay! Photos first... Peter spent a week in summer school at Westfield School (where fingers crossed he'll go to seniors in a years time). At the end of the week they had a day trip to Cleethorpes and I took the 2 youngest with us. Apparently it rained in Sheffield but it was hot at the coast and we had a great day on the beach... Later in August Tony had a week off and we all went to Cleethorpes together... Peter couldn't resist doing a bit of Taekwondo at the coast