Shakespeare!

Waiting out the rain with cream tea

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How can you go to England and not see Stratford?  I love Stratford and couldn't wait to show it to Jim and Chloe.  Unfortunately this was Stratford in between the rains.  Note: this is now the rainiest summer England has had since record keeping began.

Things started well.  We got from house to bus, bus to train, train to outside station before the rain started.  We were in front of the White Swan when it started to really piss down.  Time for cream tea in warm lodge .  And hadn't I read that this was one of the pubs that Shakespeare frequented?

The rain stopped and the sun came out.  We had a splashy stroller to the church were Semen is buried so Jim could read the warning on the grave: cursed be he who disturbs my bones.  Then a picnic on the banks of the Avon, and here come the storm clouds again.  Back in the church for shelter.  We spent the time in the children's corner and I showed Chloe how to do stone rubbing on the designs in the floor. 

Shakespeare's grave site

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Finally the rain stopped again, but we dared go no further than John and Susan Hall's house.  This was Shakespeare's daughter who married a very well-known and well-to-do doctor.  They built themselves a huge wood timbered house that boosts the most beautiful garden I've seen in England--and that's really saying something.  They seemed to have lived in more luxury in this house in the 1600's than the working-class did throughout the 1800-1900's in Birmingham.

After this bit of tourism, Chloe (who had been a trooper as always) made it clear that the day of site-seeing was over, and there was a grouchy, hungry Mama-Bear lurking about, so Jim took us back to the river to see ducks and eat a snack.  That gave us the energy to catch the train home, although I was almost attacked by a goose who was after my minced pie.  Had that coming for being a grouch. 

Lunch on the damp bank of the Avon River

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I've promised Jimmy another visit to Stratford, because the very best thing to do there is to see a play in one of the half dozen amazing theaters. 

We've been in France for a week now and there are some good stories to tell.  Alas, they must wait and I wanted to catch up on our English travel tales first.