Oct 3 - Day 21 Shakespeare’s Stratford & Oxford
Up early for a three-hour scenic dry to get to our stopping point, the village of Shottery. And yes, my computer has a potty mouth because the spell check kept trying to “correct” the village name to something not appropriate. I guess I’m a few years off from my sailor plans because I was a little shocked … and then irritated … when I couldn’t stop the program from making that “correction.” I sent an SOS to Pei asking her how in the heck to fix it. She laughed and walked me through it. I swear, there are days that I hate technology despite all it does for me.
Anyway, Lev asked if he could sit in the very back of the bus and used the time to get some stuff packaged up to digital send off to Tommi. She’s agreed to play gateway to keep the producers from bothering Lev so much they get in the way of him getting them way they are begging more of. I hope it works. Lev needs some relief. In fact, I told Tommi either this works or I start playing firewall on my end and no one is going to like that. She got the message and says she gets it, I’m sure she’s been in the hotseat a few times. I just really don’t like how stressed Lev is getting. He’s losing the feel for what we are supposed to be doing; losing his joy of the job he always had.
Shottery lies in a small wooded valley on the fringes of Stratford – though in Shakespeare’s day would have been an area of fields and farms – a five-minute drive from the center of Stratford. Eventually we arrived where we were heading, a restored, timber-framed farmhouse[1] and childhood home of the wife of William Shakespeare. Her name was Anne Hathaway … not the actress but a real woman that lived .
Back in the Shakespeare’s day, it was known as Newlands Farm and had more than 90 acres of attached land; today it’s a museum surrounded by gardens. I personally found the cottage kinda surprising. It actually made me feel closer to William Shakespeare than any of the other Shakespeare sites we saw today. It made him more real or something. I don’t know. Our guide for the day suggested that perhaps one of the reasons is that the Hathaway family, still alive and kicking in the area, lived in the house for four hundred years continuously – thirteen generations of them – and only vacated it in 1917, allowing it to be acquired by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. That perhaps the “lived in” feeling of the place took Shakespeare out of legend and history and turned him into a real man.
The family’s stories that were handed down also helped to make him real. There were some artifacts in the house that could actually have been owned by Anne’s Elizabethan-era family. They admitted that most of the period furniture was acquired from antique dealers, but the family had bestowed some original items for the museum to use.
From there, it wasn’t much more than a five-minute drive to Stratford-upon-Avon, where Shakespeare was born and raised. OMG, talk about Shakespeare overload. And if I heard “To be or not to be” one more time the hamster would have snapped its leash. “Romeo, Romeo where for art thou” was another one that made me want to dump someone down a well. One of the guys on the tour with us had a bro-crush on “The Bard” and he was driving me nuts. Luckily I wasn’t the only one and the guide was pretty good at preventing him from taking up all the oxygen giving yet another “helpful explanation so we could understanding and enjoy” blah, blah, blah. I told Lev he was never wearing socks with Shakespeare on them. Nope. Never. He eventually got the story of my misdeed and having to play Juliet … wig, costume, and all … and I thought he was going to rupture something he was laughing so hard. I’m not recording the incident for posterity. I absolutely refuse to. And Benny is never to know. I do not want to give him that type of ammunition to use on my when he turns into a real live teenager. Shudder.
We also visited Shakespeare’s birthplace. Sadie seemed to enjoy the exhibits that told the story of how his name came to be known around the world, and she “interpreted” them so that Benny and the other younger kids seemed to lose their boredom as well. She lit up like a Christmas tree when I complimented her on it tonight.
We also had free time to check out the surrounding town at our leisure. Lev looked more relaxed than he has in a few days so that was a plus even if I did feel like I had the DT’s from all the Shakespeare being thrown at me.
Late in the afternoon we headed off to Oxford, one of the world’s most famous university towns. Even I’ve heard of Oxford and not just because it was a location used as a backdrop in the old Harry Potter films[2]. We took a guided orientation walk that hit the high notes of the cobbled streets, guarded quadrangles, celebrated libraries and archaic traditions.
People were ready for their dinner by then so we checked into our hotel. It is called The Randolph Hotel. Got cleaned up. And then ate at the hotel’s bar that was frequently used as the film setting for the BBC detective character known as Inspector Morse. And that more than anything else is why I know about Oxford. At one time Pei’s mother had a thing for English detective shows and we got corralled into getting some “culture” by watching episodes with her. I did it because it helped Pei keep the peace. The things you do for friends.
I will admit the hotel was really neat and not at all intimidating like some of the places we’ve stayed on this tour despite its reputation. It couldn’t have been cheap but it was booked as part of the experience. We’ll be three nights here and then I get to have some fun camping … or hope to. Right now I’m about full up and praying the hamster doesn’t dress up in Elizabethan costume and terrorize me in my dreams. But if Lev doesn’t stop looking at me and trying not to snicker he’s so toast. I washed my hair or I’d simply hit the hay but it is taking forever. Might be time for a haircut even if Lev does puppy dog eyes anytime I mention it. Speaking of, look who is coming to apologize … with a promise of a backrub no less. Hmmm.
[1] Anne Hathaway's Cottage, Shottery
[2] All of Oxford’s Harry Potter Filming Locations and How To Visit Them - OxfordVisit
