A date with the Bard

Time to head North and our first stop is Stratford upon Avon.

Quite sad to leave Plymouth and the Navman doesn't make it easy for us by taking us out on a strange and complex route.

On the way we stopped at Charecote Place. Now we are National Trust members we like to fit a National Trust property where we can.

Charlecote Place is the home of the Lucy family - who still live in the house. Really pretty. Sweet little deer wandering around the park, really pretty grounds. Grant is jealous of the billiard room. From the sitting room, the parterre had stairs right into the Avon. The river seems to be pretty high after the storm.

Traffic into Stratford is crazy of course. Grant did an excellent job of choosing our hotel. The Falcon is Middle Ages at the front and modern at the back. We have a HUGE room - which is a nice change.

It's raining of course - - but we are used to that now and don't let it stop us from taking a walk around town. Of course all the medieval buildings are charming. The river is lovely and there is a lock and canal boats.

We manage to miss most of the tatty Will Shakespeare activities - but on the way out I feel that we should at least visit Anne Hathaways cottage so that we can meet our Shakespeare tourist obligations.  Not that Shakespeare would necessarily recognize it at all - as it doubled in size some time after Anne lived there. But I suppose even that is remarkable - as the guide tells us not to think that the Hathaway family was poor by the standards of the day even though there were nine of them living in a two room cottage.  And as always, remarkable to see evidence of domestic life from so many hundreds of years ago. The gardens around the cottage are charming - I don't remember there being gardens when I visited 30 years ago, but whether this is a change in the cottage or a change in my priorities I can't say.

And so now , parting is such sweet sorrow as we motor on to more recent history in Waddington.