Small Wonders

Wootten Wawen Aquaduct

I'm missing sunshine in England, but I head back Thursday. Rob snapped this photo during a bike ride over the weekend. Wootten Wawen is just a few miles from Stratford-upon-Avon. This link explains the funny name. This aquaduct, built in 1813, allows the canal to cross over Birmingham Road and is conveniently near a pub and beer garden at the Navigation Inn. Stay sunny for me England!

Snow at The Spinney

It is mostly melted today, but still very cold! We did have some problems with ice getting the cars out of the driveway.

The weekly news from Stratford's "Herald"

A bit soap opera, a bit hard news, our local paper is always entertaining.

The Public have their say on Town Square -- a public hearing was held where over 100 people voiced their disapproval of a developer building a new multi-plex cinema in the middle of old town.

'Not very good' criminal is jailed for five years -- a house burglar breaks in when the owners are home.

Over three tonnes of unwanted fruit picked for good causes -- apparently there are so many apples and pears here, they pick 'em for charity.

Alveston bell-ringer sackings a disaster -- drama at a local church

Loo charges: two to one in favour -- the town will start charging 20p to pee at public toilet causing some controversy.

Won't you be my neighbor?

For the first time in a very long time -- I have some! And I am so thankful. I'm not counting our "part-time" neighbors who I rarely get to see at the house in the U.S. I'm talking about my British neighbors.

Until now all our residences abroad have been in very tall buildings making it impossible to even see a neighbor. In Brazil, we lived on the 27rd floor of a skinny building that swayed when a storm blew through. In Singapore, we lived on the 23rd floor where I could see Malaysia in the distance, and in Zurich we lived on the highest floor possible - the 5th floor -- in a building meant to withstand German bombs. Our storage unit in the garage was a designated bomb shelter. So, neighbors were an impossibility, not to mention language and culture gaps.

But, here at The Spinney, in our little corner called Bishopton in Stratford-upon-Avon, we live in a real bonafide house. More likely its a "cottage" as the ceilings are only 7 1/2 feet tall. But we have a muddy garden (backyard) and a one-car garage and so it has been a real change for us.

Our next door neighbors, Steph and Nick, wheeled in our rubbish bin for us when we had to leave early for the airport just before Christmas. Their cute kids are constantly kicking their ball over the fence and ringing my door bell to ask "Please m'am, is it okay if I retrieve our ball from your garden? Sorry m'am." And across the street, Mike explained why my front garden bushes are looking poorly. He also coordinated the drain clean-out for our little enclave and can advise on any of the systems in the house, about which we know very little (we have a "boiler" for goodness sake!). Another neighbor lady, clearly just out of the shower, came to my rescue at the front gate when I did not know how to open it with the code.

And there's the nice gesture of Christmas cards. All the neighbors exchanged cards by shooting them through the mail slots and a few of them even signed their cards "with love" -- now that is a friendly neighbor, and we're not even British.

Apple Days

We're having Indian Summer here in England and everyone wants to be outside. Saturday, we did a quick search to see "what's on" in Stratford and found out about the Apple Days festival at Mary Arden's Farm. Mary Arden was Shakespeare's mother and the farm shows how they would have lived in the 1570s. This is one of the five main Shakespeare attractions to see when touring around here and we hadn't been yet -- and a perfect day to boot.

Rob wasn't too keen, but I mentioned fresh cider and the potential for a pub lunch and he gave in. Now, for me, the attraction was seeing the animals and a working farm, as well as the birds of prey. A bonus was a herding demonstration by a local farmer. He brought his two working dogs and some ducks and the game was on.

What was basically an excuse to get out in the sunshine turned out to be a nice stop on a Saturday afternoon. I pet gentle goats, friendly horses, and a blind chicken. We missed the falconry demonstration but I did get to see an amazing Eagle Owl, one of the largest. Please enjoy my photos from the day posted to the right.

Cameron Diaz in Stratford! -- and other news from the village

In a bright red box, on the front page of this week's Stratford-upon-Avon Herald it says Cameron Diaz casually walked into Starbuck's last Wednesday morning and ordered four takeaway coffees. Apparently she's in the area shooting a movie called Gambit. Who knew?

The Herald is my favorite quick read every week to find out what's up in SUA I always have to read the headlines twice, most are veiled in British English. Here are some more from the current edition:

• Woman robbed of GPS on canal towpath
• Stolen car ploughed into conservatory
• Carpets magically fly away
• Major reverse for family in fight for 800K estate
• Jail for footprints in the snow burglar
• Roy, 73, does 'end to end' in 13 days
• Seat will be greatly missed by the elderly
• Desert challenge for old ambulance
• Too tense for tents? Then try a tepee

Bloody Macbeth a bit much

Saturday night we attended Macbeth at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford. I thought I had thoroughly prepared Rob to expect a dark tragic play and, frankly, I should have prepared myself better. You can see in this photo some of the scenery (no, we should not have taken photos inside) and it is clear this is a serious play. Hecate (the Devil) was actually a bit of comic relief mid-play as he lit huge firecrackers and left them around the stage to explode, but they fizzled out much to the audience's relief.

This is not a play I'd recommend as a first exposure to Shakespeare. Too much blood and not enough movement and animation to help tell the story. The director chose to cast ghostly children in place of the text-authentic "Weird Sisters" -- or witches. They make their entrance from hang-man's nooses from the ceiling and are slowly dropped to the stage floor. They are also murdered at the end after they somehow transformed into the children of MacDuff who's family is murdered. Too much death for me in this one! August's play, Midsummer Night's Dream, should be a huge swing in the right direction.

As an antidote for all the darkness, we stepped outside to the banks of the Avon at intermission to see a truly beautiful scene of the sun setting and the swans swirling around in the water. It was kind of hard to go back in! In the short time I did get a chance to snap the photo for the July banner.

 

There's always a Nashville connection... pickin' at the RSC.

I was lucky enough to attend Open Day at the Royal Shakespeare Company today. Planner that I am, I seized tickets to the various sessions as soon as they became available. There were all kinds of workshops, tours, interviews, and performances throughout the day. It rained to add to the drama. I loved hearing the 80-ish Director of Voice, Cicely Berry run the young actors through their paces. And the white-haired Chief Associate Director, Gregory Doran, explained to us and the actors how to leave the text of Shakespeare behind and bring its life and energy onto the stage. The elders were holding court!

There was also music. The first half of the day was a live quintet playing light classical music for the patrons dashing between venues. But in the afternoon, as I emerged from an interview with the artistic director, I could not believe what I heard, and it was music to my Nashville-ears. I'm guessing the Nashville sound has roots in these parts. Oh, homesick for some pickin' and grinnin'.

Monty Python weekend...

In addition to  seeing Merchant of Venice at the Royal Shakespeare Theater tonight, we have also gone low-brow with Monty Python for the rest of the weekend. Just want to share one of our favorite clips (but they are endless, aren't they?):

 

You should be thanking Shakespeare!

Tomorrow the Queen is visiting Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of Shakespeare and my current residence, to officially re-open the royal theater after a three-year refurbishment at the cost of 133 million British Pounds (about 185 million in USD today). She doesn't come very often. The last time she was here, in 1996, was to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the town's first charter. The highlight of the royal couple's visit will be a short performance of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. The actors, it is reported, said, "It does make you nervous because you think if you forget your lines, would that be treason?"

I became a Shakespeare fan when I studied his works at university. I can remember signing up for the class, as an elective, and thinking I must be crazy -- the class textbook was the complete works and over two inches thick. What I learned to love was the timeless themes of human nature we all share -- through literature and storytelling.

Shakespeare wrote his plays in the late 1500's and early 1600's. Reading a play and watching a play are two totally difference experiences. Reading Elizabethan English is a chore and cumbersome. But put an actor behind those words and watching the nuance and expressions, it still translates very well.

Today, the theater focuses on drawing in the community and taking theater to the classroom. All the productions have a contemporary interpretation to help speak to today's audiences. A good example, in DVD format, is Romeo and Juliet starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes -- it is true to the manuscript but set in a "suburb of Verona" with gun-toting mobsters and warring families. It appears tonight's version of Antony & Cleopatra features camouflage and machine guns instead of armoury and swords.

If you love storytelling, in the form of books, movies, soap operas, or sit coms -- you can thank Shakespeare for taking what was once a privilege for the few and bringing it to the masses.