blamebrampton

The joy of meeting up with old friends is seeing all the changes in their lives -- things like children, new homes, marriages. And then realising, as the kids fight over who gets to sit next to you and you have to convince a four year old that you do not want a kiss because he has a cold and you have a punishing schedule, that you can book into a hotel and no one will care one jot about you.

If only the bed wasn't so vile ...

Yesterday was spent being the most touristy I have been in years. We wanted to go to Blenheim, but it was shut, Warwick has too many stairs for my friend, and Avebury was too exposed in the rather grim weather (DELIGHTFULLY WET!), so we went to Stratford-upon-Avon and Shakespeared instead. And you know, it was a nicely put together little tour and son et lumiere, which gave enough of an insight into daily life in the late Tudor period without weighting people down with facts. Good misconception clearing up, too, as our guide dealt neatly with the 'But people were shorter then' issue right at the start thanks to what seemed like a Dorothy Dixer from another member of the public.

The whole thing showed what a secular saint Shakespeare is in the popular consciousness, with relics preserved, and signs of famous visitors treated as holy symbols, too. And, as I trod the steps in the dictated order, it was all too easy to see us as pilgrims, gaining access to the Presence of the Bard for our few moments of Poetic Blessing. Which I may have spoiled a little for the Japanese tourists behind me by chatting about Titus Andronicus with my friend.

The garden there is very nicely put together with a good eye for both Elizabethan garden design and the needs of a public garden in a public space. That they left the last of the apples and crabs to hang made me smile, as it was the appropriate thing to do for the period.

If you happen to be passing by, the sweets in the Magic Museum are very good and the Highland weaving shop of obvious name that I have forgotten across the street had a spectacular special on James Pringle scarves, two for £12.

This morning I am a little snotty and underslept, which seems the right frame of mind for the Natural History Museum and a good, bracing drink of Darwin!