Stratford on Avon

Today we visited Anne Hathaways cottage and learnt heaps of things – like she was married to William Shakespeare. I didn’t know that!! Their children didn’t seem to make their mark in the literary field so the genes must have gone astray somewhere. The cottage is set in a magnificent but small garden which had mostly recovered from the floods (the waters reached the steps of the cottage). We took photos of the willow hut that apparently used to be used by those who were grieving and sad - apparently in Shakespeare’s romantic comedy the Twelfth Night, Viola imagines composing songs ‘ of contemptible love’ in a willow cabin. There were also the ‘century old’ bird frighteners made of feathers and potatoes on string.

Inside the house we had a guided tour and we learnt...That a ‘square meal’ comes from the shape of the wooden plate people used to eat from– if it was full at lunch time that was it for most of the day – and you always used the same one because you were allowed to lick it clean. That a ‘board’ comes from the table where people sat – the important person had a chair (chairman), the lesser people had a ‘bench’ to sit on and the others the ‘floor’ – hence all our committee words used today. The ‘board’ had two sides – one for meetings and eating – the other for preparing food and if you were a lucky one sleeping. That a ‘stop gap’ comes from the bread ovens – to keep the heat and moisture in they would stop the gap with a huge piece of elm tree while the bread cooked. If anyone tries to sell us elm for firewood I now know I should refuse as the ‘stop gap’ in Anne’s cottage was over 300 years old and only a little bit burnt.That a ‘rule of thumb’ comes from the width of stick (no thicker than your thumb please) that a man could beat his wife if she let the fire go out – I think I’d say do it yourself next time. That ‘Curfew’ comes from the requirement to ‘cool your fire – but not put it out’ which you had to do every evening so that the thatched roof wouldn't catch fire. Thatched rooves are banned in cities due to the fire hazard and apparently Anne’s would cost about £70,000 to redo every 30 years or so. Anyway, after that little lot of sayings we went to Mary Ardens house (granddaughter of Anne and William) and Haz bought a book on idioms so you might get a few more in the blogs as we go through them. After strolling around Stratford on Avon (the town is one where you just can’t go fast as there is too much to look at) – glancing at Shakespeares birthplace (incidentally he was only 18 when he married the 26 year old Anne in 1582 and became a dad 6 months later!). After that we drove around the English countryside - the hedge rows had been trimmed (I did wonder if the floods had anything to do with it but don’t think so) so we could see some of the English countryside as we drove along. We visited the Car museum (Rover and Jaguar big in this country) and you might be surprised to hear that I quite enjoyed looking at the museum as well. They had little snippets of information alongside all the engine information which caught my fancy like: When cars were first introduced woman drivers were told to take a mirror so they could do their face and occasionally use it to look to see what was happening behind them (they soon put mirrors on cars and probably suggested woman didn’t do their face while driving). In the 1960’s there were nearly 7000 people killed on the roads each year (the highest though was in 1940 something when 9000 died during the blackouts – not surprising really no lights on cars and no lit roads). Thirty seven years after the car was first introduced in England they had their first million – quite surprising when the cost of a car was about £450 (3 times the average wage of an engineer).The mini was invented as a response to the Suez Canal oil crisis in the early 60’s and the first traffic light was put in place in the 1930’s and also the first ‘stop’ sign. I knew Harry would take far longer to go around the museum so I enjoyed sitting in a couple of old cars (always wanted to do that and drive around the country holding onto my hat so it isn’t blown away) and then scooted into the cinema. There I watched a 1950’s movie about how Austin had set up a parts factory in south Wales and only employed welsh miners who could no longer work in the mines as they had lung disease (they had pneumo something). It was quite impressive and quite funny when we watched the oldest ex-miner light up a pipe with so much smoke that it hid his face. Then came a silent movie on how to build a Rover motor bike from scratch – the test drive showed two men riding along a road passing a well dressed woman cycling and covering her in a cloud of dust and then riding through quite deep puddles only to come off. Anyway, for a non-car enthusiast but someone about to work in the transport field once again quite interesting little snippets of information. Now from a car enthusiast perspective. Haz enjoyed the history of the british motor industry along with some prototypes that he hadn’t seen before like 2 Rover turbine cars, possible future Mini developments from the 1960’s and 70’s, a novel concept car from Rover in 1958 that eventually led to the Range Rover and a one-off Rover SD1 Station Wagon (this is a 5 door liftback sedan - the English invented the concept of the modern hatchback!!). Who would have believed we had been to the same museum – but this often happens to us and at least the English know how to make a museum interesting for most people.

We tootled off in our little yellow car and had a lovely little picnic on the side of a road beside a thatched cottage and drove towards Wootton (where Jan used to live), Woodstock (where she used to shop and play bridge) and have ended up in Oxford staying in a quite an expensive hotel for the night as accommodation is a bit booked up for the weekend. We had Chinese for tea and wandered the streets of Oxford with the thousands of students returning to study. Oxford has basically banned cars from the centre of the city by making it almost impossible to find a park which effectively creates a mall in the centre of town.