I'm Coming Home

 Our last day was an early morning, but we had mostly packed the night before. The hotel had kindly made us breakfast bags to go. The bus driver had gotten the wrong address to start with and had to correct it. He was a little flustered, but glad to be at the right place. Apparently, this was the third time this month that dispatch had led him astray. He was surprised at the amount of luggage as well. I helped him a bit as we chatted. When I got on the bus, one of the ladies teased me about making new friends.

Goodbye London!

I loved this tree. We walked by it most of the days.

    At Heathrow, Lizzy's ticket wouldn't work so she had to go with some workers. It took her some time to get it figured out. I was worried about the weight of my suitcase so I had my CPAP out as a carry-on, but when I had it on the scale, I had the room so quickly added it to my bag. Some of the group thought I was getting searched and were worried about their belongings. I was able to reassure them that I was just adding something to my bag. The girls were hungry, and Ren, of course, found a sushi place for breakfast.

Lizzy ate a roll and like 3 bowls of edamame!

    Our flight from Heathrow to Charlotte, NC, went well, but we came into the states with a storm, which caused a delay. Our gate was changed 7 times, and the last one, the real one, was in a different wing of the airport altogether. Although this gate was the original one on our tickets before we got the this airport. Funnily enough. Junette lost her passport, and luckily was able to get it back. One of the kids found it and turned it in, without looking in it, I suppose. Luckily, she was able to retrieve it from security. 

    For dinner Shelia and I found a BBQ place, and I had the brisket sandwich. It was ok. I was pretty tired and a little out of it by this time, and was commenting about the giant CheerWine sign and how it is an East Coast thing. Shelia asked where I thought we were, and I about died. 

After dinner, the storm moved on and we still had a few hours to wait.

Finally, after 11 PM, we boarded the plane for KC!

    Poor Daniel was waiting for us; we landed after 2 AM. We found our luggage and were more than happy to head to our own beds. While it was a wonderful trip, there is nothing like being in your own familiar space. Our garden had been growing great guns, and we had a surplus of tomatoes. The first thing I did was have some bruschetta to celebrate my return. It was like summer on a plate. Perfection!

London Day 7

     Our last full day started with a stage combat class. This was the best one. Our instructor was actually from Texas; he came over for acting school. He really liked stage combat, and it sort of became what he was known for. Now he is employed most of the time teaching stage combat. He was so great. He had a fellow actor as his assistant; they had never worked together before, and it was great to see them interact. They were very conscious of each other and repeatedly checked in with each other. The first thing they learned was a stage slap. 

This is a slow-mo video, so the sound is weird, but I was trying it out. 

Next, they did some shootouts.

    After practicing how to fight and fall, we had a question-and-answer period, and we talked about consent during acting, which was really good for the kids to hear. In theater and film, they have intimacy coaches to make sure everyone is safe and comfortable. 

    Afterwards, Claudia had a treat planned for us. We headed to the Waterloo station. They have a street market with food vendors, and it butts up against the London Eye. Claudia said we should check it out for lunch, but first, the Leake Street graffiti tunnel. It's a public space where you can view and create new work any time. She let us wander a bit and then revealed that she had brought spray paint to leave our mark on London. 

    

    Also, in the tunnels, have a hidden theater called The Vaults. They do mostly immersive theatre and alternative arts. The secret underbelly of London. It was really cool. I have never worked with spray paint like this.

Here's our finished masterpiece. 

We walked over to the Eye for this group shot.

    From here, we all separated. Lizzy and I had planned to go with Shelia and Ren after they went on the Eye. After they left, though, Lizzy decided to go with a group that was going shopping back at Notting Hill. She had promised friends back home some candy and needed to pick some up. I had no way to contact Shelia, so I stayed put for the hour and waited for them to return. I spoke to a nice family from Idaho.

    When they returned, we walked along the bank looking for a nice spot to eat. Ren found a hot dog place, but Shelia and I wanted to try the vendor's we had passed earlier. We walked back there and found the vendors closing up for the day. This left us in a quandary. After some discussion, we decided to just go to the restaurant where we were going to have dinner at to wait.

    We took the tube from Waterloo, and I saw this mark on the wall that reminded me of a specter or something. It was hauntingly beautiful, so I had to capture it.

    We ate at Vapiano. A chain of modern Italian food. And I mean modern, you order through a QR code. I ordered a few appetizers, the Harissa chicken skewers, olives, and a strawberry lemonade.

    It was delicious, and they were very accommodating. The rest of our group trickled in, and we moved upstairs to the party room for dinner. I had ordered the pesto pasta, which was okay, but I should have ordered the pizza instead. After our meal, we went to see Hamilton. Our group was split up into several smaller groups; we lucky four, got the extra leg room row, which was amazing.

We tried to get a group shot.

Our viewing of the show had many understudies playing the parts. It made the show more relaxed.

Outside, I snapped this pic with the poster.

Our last ride on the tube had an additional rider.

So long, High Street Kensington. It has been a real ride!

London Day 6

     Sunday had us heading to the Bard's hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon. Lizzy had purchased a few corsets and pants on her shopping trip the day before, so she wore them today in honour of our trip. We boarded our bus, and I resumed listening to my book.

    Our first stop was Ann Hathaway's home. It was built in 1463 and had originally only three rooms, two of which survive today - the kitchen and the parlour. The first Hathaway to live in the cottage was Anne’s grandfather John Hathaway, who was a tenant sheep farmer. Anne was born in the cottage in 1556.

    The Hathaway family were successful sheep farmers. Anne’s father died in 1581, and Anne’s brother Bartholomew inherited the tenancy. Later, he bought and added on to the cottage around 1624.

    In 1838, the cottage itself was sold off for debts, but the Hathaway family continued to live in the cottage as tenants. One of the last Hathaways to live in the cottage was Mary Baker. When the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust purchased the cottage in 1892. Their duties were to share family stories and to care for the cottage. Her son, William Baker, occupied part of the cottage until 1911. 

    Mary was quite the storyteller. She often made things up to tell the visitors. She was the first one to realize she could cash in on her famous relative. She invited people into her home and fed them tea and stories. She entertained many famous people, including Mark Twain. I would have liked to be there for that visit. 

    

    As usual, we split into two groups, so our group wandered the garden and grounds. They have an apple orchard, which they encourage visitors to pick when in season. Unfortunately, they were not in season while we were visiting. 

The iconic Moon Seat sculpture was created in 2013 by Tom Hare. Lizzy was pretty iconic as well.

I'm rather less so; the seat was hard to sit in, and I didn't know how to sit.

Upon entering the house proper, I was enchanted by the windows and general shape of the home. 

This bench is one of the few survivors from Ann's time.

    This docent was very friendly and caught me alone at the end of the tour. She really wanted to talk, not about the house so much; she just wanted to talk. I wish I had more time to give her. She was so sweet. She actually asked if I knew someone she knew in America. Which I found hilarious. 

They had quite a few bee houses.

    There were sculptures and statuary throughout the grounds. They used to have 4 gardeners, but since Covid, they are down to one, so it's kind of overgrown.

    We boarded the bus to ride into Stratford-upon-Avon. We had some free time to explore until our tour of William's home. The other day, a group had gone to a high tea. It was around 40 pounds, so I demurred and went to the museum instead. I did encourage Lizzy to go if she wanted, but she decided not to. Our group was Shelia, Ren, Lizzy, and me. We spotted a cute patisserie that was serving tea for a respectable 15 pounds. So we decided to luncheon there. It was called Hobsons, and it was perfect.

    You could get cream tea, without the sandwiches, or full tea. Lizzy opted for the cream tea as she wanted to try their chicken wrap as well. The rest of us did a full tea. We all picked a different slice of cake from their plentiful selection to share. The service came with a slice of Victoria sponge, a tuna, ham-and-butter, and egg salad sandwiches, as well as a scone and a tiny jar of jam. We each picked our tea of choice; I went with mint, as it's my favorite, and we got our own pot. I picked the Devonshire cream cheese cake. It was so light and airy.

    Lizzy didn't like her salad as it had a vinaigrette, so I ate it. Everything was wonderful. The Victoria sponge was a bit dry, but it went well with the tea. We spent our hour there just enjoying. Then it was time to meet up for our tour of Shakespeare's boyhood home.

    His father was a glover and had his shop attached to the house. There was a school group that was touring at the same time, and one girl saw the birds hanging in the larder and started crying, poor thing.

One of the actors was reciting through the upstairs window.  

 Will and I again.

    After our tour, the kids had another acting class in a church. I was a little late getting out of the gift shop, so we had to run to the bus. It was a short ride to the church that was hosting our class. The church was directly across the street from the church, and the actual resting place of Hamnet and Will Shakespeare. The tomb is visible only during certain hours; the adults had planned to see the tomb while the kids did their class, unfortunately, we got the times wrong. I didn't get the message about the mix-up, so I left the class in hopes of seeing the tomb, only to get locked out of the church. It was a nice day, and Shelia and I walked the church grounds and listened to the choir practice.

There is a theater here now, it's pretty nice, but we didn't have time for a show.

Back on the bus!

We had dinner at Wagamama's. It is a chain and quite good. Lizzy had a cherry blossom lemonade.

Then back to the tube before heading in for the night.