Stratford Upon Avon and Dandelions.

Now, when I said ‘home’ in my last blog post, it was because we were to be spending the following week and 3 days in Stratford Upon-Avon at Katherine and Charlie’s house. For Alice and I this was quite as big thing, as we had not stopped for more than 5 days over the last month and a bit. So yes, temporarily Stratford was to be our home and boy oh boy did we settle into it over the first few days.

The 21^st of April meant that this day was my dad’s birthday. So a very special HAPPY BIRTHDAY goes out to him. It also meant that it was our first official full day in Stratford. After skyping my dad, and Kate returning from her boyfriend’s house, Kate, Alice, Izzy and I headed into town. It was really great to have a look around the town and to get our bearings. After doing a bit of shopping, Kate had to meet her boyfriend on his lunch break, so Alice, Izzy and I decided that we would go to the supermarket and buy things for a picnic in the park.
The park was beautiful as it sat on the canal and it was an extremely unbelievable sunny day. A sight not so beautiful was that of the white English boys who found the need to take off their tops. Not used to the fact of Australian boys taking their tops off in 20-degree days and not in beach areas, we had a bit of a giggle.
Being a Thursday meant that it was a good night to go out in Stratford. Therefore, after work, Kate came and picked us up and took us home where we sang a song for Allie Stimpson (also known as Alice’s ‘Biddy’), met Enla, (one of Kate’s good friends) drank gin, tonic and cranberry drinks before heading out to a bar, then a club called Bureau.

A few days later brought a Sunday. With that Sunday also brought Easter. After going for a run around the green, bushy river type thing in Stratford, it was advised that we take a walk to Mary Arden’s cottage. After the 2-hour walk along the canal, we finally reached the cottage and opted for coffee and ice creams. Similar to phrase ‘what goes up must come down’, we discovered that ‘when one walks to Mary Arden’s cottage, one must walk home’. However, walking home was rather pleasant as we walked via a wizzy dizzy and cartwheel field, where of course, we stopped and did wizzy dizzies and cartwheels before continuing on the journey to home. Songs of the Beatles were popular on our singing journey home.

We were a bit later home than expected, but made it in time for the Easter hunt that awaited us. With our legs tied together with scarfs, we were forced to hop like bunnies whilst crazily searching for chocolate eggs. Kate was named champion of us all in the hunt, with Alice coming up second, Tom third, I was fourth and poor Izzy last. Afterwards, Tom treated us to homemade hot cross buns and we ate our Easter eggs whilst playing the board game ‘Articulate’. 

We had a lovely family dinner that night for Frazer and Gina arrived after being in Transylvania for the previous few days.

The next day brought upon a previously planned trip to Burton Dassett (a very hilly place where Alice used to go as a kid). After shopping for supplies for a picnic, and luckily finding a kite to buy we headed off on our journey to the hilly utopia. The sights from our picnic rug were simply amazing (and I’m not just talking about the food!). The yellowness of the canola fields in contrast to the green hills was a beautiful view. Furthermore, the sight of kites floating in the wind made a lovely lunchtime view. We were yet to try out our own kite until Frazer got it out for a fly after lunch. Before no time it was my turn. I had never flown a kite before so I was a tad excited. 

After Burton Dassett we visited Alice’s old house, Morten Morrell and Bluebell Field. According to the stack of photos I took, I quite liked Bluebell Field.

That night we were picked up by Kate’s friend Chris (who was apparently every mum’s favourite) and went to the pub for a lovely drink. Once again, we ended up at the club bureau. Not a good idea for a Monday night…
Alice and I got up early the next morning as we had decided that we were to be dorky tourists and buy a ticket on the Shakespeare bus tour. We walked to Anne Hathaway’s cottage, which was just around the corner from Kate’s house and discovered that we could not buy a bus ticket from there. So, we wondered into town, bought our tickets and we did the Shakespeare tour. Well, we did 3 of the 5 Shakespeare sites (Shakespeare’s birthplace, Nash’s House and Halls Croft) because the bus stopped at 4:30 and we discovered it to be 5:15 so, we walked home.

That night we (when I say we I mean everyone but me) took a trip down memory lane as we went to Alice’s childhood hometown Morton Morrell for a reunion type dinner. Whilst the ‘adults’ had beautiful home cooked dinners, the ‘kids’ had trouble heating up not so frozen pizzas. But don’t worry the ‘adults’ took pity on us and gave us some lasagne!

The next day brought a Wednesday and Alice and I had already planned to get up early so that we could use the rest of our bus tour ticket. Because Anne Hathaway’s cottage was just around the corner we walked there first to have a look and hop on the bus from there. When we hopped on the bus we noticed it a bit chilly on the upper story open deck. However, Alice and I are not amateur Shakespeare dorky bus riders! No, no, no! We stuck out the cold and did the whole tour right back into town. Although, I did look somewhat like an Eskimo!
We met Gina, Frazer and Izzy and drove to the Cotswolds as we were planning to meet Frazer’s parents for a pub lunch. After an amazing not so pub but restaurant type meal, we continued further and headed to White Horse Hill.
I don’t know too much about White Horse Hill apart from that it is old, somehow created on the side of a hill utilising chalk as the material and it’s next to Dragon hill. Dragon Hill is said by myth to be named after George someone (I think the Fifth), who defeated and killed a dragon on that hill, thus the hill was named ‘Dragon Hill’. Check out this link for more info (and most likely more correct info…although, it is Wikipedia…) about White Horse Hill. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vale_of_White_Horse

Day 8 in Stratford. Coming to the end of our time in Stratford, Alice and I realised that we really aught to get ourselves sorted and got what are called ‘railcards’ to ensure us discounts on the oh so expensive public transport in the UK. After a long transaction with a sarcastic, patronising train ticket salesman, we finally got out of the train station and drove to Leamington Spa Solihull with Kate (we were aiming for Leamington Spa however, due to several road incidents our path changed to Solihull).
Later that night Alice, Kate and I were invited to a house owned by a lovely boy named Will. There, we played drinking games whereby I was doomed. After teaching Alice and I a new game and getting into the game, the boys would randomly start up a new game by which Alice and I would have to guess how to play to ensure we would not lose the round. So you can just imagine two lost Australians in an English drinking game world…

Now brings me to the day of the Royal Wedding. Apparently it was some sort of big deal in England. We celebrated with a Republican and royalists party (note. Going as a royalist to the party was basically a way of taking the Mickey out of the royal family). As the saying goes ‘rock and roll all night and party everyday’ that was pretty much what the republican and royalist party was all about.

Rock and roll all night and party everyday can take its toll at 7:30am on a Saturday morning which of course, was the time of our train to London. Oh, I didn’t say that we were going to London did I? Hmm, well WE WERE GOING TO LONDON!