Stratford-upon-Avon is one of my favourite
places. It never occurred to me, until last year, how fortunate I am. I
practically lived there for three years, when I was at college, and I can travel
there, pretty much, whenever I want to. Last year, I was in the Shakespeare
bookshop, and I was in the queue behind two teenage girls, with American
accents. The one girl said to the other, “My teacher came here last year and
cried.”
It was wonderful, to spend a weekend, in my favourite place, with my favourite
person. Not only was that in itself something special, but it was my first time
spending a weekend away with someone!
It was absolute, positively wonderful! We got to do so many wonderful things,
that I never would have been able to do, if I was on my own. Quite a few things
that we did, I had never done before too.
When we got up, we went for a walk along the river side. We fed some of the
swans, and a few mallard ducks. I got a few photos, but they weren’t very good
ones.
Then, we walked towards the bandstand and sat
and watched the park runners, do three laps. That took us up to 10am, which was
when the Butterfly Farm opened. I was really, really looking forward to being
there. I could have easily stayed inside for hours. The butterflies were so
mesmerising. It filled me with such a sense of peace. Sadly, I didn’t get the
opportunity to take any pictures (there were a lot of young children, so it was
very difficult). I would love to be able to go back, one day, and spend even
longer there, and take pictures too. The butterflies inspired me. When we got
back home, I bought some watercolour paper, as I want to attempt to paint some of
them, especially the Blue Morpho Peleides (that’s my favourite). If I didn’t
have such a low pain tolerance, I would get a butterfly tattoo.
During the kids’ summer holidays, Stratford-upon-Avon had up the Ferris wheel that travels around the West Midlands and Warwickshire, during half term. After our butterfly adventure, went for a ride on the Ferris wheel. I didn’t manage to get any photos here, either, because as the Ferris wheel go to the top, my partner decided that he was scared of heights and the Ferris wheel itself. How he didn’t know that he was scared of heights before is beyond me. He really was a silly billy. To cheer him up, I took him to the Shakespeare bookshop, where he bought a copy of Macbeth. Then, we went to the Christmas Shop, where I was good and I didn’t buy anything. I keep having to tell myself that I don’t have any room in my maisonette for any more stuff. It is only just about big enough for me. It scares me to know that I will have to learn to part with things, to make room for another person. Anyways, where was I, oh yes, I was a little sad, because the bear shop isn’t there anymore.
We had a wonder through a few shops, then we went to a café, where we had a dessert for breakfast. I would never have gone into this café on my own, nor would I have ever enjoyed the food that we had. I had a crepe (which was actually the thickness of a pancake) with strawberries and blueberries and a peppermint tea, while my partner had a bubble waffle (which seemed really fun, as neither of us had ever seen one of these before) with Oreo, marshmallows and Smarties. I thoroughly enjoyed mine. I tasted so good that I have been thinking about it periodically since. It looked so pretty too!
After food, I think we walked around the
market, then back down to the riverside. We happened to walk around to Cox’s
Yard, and my partner spotted the Wizard of Oz poster, which was the last
showing that day. He asked if I wanted to see it. I had already known about it
and had wanted to see it. Originally, he had suggested that we go to
Stratford-upon-Avon next weekend, but there wasn’t anything on at any of the
little theatres that I would have wanted to see, and I knew that he had wanted
to see something at the theatre. I secretly hoped that we could go to
Stratford-upon-Avon sooner, so that we could see the Wizard of Oz, and here we
were… and he was suggesting that we go to see it. So, we bought two tickets,
then we went to feed the ducks again, before the show started. The weather
started to look as though it was going to rain, so we went into a café, where
we stayed until the Wizard of Oz show.
The Wizard of OZ was unbelievably amazing. I absolutely loved it so much. It
made me wish that I had done theatre set design or something. I really wished
that I was able to be a part of something as wonderful as that. It was so good,
so incredibly good. And the theatre was only three rows. We were so close to
the entire show. Oh, I loved it so much. I really wish that I had taken a flyer
for it, to keep in our scrapbook, because that show meant so much to me. I had done
bits of set design stuff, when I was at school, as my art teacher was on the
art department for one of the Alien films, and she had got us to sculpt set designs
for our coursework. I keep thinking about how I want to create a papier-mâché toadstool
stool or giant cupcake. I want to decorate my entire maisonette as though it
was a stage set.
After the theatre show, it was raining, and we walked around Stratford-upon-Avon town, trying to find somewhere to have dinner. We had to circle around a few times, because everywhere was full, because it was raining (that and it was still the school holidays). We found a pizza place. This is something that I had never noticed before, but my partner pointed it out to me, there were pizza places everywhere! We were wondering if lots of Italians moved to Stratford-upon-Avon, to celebrate Shakespeare, as so many of his plays were set in Italy: Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Julius Xeasar, The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, and there are probably many more. I don’t want to talk about my anxiety surrounding this whole experience, because the less I have to think about it, the better. I will just leave a few photos here.
This isn’t quite a Stratford-upon-Avon thing,
but while we were in the café that we went to, in Stratford-upon-Avon, the lady
on the table next to us had a huge hot chocolate. I had kind of been wanting
one ever since. My partner and I went on a date, the day after we got back, and
I had a really nice hot chocolate, with cream and marshmallows and it made me so
happy.
That is all for now. Until the next adventure…
- Josie -
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