The Rest of the Trip

We arrived back home again yesterday afternoon, but I'm still going to chronicle our travels here -- mostly to keep it fresh in my own mind.

If we had a disaster day, it was Wednesday, although we really didn't get too upset over it. We got a late start (as usual) and took our laundry to be done over in Witney, where I knew there was both a launderette and a yarn store. I had planned to take the car, start the laundry and shop for yarn while it was washing. Jeff and the girls, in this scenario, would have taken the bus into Oxford for a few hours. But, no. Jeff and the girls had to go with me. Then Jeff started complaining about doing laundry at all and wasting our vacation time and why didn't we all just bring enough clothes like he did or why couldn't we just wear dirty clothes. I pointed out that no one had invited him to come on this expedition anyway. Added to this bickering was difficulty in finding the laundrette and going up and down a very narrow and crowded High Street looking for the yarn shop (which, I found later, had no sign at all). In the end, it took about 3 hours to get the laundry done and I did get a chance to visit the yarn shop.

Let me take a moment here to mention that although the Cotswolds are -- or at least were -- the center of English wool trade and that the grand fortunes of the region are built on wool, there are no respectable yarn shops in the area. A search of Oxfordshire yields less than a dozen and, of these, not all are truly yarn shops. The shop I visited in Witney was called the Witney Wool Shop. It was tiny, unmarked, and only carried three brands of yarn -- most of which was acrylic. Half the shop was devoted to sewing and quilting. When I asked the shop owners about roving for spinning they were mystified and told me I'd have to go to Wales for that sort of thing. I ended up buying two balls of English made mohair blended with acrylic and a set of Pony circular needles (which were confiscated at the airport).

From Witney, we drove on to Stratford-on-Avon to see the scottish play, oh, hell, Macbeth. It couldn't have gotten much worse. We drove around and around the crowded streets trying to find parking for the Swan Theatre and ended up walking a vast distance and passing much closer available parking that was not mentioned on the tourist map. We had a bite to eat at the Swan cafe and went in to see the play.

We should have been warned when the director came out on stage before the play and told us that, due to some misfortunes in preparing for the play, they had been unable to have a dress rehearsal and that, as this was opening night, the actors had never actually performed the play together before. In the course of this explanation, Jeff tells me, the director said the word "Macbeth" aloud on stage three times. It was doomed from the start.

Unlike the play as written by Shakespeare, this play opened with the killing of three terrified women and their children. Macbeth stands centerstage, holding a bawling infant tenderly in his arms and then presses it to his chest -- both suffocating it and breaking its neck. The spirits of the dead mothers arise and become the three witches. Okay. We can deal with this. It gives the witches motivation. But the gore just kept on coming.

When MacDuff goes to England to seek Malcolm's aid against MacBeth, he leaves his pregnant wife and two children alone. MacBeth's henchmen not only kill the young boy and the toddler, but attack the pregnant wife and kill her by slicing her womb open -- on stage -- and laying the dead and bloody fetus on her chest. This is not found anywhere in Shakespeare's Macbeth. Later, when MacBeth questions the witches about whether Banquo's heirs will be kings, the seven future kings were portrayed by bloody babies (dolls) with crowns who descended from the ceiling on chains.

The performance was also full of staging problems, as promised by the director. People kept coming in the wrong door, looking confused, and going out again only to come in another door. The best part, though, was when MacDuff was conferring with Malcolm in England and a messenger was supposed to come and tell him his family was dead. MacDuff broke off his conversation with Malcolm, saying "Look, who comes here," and then nobody came. MacDuff peered offstage in the direction the messenger was supposed to come and said, "He's coming from a long way off." The audience tittered and still no messenger arrived. Then MacDuff muttered, "... from Scotland ..." and the whole audience broke out laughing. After a few more minutes of waiting, a stage manager came out and said they had misplaced an actor and the play would have to pause for a few minutes. I've never seen anything like it before.

Last, and not least, the man playing MacBeth was absolutely the worst Shakespearian actor I have ever seen. I think he was trying to play MacBeth as a man driven mad by his ambition -- but it was just stupid looking. He shouted all his lines and kept waving his arms about. Keanu Reeves could have done better, and that's saying something. On the other hand, MacDuff was brilliant and several of the actors playing smaller parts were obviously well trained Shakespearian actors. Still, this performance was not what I expected from the Royal Shakespeare Company. It was, however, certainly memorable.

Thursday, we all took the bus to downtown Oxford. Kate and I went shopping while Jeff and Ally took a long walk, retracing a walk they had taken together several years ago, along the Isis river up to the Trout Inn in Wolvercote. Kate and I looked into Debenhams and Kate was delighted with a store called "Lush" that carries luxury soaps and lotions, etc. We went to the covered market and she bought a new wallet and some souvenirs. I got her a hoody that said "Oxford." After our shopping, we drove over to the Trout and met Ally and Jeff for dinner there. They had had a nice walk and had to elbow by some bulls in one of the pastures, but it was mostly uneventful and pleasant.

Friday, we had to pack up and leave our hotel in Oxford. We were sort of at loose ends about what to do and where to go. Our next hotel was at the Gatwick airport in anticipation of our flight the next morning, so we had a day to drive around. I suggested we go to Bath, so we set off, but when we got there the whole town was so congested it was impossible to find a place to park and we never did find out where the Roman baths were, so we decided to bag it and go on.

My next suggestion was Glastonbury, which we reached just an hour before closing. It was just as beautiful as I remembered though, and well worth seeing. We took a lot of pictures.

Heading back towards London, we passed by Cadbury and I suggested we stop off and see the hill fort that some people believe is Camelot. We stopped there years ago when Jeff and I brought his mother, but we didn't try to climb the hill because we'd have to leave her in the car alone. This time, the girls and I were game to hike up the hill and, eventually, we were able to convince Jeff too. It was a steep climb and we met a couple and their dog who were coming down and talked to them for a few minutes. They were very friendly and nice. Huffing and puffing, we eventually got to the top and saw a huge meadow opened out in front of us with steep-sided edges all around the rim. The sign in the parking lot below said that the hill had been inhabited since 3000 B.C., and it was clear to see that it had been a substantial fortress at some point. The girls loved walking the edge of the wall all the way around the hilltop. The wind was fresh and cool and we were all alone up there looking out over the valleys and the tiny baaing sheep in the distance. Kate said it was her favorite part of the trip.

As we continued towards London, we passed by Stonehenge and turned off the road to look at it. Strangely, it isn't lit at night. We were on a quiet country road, so we slowed down and strained our eyes into the darkness. Against the dark and the mist, we could just barely make out the huge dark rocks standing eerily on the plain. It was kind of cool in a way that blaring spotlights wouldn't have been.

We arrived at the Gatwick Holiday Inn around midnight and got settled in for a brief sleep. We had to get up around 6:30 am to return the rental car and be at the airport by 8 for a 10:00 flight home. The flight home was long and, fortunately, uneventful.

This must be the longest post in the history of blogs, but it helps me to record my trip with both pictures and description. I apologise for my long-windedness to anyone who takes the time to read it.