Time to Fly, Time to Fight
I have no idea what quality of writing might leave my fingers this evening. My head is stuffed with ibuprofen, and I've eaten an entire packet of cough lozenges this afternoon. The cocktail seems to have made me vaguely deaf, and jumbled what was left of my brainI'm dropping things, making spelling mistakes, and writing words in the wrong order.“Junctified”, I think Smee would have said.
After a gradual side downhill since New Years Eve, this morning was by far the worst so farby quite some distance. At one point while stood in the shower at about 8am, I started coughing up phlegm, and somehow couldn't breath. After some mad kecking (is that a word?), explosive making of guttural noises, and snorting through blocked nostrils, somehow I rebooted my various breathing mechanisms. Not fun.
The last thing I wanted to do was send my other half off for the day with the kids on her owntheatre tickets had already been bought, and having all of the children in tow single-handed kind of destroys the day. By some miracle, after having a shave, brushing my teeth, getting dresseed, and downing a cup of tea, I felt much better. It didn't stop my other half nearly losing it after the inevitable run-in with our eldest, and ranting that we should both stay at home. I took no notice. I never do.
After a little over an hour in the carwhere I ignored another rant about the useless Google Maps instructions (I don't know why she bothers printing them out), we arrived in Stratford Upon Avon to spend the day firstly looking around Shakespeare's house, and finally to watch “W and Peter Pan” at the Royal Shakespeare Company theatre.
The house was interesting. I had visited once before about 20 years ago, and sort of remembered it. While wandering round, and talking to the various guides (who were wonderful with the children), I started to notice thingslike all the floorboards being new, and most of the roof beams appearing to be new. When we sat down to lunch I got a chance to look at the guide book, and realised why.
It turns out that “Shakespeare's House” (or rather, the house he was said to have been born in) was not revered at all until the mid 1800s, by which time it had fallen into disrepair, and was effectively a ruin. A fund raising effort by several notable figuresCharles Dickens among themsucceeded in having the house re-built on the same plot, to match a sketch done many years previously. The wording of the guide book is very careful, but in reality the only original materials in the house are the fireplace mantels.
The highlight of our visit was undoubtedly the players we met in the upstairs roomswho were willing to act out from memory any part of any play a visitor might request. I was stunned at their memory, and their deliverythoroughly impressed. W was willing to bet they only knew the most popular passages, but I suspect she was just jealous.
After a wonderful lunch at a Gluten Free cafe across the road (our eldest is Coeliac), we headed off to the Royal Shakespeare Company theatre to see the new production of “W and Peter Pan”. The reason for the reversal in the title became obvious as the play unfolded; this production would center on W, and her relationship with Peteralmost disregarding the rest of the children. It was about growing up, loss, breavement, and really very moving indeed for the grown-ups in the audience.
I had never been to the RSC before, so had no idea what to expect. Knowing it's kind of a national institution, and spoken of in reverential tones by the acting fraternity, I should perhaps have been less taken aback by the quite stunning sets lighting acting music everything really. It was wonderful. Spellbinding.
There was a momentlate in the playwhen W and Peter kissed, unexpectedly, and not as children might. Everybody else froze, and the lights gently lit them like a torch. A fleeting moment. You could have heard a pin drop throughout the theatre. You could also see thousands of hopeful eyes, shining with tears, across the watching faces in the darkness. Magical.
Paying for the car park on the way home was a sobering experience. I thought Oxford was expensive when I lived there years agothis knocked it completely out of the ball park. Lets just say we had an amount in our handthat we thought would be more than enoughand that it was less than half.
With a little luck the children will be dreaming of pirates, and battles, and dreams, and kisses this eveningand when they wake in the morning will question if they were dreams or not.