Monday, September 30, 2013 To drive or not to drive, that is the question.

Monday, September 30, 2013   To drive or not to drive, that is the question.

We set off about 10 this morning and went to Stratford upon Avon.  We first went to the rugby field which may be at someone’s house, we are not sure.  They we went to the town!!!  We followed Myrtle and Rick Steves and between the two of them, they know everything about everywhere.   

This is Myrtle who has been tremendously helpful this trip.  We named her after Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter movies because sometimes she seems to be moaning about having to find us new directions when I miss a turn.  She is a good little GPS though, yes she is!!

We were able to park in a nice parking lot and be really close to the hop on, hop off bus starting point.  As we were getting on and other people were getting off, a man handed his ticket and earphones to Linda and said she should use them as he didn’t need them anymore.  We thought that we really nice but we also knew it was dishonest.  Linda couldn’t cheat the company like that so she told the driver about it.  He smiled and handed her new earphones and told her to go on back. Isn’t that sweet???

We sat on the top nonsheltered part of the bus.  What fools we were.  It didn’t rain, but it was colder than yesterday and we drove at least 7 miles out of town to see somethings so we got really, really windblown.   

We were all thankful that we had coats and some of us had hoods.  It was an interesting tour and now I understand about William Shakepeare’s family and the homes they lived in.  They didn’t talk too much about his career or what he did except to tell us that he created about 1700 words, many of which we use all the time.  Some of these words include BUMP, PIOUS, and DISLOCATED. 

The commentary also told us why a barber shop’s pole is red and white.  Doctors were not allowed to do surgery on people, only barbers were.  The pole out front of their business has red to indicate blood and white to indicate bandages. 

The commentary also explained about the expression of ‘having a frog in your throat’ comes from Shakespeare’s time when a doctor would dangle a certain type of yellow frog in someone’s throat so that some slimy stuff would come off the frog and go down your throat – this was the cure for a sore throat.  Turns out the slimy stuff was actually antibiotics produced in the frog’s secretions.  YUCK!!

We also learned that the four poster bed with the covering on it was to shield the sleepers from the birds, droppings and mice that lived in the thatched roof that often fell down from the thatch at night!!!! 

Did you know that Queen Elizabeth I was considered eccentric for taking twelve baths a year, whether she needed them or not??  Her father, King Henry VIII only ever had two baths – the day he was born and the day he died!!!   That was what many people did back them.  Some families would take a bath once a year – all in the same barrel in the same water, but they started with the most important people in the home and proceeded toward that least important.  They often stitched the clothes onto the people until it was time for the next bath, next year. 

I found it interesting that after about 20 years, they would dig up bones of the people buried in the churchyard and burn them on a big bonefire – perhaps that has been shortened to bonfire these days.  William Shakespeare did not want this to happen so he made sure that he would be buried under the church and he put a curse on anyone who disturbed his grave.

So, as I said the tour was interesting, but I don’t feel like I learned much about Shakespeare, the man. We did see lots of half timbered houses that were very pretty.  

We rode the whole tour and then got off at the shopping street.  Can you guess why???  That’s right – we were hungry!!!  So we ate at a pretty good little place where almost all the food was good.  Lots of us had a full English Breakfast and others had cheese toasties or hamburger.  The tea and hot chocolate were very much appreciated and helped warm us back up after the bus ride.  We then proceeded to shop – of course.  It was a nice shopping street and contained lots of interesting items.

We then went back to the car and got on the way to Warwick Castle.  Myrtle did a good job and we turned down the correct alley to find the castle.  Most of us never saw the castle since it was shielded so completely from the parking lot.  Only Sue and Sarah walked all the way up the hill to the castle but they brought us back postcards so that we could see what it looked like.  Looked nice, but it wasn’t worth that hill to me.

We then headed for Coventry.  If you have never read about the Coventry Cathedral, look it up and read about it.  Evidently it is a very interesting story about how the Cathedral was practically destroyed by a bomb during WWII and the aftermath of that bombing.  We had a difficult time finding the cathedral, even with Myrtle’s help, due to the road construction going on and the proximity of the University and all its students.  We couldn’t find a good parking spot so I found a disabled spot  and waited while the others went exploring.  

 

A man came up to me as I sat in the car and he had seen me driving in on the out side of the one way street and explained how I should leave in the correct direction.  I know he was trying to be helpful, honest he was, and I appreciated his help.  I decided to leave and go in the correct way and park in the spots he said were on the other side of the street.  So when I got there, they were also disabled spots and I didn’t really want to park there so I drove on out a different way.  I promptly got lost in rush hour traffic right in the city centre!!!  I drove all around trying to find my way back to where I had been, but I just kept getting more and more lost.  Then a taxi driver got really angry with me and stopped his taxi in the middle of an intersection to point at his elbow very angrily!!  I don’t know why he was so angry – after all, I did just drive through the bus lanes in the CORRECT direction – he should have at least been happy about that.  If any of you know what it means to point angrily to your elbow, please let me know.  I did get the gist of his intent, I believe, but I’d like to know for sure.   I was finally able to get back to my starting point and this time, I did park in the disabled spot.  After a few minutes, a lady drove up and asked if I was leaving.   I guess she needed a disabled spot so I drove on closer to the Cathedral and picked up the others. 

Then we left Coventry or at least tried to leave.  I think I was mentally fatigued and just could not follow Myrtle’s directions and there was SO much traffic going every which way that it took a couple of tries to actually get on the road home.  It took us about an hour and we saw more ambulances and police cars gathering at a wreck we passed.   Their emergency vehicles are brightly colored, for surel

That’s three days that we have seen wrecks.  I’m just very relieved we were not involved in any of those wrecks.  Whew!!  Tomorrow, we turn the car in and that will be a relief.

We went back to the Italian place and had pizza or lasagna or steak and it was all good.  We are mostly now trying to rearrange suitcases with our new loot in them because we will soon have to pack up to leave.  Some people will be shipping back items of loot or extra clothing tomorrow in an effort to stay under the weight restrictions at the airport.  I’m thinking of just not worrying about it and pay the extra money to bring it home that way.  Some of us are just relaxing and reading.  We are all a little tired but it’s been really good so far.

Oh and the answer to the title question is  . . . no, not in Coventry again.  Not me, anyway.