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UNITED
KINGDOM TRAVELS, JULY AND AUGUST 2002
SHAKESPEARE AND KITES Well, we have been away from home for three weeks already. The time is flying by. Our days are filled with wonderful bike rides through the Cotswolds. Each ride may have the same description—rolling hills, green fields, wildflowers, stone cottages, and beautiful gardens. But, each bike ride is unique and different and wonderful. 
Every day we pick an area, and using the smallest, least traveled roads, we happily cycle along through the fields of wheat and soybeans. Every three miles or so we come upon another quaint village. Each village is comprised of about 20 stone cottages, enclosed in rock walls, and surrounded by lovely flowers—penstamon, lavateria, montbretia, dahlias, buddleia, scaviosa, impatiens, lobelia. Don is fascinated that these little stone cottages, which seem so innocent and removed from the interests of big city folk, sport exotic 
automobiles—Mercedes, Lotus, Jaguar, Porsche. People who live in
this area, we believe, must be quite wealthy. Once in awhile we will be
riding across the countryside and will come upon a huge country estate surrounded
by acres of mown grass and stately oak trees. These estates have shiny,
classic old limousines, Rolls Royce Silver Shadows or Bentleys. Sometimes
we see them on the road, driver capped and gloved, even in the warmest of
weather, and the Duke or Duchess, or Earl or whatever, traveling along the
little country lane to wherever he or she might be going.We took a day and went to Stratford-upon-Avon. This is the town where Shakespeare was born and lived. I must say that they have done a masterful job of creating points of interest with very few real artifacts directly related to Shakespeare. We visited 5 different areas that had some association with Shakespeare. Anne Hathaway’s house is outside of town. Anne was 
Shakespeare’s wife. The display includes the building where she lived,
furnished with some authentic pieces of the time, and a nice flower garden,
which was not there in Shakespeare’s time. At every building you must
weave your way through the gift shop in order to leave.Then it was on to Henley Street, the Shakespeare history museum, and the house where Shakespeare was born, Halls Croft where Shakespeare’s daughter lived, and then Nash’s House and New Place, where Shakespeare spent his last years. Each building was quite interesting, and most had docents to give additional information. All had interesting herb and kitchen gardens. New House had an exceptional flower garden. After these four places, I was tired and ready to call it a day, but we ended up going out of town to Mary Arden’s house. Mary was Shakespeare’s mother. This was the most interesting display of all, with an early Tudor house restored to the period, more authentic period furniture, a real farm of the times, including a falconry. The next day we went back to the Stratford area to do a bike ride Don had worked out. It was a wonderful ride, as always. On the way home we spotted some things flying in the air. I was sure that they must be hang gliders because they were just too big to be kites, but I was wrong. We took a detour and found the Kite festival, and what fun we had! 
The Kite Festival was being held at a big sports facility in Tewkesbury.
About 700 people had come to this big field, set up tents and campers for
the weekend, and got out their kites. The big one we had spotted from
the highway was an enormous green octopus, with huge eyes and long tentacles
waving out behind. There were box kites, speed kites, twirly kites,
bee kites that buzzed, silver UFO kites that spun and sparkled in the sun.
There were kite competitions, and I loved watching the kite ballet,
where operators twirl, soar and dive their kites to music, and Don loved
watching the kite racing, where kids on three-wheeled scooters were pulled
along by their kites. There was also a kite soccer game, with three
kites shaped like the lower half of a person, kicking a soccer ball kite
around. What great family fun! |
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