Summer in Stratford

(with apologies for the lack of ‘holiday blogs’ – I will get back to it, but I’ve been too busy to catch up)

As we sit by the River Avon in the burning sunshine, I comment to Corinne that it’s days like this that I want to bottle, and take out when it’s dark and miserable. Yes, there are a few Stratford chavs around (the sun always brings them out, as it’s too far to go to the coast), but I love summer in Stratford. I know it well enough to get away from the crowds, and I never feel like a tourist.

There have to be few better things in the world than a leisurely boat trip on the Avon, even though the sight of the shell of the RST still gives me a pang. At least now I can see the new theatre starting to rise from the rubble. We pick out the house with the garden running down to the river, we admire the flora and fauna (I like ducks, they don’t look as if they will peck you to death) from a safe distance, and as we sail down past the church, I think of Will, who lies there. It really is my spiritual home.

We discover fabulous little shops, and I spend money on things I don’t need, convincing myself I’m still on holiday.

In the baking sun of the afternoon, the newly discovered Pimm’s Garden of the Dirty Duck is an ideal retreat. We’re not the only ones who think so. Shade is hard to come by, and I eventually resort to using my umbrella as a parasol. We’re a stone’s throw (probably literally, if you lobbed one over the wall) from the Courtyard Theatre, where, in my head at least, David Tennant is at this point receiving notes on last night’s performance of Hamlet*. At this moment, there have to be few better places to be in the world. Good wine, good company, good friends. Heaven.

*of which there is definately more to come