Day 23 London-Stratford (Tuesday 10 April)
My train didn't leave Marylebone Station Stratford-upon-Avon train until 10:40, so I could make a civilised departure. Just as well, as despite leaving the smaller case with inamac and lil_shepherd, and putting in it everything I thought I wouldn't need, my suitcase was dismayingly heavy. A kind young man took it down the stairs at my London hotel for me, and my Stratford landlady took it up. I've no idea why it's so heavy. *shakes head in sorrow* However, I was pleased to see that at Marylebone you hop off the bus and stroll across a taxi access road straight into the station. Unheard of ease of access, for London.
The departure platform wasn't notified until quite late, so having had experience of changes there in the past I waited in the general concourse area rather than going to the advertised platform. Just as well: it was a different platform. By then I was quite chilled, and had put on all my outer garments, but a big container of hot chocolate from the ATM kiosk fixed me right up once I was on the train. Though I was quite content to keep on all my layers until after I'd settled into the Stratford hotel.
I do enjoy sitting in a train looking at the passing scenery. The hedgerows were full of tiny white blossom (hawthorn?) all the way, the fields were very green despite the drought, the cows looked contented, I had the occasional glimpse of barges on the Oxford Canal, and even the towns were interesting.
In Stratford-upon-Avon the weather was also supposed to be "heavy rain", but not a bit of it. Some clouding over mid afternoon was all. This made strolling about much pleasanter. I didn't set out to look at the place (I've been there often before, and was tired), just to collect my theatre tickets from the RSC.
Never having stayed in that part of the town before, though, I managed to get disoriented, and wound up at Holy Trinity Church instead of at the theatre. That just required an easy walk along Waterside to fix. I kept going to the tourist office, at the foot of Bridge St (yes, of course there's a bridge over the Avon there, and a wonderful snarl the traffic is around it, too). There I managed to scrounge a tiny map (a flyer for a tea shop) of part of the inner town to prevent getting confused again, and walked slowly up Bridge St, looking at the shops, dodging the other pedestrians, and locating my bus stop for the bus to Birmingham on Saturday. I invested in some fruit juice from M&S (a great variety that larger shop had), and some coca cola from W H Smith, though I didn't feel strong enough to drink anything but fruit juice.
By the time I was back at the hotel the juice and coke felt very heavy! I staggered upstairs and lay down and more or less zonked out for several hours. I roused only to pull a blanket over myself, and around 5 pm to eat lunch (taramasalata with mini wholemeal pittas from M&S, very tasty).
About 6:30 I made myself get up and went to ask the landlady to write down the wifi password for me, as I couldn't get on the net. Turned out I'd heard her wrong: "mile" for "mail". (She's Russian, from Latvia, married to an Englishman; so of course her fate was to become a Stratford landlady, and to do all the work herself. She's very cheerful and helpful, though.) She had earlier said I could use the hotel's washing machine, so I wanted to negotiate that, too. She offered to do it for me, and put it through the dryer. I was very grateful; I didn't feel in the least like hanging over washing for a couple of hours! In the wee small hours I found my bag of washing outside my door, so took it in and went back to bed. If this morning I discovered it was all decidedly damp, so that I'd have to wear yesterday's outer clothes again, while the damp stuff was draped about the room to air dry, I didn't mind too much: it still beat sitting up with laundry.
Maybe today I might look at a few things before having an afternoon sleep to make sure I stay awake in the theatre tonight.
The departure platform wasn't notified until quite late, so having had experience of changes there in the past I waited in the general concourse area rather than going to the advertised platform. Just as well: it was a different platform. By then I was quite chilled, and had put on all my outer garments, but a big container of hot chocolate from the ATM kiosk fixed me right up once I was on the train. Though I was quite content to keep on all my layers until after I'd settled into the Stratford hotel.
I do enjoy sitting in a train looking at the passing scenery. The hedgerows were full of tiny white blossom (hawthorn?) all the way, the fields were very green despite the drought, the cows looked contented, I had the occasional glimpse of barges on the Oxford Canal, and even the towns were interesting.
In Stratford-upon-Avon the weather was also supposed to be "heavy rain", but not a bit of it. Some clouding over mid afternoon was all. This made strolling about much pleasanter. I didn't set out to look at the place (I've been there often before, and was tired), just to collect my theatre tickets from the RSC.
Never having stayed in that part of the town before, though, I managed to get disoriented, and wound up at Holy Trinity Church instead of at the theatre. That just required an easy walk along Waterside to fix. I kept going to the tourist office, at the foot of Bridge St (yes, of course there's a bridge over the Avon there, and a wonderful snarl the traffic is around it, too). There I managed to scrounge a tiny map (a flyer for a tea shop) of part of the inner town to prevent getting confused again, and walked slowly up Bridge St, looking at the shops, dodging the other pedestrians, and locating my bus stop for the bus to Birmingham on Saturday. I invested in some fruit juice from M&S (a great variety that larger shop had), and some coca cola from W H Smith, though I didn't feel strong enough to drink anything but fruit juice.
By the time I was back at the hotel the juice and coke felt very heavy! I staggered upstairs and lay down and more or less zonked out for several hours. I roused only to pull a blanket over myself, and around 5 pm to eat lunch (taramasalata with mini wholemeal pittas from M&S, very tasty).
About 6:30 I made myself get up and went to ask the landlady to write down the wifi password for me, as I couldn't get on the net. Turned out I'd heard her wrong: "mile" for "mail". (She's Russian, from Latvia, married to an Englishman; so of course her fate was to become a Stratford landlady, and to do all the work herself. She's very cheerful and helpful, though.) She had earlier said I could use the hotel's washing machine, so I wanted to negotiate that, too. She offered to do it for me, and put it through the dryer. I was very grateful; I didn't feel in the least like hanging over washing for a couple of hours! In the wee small hours I found my bag of washing outside my door, so took it in and went back to bed. If this morning I discovered it was all decidedly damp, so that I'd have to wear yesterday's outer clothes again, while the damp stuff was draped about the room to air dry, I didn't mind too much: it still beat sitting up with laundry.
Maybe today I might look at a few things before having an afternoon sleep to make sure I stay awake in the theatre tonight.