The Best Birthday Surprise Holiday!

I am the luckiest. It is quite possible that this year I received the best birthday present I could even dream to get. A while ago, Tim said that he wanted to take me somewhere for my birthday weekend, but it was a surprise. I love surprises!! Really, anywhere away for the weekend with such good company would be great! So I made some guesses in my head, but I would not let myself guess Stratford-Upon-Avon, because that would be too fantastic. Well we were off and running on Friday morning and I fell asleep in the car, when I woke up and there were signs for Stratford-Upon-Avon... and EVEN THEN... I thought... no, no way. So I asked Tim how much longer it would be until we arrived and he said it would be about an hour, then 5 minutes later he said, "we're here!" I was so excited!!!

We checked into our really beautiful Hotel, The Shakespeare Hotel, nonetheless. :o) Then as if that was not enough... Tim gave me tickets to the Royal Shakespeare Company's performance of The Tempest!! It was incredible. I felt so spoiled! We decided to walk about town a bit before the theatre that night and ate at a place called Mistress Quickly's, a place named after the Tavern keeper in the Henriad.Friday night, we dressed up and went out to a beautiful meal and saw a really incredible performance. I've read that the way in which The Tempest is often performed now is with a post-colonial slant. This performance would fit that description; most poignently when the last two lines of Prospero's epilouge, Caliban returns to the stage and they are spoken to him and not the audience. Brilliant. Really well done.

On Saturday we had a delicious breakfast and went around to all the Shakespeare historical sites! However, our first stop was a place I have longed hope to visit... The Royal Shakespeare Company Library and Archives :o) Many of you know that I study English Literature here in Leeds. You may not know is that I have loved reading and seeing Shakespeare since I first read it in Mr. Vinson's seventh grade class. What most of you don't know is that recently I decided on my thesis topic, and this particular topic would involve some research in the Royal Shakespeare Company Archives, with materials you can only really acquire in Stratford. It is a topic I really wanted to do, but wasn't sure if I could afford to get to Stratford, how I would get there, time, etc. This birthday present even offered me the opportunity to do some real research, was so great!! We were there for an hour or so, and I ordered some photocopies of documents whilst Tim sat very patiently reading his book. He is the best.

Some highlights from our tour around the gardens and houses are below, for the full effect of the trip and to see more pictures, you are welcome to look at the photos posted on my flickr account.

Tim and Rachel outside of Nash's House

In front of Anne Hathaway's Cottage!
Tim and I in the back of Shakespeare's Birthplace
In front of Shakespeare's Birthplace :o)

Tim explaining the way that they built houses in those days at Mary Arden's Farm!

All in all a pretty fantastic way to start my 27th year. Thanks Tim! x