Monday 1st August 2005
Stratford-upon-Avon (0 miles, 0 locks)
We set a new record for us today, travelling 0 miles and 0 locks. To be honest, we needed the rest after the previous two days, and we needed to build our strength up for the theatre visit in the evening....
Apart from shopping, we didn't do much else. I had to buy a replacement hose adaptor for the one I had lost earlier. I would like to blame the kids, but I remembered forgetting it back at Cape Locks in Warwick. Jen and I walked up the canal to try and find the Tesco store, quite a long way north of Bridge 65. We didn't really need anything other than 19p loaves of bread to feed to the ducks and swans. When we got back to Hawksmoor, another Ownerships boat, Grosvenor, was moored next to us so we chatted for a while. Lucy, Robert & Rosemary returned from wandering around the market and then went off to hire a rowing boat.
Suddenly, the peace was disturbed by a helicopter circling overhead. After a couple of sweeps round, we saw that it was an air ambulance and it landed in the park about 100 yards away. Paramedics rushed out into the car-park and about ten minutes later took a mother and baby on board. One of the helicopter crew cleared the onlookers back to a safe distance and out of the flight path, and then they were up and away.
We had prawn salad for an early tea and then went to the Swan Theatre to see the production of "Thomas More", which was apparently written by several people including William Shakespeare. Rosemary had not been looking forward to it and we had given in to bribery and corruption by promising that after the performance we could get a kebab from the takeaway she had seen earlier. We tried to persuade her it might not be open late, but she had already found out that it didn't close until 3am.
The play was excellent and not too difficult to follow, even for us with our shaky knowledge of history. The kebabs were a different story. I couldn't believe that our children had never had donner kebabs before. The girls thought the meat was disgusting and I didn't help by explaining to Lucy that kebabs form the staple diet of students (at least they did 30 years ago) and she had better get used to it before she goes to university next year. Robert just ate his without comment, probably because it was food, and taste is of minor importance.