I live in Brisbane, Australia but recently flew back home to see my Mum and Dad in the UK following the passing of my Gran.
While I was there, Mum and I booked tickets to watch Shakespeare's Henry V which was being put on in Gloucester Cathedral (about an hour's drive from Mum's house) by a troupe called Antic Disposition.
We decided to make a day of it, arrived in Gloucester just before lunch and headed into town to find somewhere to eat.
After a while we peered down an alleyway to see an old pub in a courtyard. It was too old and cool to turn down, so we headed in.
I loved being there because one thing I miss from the UK is the history. In Australia, you don't have that every day immersion in stories that you get in countries with settlements that are centuries old. Australia is awesome in many ways, but living here has made me appreciate this aspect of the UK more than I did growing up there.
^the view from the pub window, back up the alleyway.
After lunch we headed out for a stroll around the town and found the historic docks. They were fun but to be honest, it was starting to get pretty cold and to spit with rain so we didn't hang around too long.
I think we killed the next few hours by drinking coffee, chatting and then grabbing some dinner before heading to Gloucester Cathedral for the play - we were so excited that even the driving sleet and plummeting temperatures couldn't dampen our spirits.
(^taken earlier, before the sleet... I wasn't about to pull out my camera in that!)
We huddled outside the main doors, but under cover (thankfully) and then were finally let inside. The first thing that hit me was that, to my amazement, they had actually managed to heat the inside of the massive structure! I had been convinced that it would be as cold inside as out, but no.
Needless to say, the inside was vast, with several massive chambers as well as lots of warren-like tunnels, the like of which I'd never seen before, even in the Oxford Universities (my original home town).
Then they put on the play. I was enthralled. It happened in the choir practice area of the cathedral, meaning the audience were sitting either side of the performance area, so close to the actors that we could have touched them.
It felt strange to be staring at people who were standing so close but wouldn't look back at you unless their part was to address the crowd. It felt almost rude to do so (perhaps that's the Englishman in me).
The play was set as if wounded soldiers from World War 1 were performing the play while recovering in hospital. I believe this was to mark the anniversary of the war. It also happened to be the year of Shakespeare's 400th birthday, so that was a double.
After the play we headed out and back to the car. It was about 11pm and the sleet had stopped but it was still bitterly cold. We finally reached the car park, where there were very few cars left and approached Mum's car to see...
That someone (or ones) had broken into it and attempted to hotwire it... unsuccessfully.
We called it in to the police who could do very little and then it dawned on us that we were stranded and the pubs (the only things still open in the town) would now be closing.
To make matters worse, Mum doesn't have a smart phone and I didn't have one with UK coverage. Stranded old-school style!
I told Mum that we had to get into a pub and make ourselves someone else's problem as well as our own, reasoning that they wouldn't leave us out on the street after closing the pub.
Most of them were shut... but we eventually found one and some wonderful locals rallied around us, lent us smartphones, made suggestions and eventually we found a travel lodge with space (after trying about 5). One of the locals drove us there and we were saved.
Next day we grabbed breakfast and rang around to organise a tow back to Mum's place.
Just a side-note... if you have fully comprehensive insurance on an old car... don't bother! They give you nothing when it's written off.
Anyway, long story short... we sorted out a tow guy at a great price, shot a quick frame of pool and made it home.
I'd been determined to have fun with Mum no matter what and, somehow, we manged to stay upbeat through the crappy bits of the outing enough to preserve the glorious parts in our memories for what they were.
Moral?
Never park in a car park that doesn't have CCTV cameras haha!
#travel #shakespeare #gloucester #uk
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