July 2, Wednesday

This morning Isabella’s ankle was not much better than it was yesterday, so she elected to stay home and give it one more day of rest.  We loaded her up with food, an ace bandage, and fully-charged computers so she could watch Netflix shows and nurse her injured self.

The rest of us went off to visit a couple of nearby English Heritage sites that we could get into for free.  The first, Wingfield Manor, was a total bust.

The first problem was that, once again, our GPS didn’t recognize the address.  We were able to get pretty close, but then had to start looking for roadside signs again.  We finally spotted one on what looked to be the correct road, but it said, “No Public Access to Wingfield Manor” with an arrow pointing up the hill at the ruins.

We drove a few miles on until we came to a place to pull over.  At this point, Adam keyed in the address a second time, and this time the GPS took it.  We followed it’s directions until it had us turn down a guy’s private driveway, and then it said “Turn left.”  The photo below is the road it was expecting us to drive down:

We backed out of the guy’s driveway and found a field to park in, and then started walking.  By this time, Adam and I were getting pretty snippy with each other.  I kept saying, “This can’t possibly be the way.  There is no way an English Heritage site would be accessed this way” and he kept staring at the map on his phone and saying in a tight voice, “It says right here on the map that it’s just at the end of this lane!”  Adam won, and we kept walking through the mud and nettles, dodging horse poop and swatting at midges and horseflies.

After passing through a cattle gate, we finally arrived at the ruins.  They were CLOSED.  Now why on earth didn’t they have a sign posted at the original proper drive that said “Site Closed for Repairs” instead of “No Public Access”??  We assumed from “No Public Access” that we just weren’t in the right place.  “Closed for Repairs” would have saved us a whole lot of time and frustration.

Anyway, here is our little peek at Wingfield Manor.

Now it’s back through the cattle gate and the hike to our car, which is parked in someone’s sheep field.

The one bright spot — baby horses!!

Back at the car, Adam keyed in the address of our next destination and off we went.  That also turned out to be a huge bust because the road to it was closed for construction.  There was a long, poorly marked detour, but we were sick and tired of going on wild goose chases. We were starting to feel like we’re cursed.

The third destination (Plan C, by this point) was Chatsworth House.  That is a big tourist draw, so it had well-marked signs and the GPS knew where it was.  We found it with no trouble.  We were starving and dehydrated, though, so we stopped at the Chatsworth Farmer’s Shop and Restaurant for lunch.  As it turned out, the restaurant was a popular place and had a 30 minute wait for a table.

Foiled again!  Feeling dejected, we wandered through the Farmer’s Shop and discovered they sold some really nice-looking food, so we bought a loaf of bread, some cheese, salami, nectarines, olives, and bottles of water.  Lunch was going to be a Skyrim picnic.  We had to rip chunks of bread and cheese off with our hands, which made it feel like a proper medieval feast.  It was delicious and fun.  The day was finally starting to look up.

Chatsworth House is truly amazing.  It has a long history that is interesting, but for here I’ll be brief:  estate taxes in England are so high that every time the person who owns it dies, roughly 80% of the value of the place is owed in estate taxes.  In order to keep this estate in the family, they’ve had to sell off a whole lot of their assets (artworks, etc.) each time someone dies in order to meet the tax burden.  Today, the family has opened the house to the public, and rents apartments in one wing of it for themselves at fair market value.

One of several grand staircases.

The oak paneling in this room came from a German monastery. The room here at Chatsworth was designed/built around it.

Holden and Josie have been losing teeth like mad all summer.  Josie has already lost two, and Holden has lost one.  He has another hanging on by the tiniest flap of skin.  Chatsworth had a big mirrored wall, so here he is examining his loose tooth.  The veins in his face show up in this photo like he’s a vampire.  I checked his face in regular lighting when we got home and he looks normal.  He showed up in the mirror, so I guess we’re all safe.

More opulence.

The estate hosts weddings, work retreats, etc.  I overheard a docent telling a couple of ladies that they make most of their money by renting out their venue to American, German, and Japanese businesses for work retreats at £10,000 per day. (That’s roughly $17,000 per day at today’s exchange rate.) Chatsworth provides the catering, as well.  This is the dining room.  (It takes roughly £4 million to run the estate each year.)

View of the grounds.  The estate has 102 acres.

Inside a tree bower.  The light was very low, hence the surreal photo.  I thought it was kind of cool.

One of their majestic water features.

That humped-up sculpted green hedge in the center of the photo (below) is the entrance to the maze.  It’s the best maze we’ve ever done.  The plants are in a good shape and you can’t see through them at all.  (In a lot of mazes, the plants are a little threadbare and you can see to the other side.)

Holden and Josie plotting their maze strategy.  They had to decide if they were going to work together, or make it a competition.  They decided on competition, and as soon as we got to the entrance they each headed off in a different direction.

In the end, Josie got to the center of the maze first … and later admitted that she cheated.  She found a small hole in the bottom of one of the hedges and wiggled through.  Holden was really mad and wanted to claim victory for himself, but that was pretty hollow, too.  Once Josie arrived in the center, she worked her way back (legally) to where we were and showed us the way.  Neither Holden nor I found it on our own, so the whole thing was a scratch.

And there we are in the middle, waving at Adam from atop a huge stone platform.  

Another magnificent water feature.

Josie (orange figure) standing in the mist being thrown off by the fountain spray.

 

When we got back home, Isabella met us at the door with her foot all wrapped up in bandages and a huge smile on her face.  She can walk again!!!  Not well, but she’s able to get around without crawling or hanging onto furniture and walls.  Hallelujah!  Tomorrow will more or less be a travel day, so she can spend most of it sitting in the car.  We all have our fingers crossed that she won’t be handicapped for too long.  I’m thrilled that she’s not in pain anymore.

Holden is having some trouble, though.  He’s been suffering from what we initially thought was a cold, but now are convinced is a pollen allergy.  We bought some allergy medicine yesterday and it’s worked wonders, so hopefully he’ll be more comfortable now, too.

He also lost the loose tooth.  Well … more accurately, I got tired of him complaining about how loose it was and how he was scared to eat anything for fear of swallowing the tooth … so I yanked it out for him.  He was none too happy, but it solved the problem.

July 3, Thursday

My suitcase has become so heavy that I can’t manage it by myself anymore.  Our packing process when we leave each location is for Adam to load the car while I make a pass through the house to make sure all of our stuff has been collected.  Invariably it hasn’t, and the forgotten items are shoved into my suitcase at the last minute.  Then they are never seen again …. it’s the black hole of suitcases.  Stuff goes in and disappears, and the density of the suitcase increases.  Nobody ever seems to miss the things shoved in there, which leads me to believe that we’re burdening ourselves with stuff we don’t need.  Then again, you don’t need anything until suddenly you do — and then having it makes all the difference in the world.  There is something to be said for being prepared.  So, I will continue to haul about the world’s heaviest suitcase.  One of these days maybe I’ll get around to organizing it and making everyone else claim their stuff.

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Our one big stop today was Stratford-upon-Avon — most famous for being Shakespeare’s birthplace and burial site.  It’s a gorgeous town, and bigger than we expected.

This is the cottage Shakespeare was born in.  The building looks like it’s been restored to it’s original condition in 1564, the year of Shakespeare’s birth.  The house has been made into a museum, but we ended up deciding not to pay to go inside.  The ticket price was pretty steep (more than $80 for a family of five) and it was incredibly crowded.  We peeked in the windows and saw that people were smashed in there so tightly they could barely move.  No thanks.  The kids were really grateful that we decided to just admire this building from the outside.

As it turned out, we had to do quite a bit more walking today than we anticipated.  We were worried about how Isabella’s ankle was going to hold up, but she exceeded all expectations.  She had to walk pretty slowly and we took quite a few breaks to sit on benches, but mostly she kept up with the pace.

The buildings in Stratford-upon-Avon have been beautifully preserved.

This is the Church of the Holy Trinity.  Shakespeare is buried here, alongside his wife (Anne Hathaway) and his two daughters and one of his sons-in-law.  His second son-in-law disgraced the family by getting another woman pregnant (and then she died in childbirth) so Shakespeare disowned him.  He’s not buried here.

Shakespeare’s grave, outlined in the blue cord.  His wife, Anne, is to the left (next to the wall.)

I was surprised to see that Shakespeare was several years younger than his wife.  He was born in 1564 and she was born in 1556.  They married when he was only 18 years old.  She was practically a spinster at age 26!  She gave birth to their first child 6 months after their wedding, which had been a hurried-up affair.  According to the literature at the church, though, a large number of brides went to the alter already pregnant back then and it wasn’t considered a scandal at the time.  “Hand fast” (probationary) marriages were routinely practiced as a precursor to legal marriage.  Shakespeare’s marriage to Anne most likely wasn’t of the shot-gun variety.

The stained-glass in this church is really nice.  That said, however, they ask a £2 “donation” from every visitor to help maintain the stained glass.  Calling it a donation is a bit of a stretch– there is a lady sitting at a cash register in front of the gravestone, which I found to be just a little bit gauche.  I didn’t like they way they handled it … either charge an entrance fee, or don’t.  Calling it a “donation” and then sticking a sentry with a cash register right in front of his resting place was kind of gross.

Exterior of the church.

Typical old buildings in the town.

By this time, Isabella was starting to over-do it on her foot.  The girls and I headed off to find a walking stick. Holden found several natural sticks in the woods around Shakespeare’s church, but none of them were strong enough (or long enough) to be of much use.  Her ankle was starting to really hurt and she was tired of hanging off Adam’s arm for support.

Adam and Holden went to Starbucks instead and got treats because they hate shopping.

We finally found a proper walking stick (i.e., old man cane) in a tobacco shop.  Isabella felt like an idiot walking around with a cane, but said it really did help.  She’s planning to use the cane as a prop for future costumes and productions in her drama club, so buying one won’t be a waste of money once her ankle is better.

Watching her walk around with this thing brings to mind Seinfeld’s Kramer in the episode with the Technicolor Dreamcoat.  (Clip here … one of my favorite scenes.  It’s from the episode “The Wig Master” in season 7.)

For the next three days we’re staying in the Cotswolds, only 14 miles from Stratford-upon-Avon, but it feels like a completely different area.  Everything in England is so close to everything else in England!

This house turned out to be absolutely awesome in every way.  It’s been newly renovated, so it’s clean and perfect and it’s right in the middle of a fabulous town.  Everything one could possibly need is within easy walking distance.  Adam and I went off exploring the town while the kids elected to stay home and play board games.  Everyone was happy.

At an antique shop less than half a block from our house, I found a little sterling silver salt cellar and pepperette set.  The pepperette is perfect for storing Holden’s and Josie’s lost teeth until we get home.  (So far, between the two of them, they have lost 4 teeth.  Josie has two more really loose ones, and Holden has one more that is going to come out any day now.)

We also found an incredible deal on a £15 duffel bag to help with my overweight suitcase problem.  It even has wheels and a handle.  It’s bright pink, so once we get it home it will probably end up belonging to one of the girls.

Stow-on-the-Wold, the picturesque little town.