Today started quite early - we met in the hotel lobby at 7:30a for a bus ride out to Warwick Castle. The bus was quite quiet - many of us took the opportunity to nap or catch up on their journals. The countryside was beautiful! Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a sheep with a number on it. Lacking sleep, I thought the sheep from the Serta ad had escaped and was now in the fields of England. I kept an eye out and found that many sheep were numbered, or at least had some sort of paint on them.
On to the castle - they have many waxworks figures (Madame Tussaud's did the figures) mixed in with live actors. Sometimes it was difficult to tell which were alive and which weren't. There were wonderful gardens as well. It would have been easy to spend a whole day there.
Next stop - Ann Hathaway's cottage and gardens. The roof on the cottage is still thatch as it would have been in Shakespeare's time. Lovely gardens here as well. More odd trivia - the phrase "upper crust" comes from 1600's when baking bread in the brick ovens, the bottom crust would be burnt and would be used to feed the chickens or the household help. The "upper crust" would be reserved for the owners.
A quick run through Stratford for lunch and then a tour of Shakespeare's birthplace. On this tour we learned the origins of a few other phrases - "sleep tight" referred to the ropes that typically supported the mattress and they needed to be tightened on occasion to ensure a good night's sleep. "Feeling a bit ropey" refers to after a bad night's sleep on the same type of bed.
I'll let someone else tell more of the story.... WRH
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