Shakespeare; Wales; Onward
Feb. 6th, 2009 07:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solipsistnationThe Royal Shakespeare Company's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was, as you might imagine, quite fantastic. I have to admit that I had a moment of sighing and thinking "Oh look, punk faeries, AGAIN" before realizing they they were doing something much weirder with them, invbolving sort of puppet dolls. They also had the Indian child over whom Oberon and Titania quarreled represented by a puppet manipulated by various of the faeries. It was creepy and effective. Overall? Good production; would recommend.
This morning, we got up bright and early and packed up our tiny room to head for Paddington Station and the train south. We passed through snowstorms and back out into the sun as we hit South Wales and Cardiff and Neath. From there we braved frigid winds and the mysterious and complex Welsh bus system and rode to the village of Rhos. We alighted there, near the post office (an actual Post Brehninol post office, just like the jacket I did not bring to the UK) and walked about a mile to the farm on which is situated the cottage in which we will spend he next week.
It's really really lovely. It's a tiny house (as you might expect from the word "cottage") with a wood stove and a comfortable sitting room. We forced ourselves to walk from the farm to the local Tesco in Pontardawe for groceries-- bread (which I managed to crush on the way home. oops. squishy toast for breakfast, I guess), pasta, tomatoes, soy milk, a couple of very small bottles of wine for me, brown sauce and frozen chips for later, and so on. It's about 2 miles from here to Tesco, and 1 mile from here to the village and its smallish local store (which I suspect we will investigate tomorrow or later). We got here just in time for the weather to go from snowy and cold to sunny and cold, so it wasn't a bad walk, except that we were already tired from having trained and bussed from London to Rhos and walked around with our luggage and so on.
Wales, incidentally, seems to be inhabited mostly by very nice and friendly old ladies. We had a nice talk with a friend of the landlords of the holiday cottages on our way up the road.
Later, of course, our walk to Tesco turned into a frozen death march, but we at least made it back for dinner. I started a fire in the wood stove, and Nikki made dinner, read a little, and promptly fell asleep in front of the hearth. I'm going to have to wake her up to get her to bed in a bit, but I see no reason to do that anytime soon. It's only 7:45, and she's been asleep for half an hour... If she wakes up on her own I'll poke her into moving, but for now I'll let her sleep.
Wales is really pretty. Also we startled a grey fox on the way back home and it dashed off across a field, under the moon. In Wales. I keep thinking of Susan Cooper and "The Grey King" (part of The Dark is Rising). Tomorrow or later next week I hope we can get in some good hiking around in the hills here...
For now, we have a fire and my toes are toasty, and I have a book and a last glass of wine and my wife sleeping nearby. That'll do.
This morning, we got up bright and early and packed up our tiny room to head for Paddington Station and the train south. We passed through snowstorms and back out into the sun as we hit South Wales and Cardiff and Neath. From there we braved frigid winds and the mysterious and complex Welsh bus system and rode to the village of Rhos. We alighted there, near the post office (an actual Post Brehninol post office, just like the jacket I did not bring to the UK) and walked about a mile to the farm on which is situated the cottage in which we will spend he next week.
It's really really lovely. It's a tiny house (as you might expect from the word "cottage") with a wood stove and a comfortable sitting room. We forced ourselves to walk from the farm to the local Tesco in Pontardawe for groceries-- bread (which I managed to crush on the way home. oops. squishy toast for breakfast, I guess), pasta, tomatoes, soy milk, a couple of very small bottles of wine for me, brown sauce and frozen chips for later, and so on. It's about 2 miles from here to Tesco, and 1 mile from here to the village and its smallish local store (which I suspect we will investigate tomorrow or later). We got here just in time for the weather to go from snowy and cold to sunny and cold, so it wasn't a bad walk, except that we were already tired from having trained and bussed from London to Rhos and walked around with our luggage and so on.
Wales, incidentally, seems to be inhabited mostly by very nice and friendly old ladies. We had a nice talk with a friend of the landlords of the holiday cottages on our way up the road.
Later, of course, our walk to Tesco turned into a frozen death march, but we at least made it back for dinner. I started a fire in the wood stove, and Nikki made dinner, read a little, and promptly fell asleep in front of the hearth. I'm going to have to wake her up to get her to bed in a bit, but I see no reason to do that anytime soon. It's only 7:45, and she's been asleep for half an hour... If she wakes up on her own I'll poke her into moving, but for now I'll let her sleep.
Wales is really pretty. Also we startled a grey fox on the way back home and it dashed off across a field, under the moon. In Wales. I keep thinking of Susan Cooper and "The Grey King" (part of The Dark is Rising). Tomorrow or later next week I hope we can get in some good hiking around in the hills here...
For now, we have a fire and my toes are toasty, and I have a book and a last glass of wine and my wife sleeping nearby. That'll do.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 07:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 07:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 08:07 pm (UTC)Also email me your mailing address. 8) (You have my email, I think, right?)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 08:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 07:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 08:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 09:12 pm (UTC)Sounds idyllic though, esp in this weather. What better excuse to park up and relax? Good food, a stove, and crappy weather. Sounds perfect.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 09:48 pm (UTC)And yep, food, stove, stack of books... I may need to go get more food in a bit (and probably more firewood, actually, but that's less of a hike) but overall it's really lovely. I'm about to go to bed, nice and early. Ahh.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-06 10:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-07 01:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-07 10:56 am (UTC)In defense of my own geographical ignorance, I will point out that on a quiz show we watched the other day, several actual British people, when asked to name US states, actually named US cities.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-07 05:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-07 09:51 pm (UTC)I must have an overactive ox filter that's distorting my local reality.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-07 10:20 pm (UTC)I'm sorry to disappoint. There were definitely sheep today.