As promised last night, here is another post. This time I thought I'd let you know what we've been up to during Bill's visit. I've included links to more information and photo sites so you can get a better feel for what we did and saw.
We really had a great time! One of the highlights was a trip to the "Panto" on John's birthday (Jan 2nd). Panto is short for "Pantomime" and it's an old traditional theatrical event usually staged around Christmas/New Year. For our American friends it has nothing to do with mime. It's a musical play based on a fairy story or a nursery rhyme or something similar. It could be Cinderella, Puss-In-Boots, Peter Pan, Sinbad the Sailor, Old King Cole, etc., etc. In the old days the principal boy would be played by a woman and the dame would be played by a man. There is lots of slapstick, glitzy costumes, singing and dancing and (best of all) tremendous audience participation.
Pantos are put on by professional theatres, amateur dramatic groups, women's guilds, church groups, everyone! The one we went to had professionals in the main roles and drama/dance school pupils in the "chorus". It was loosely based on the story of Dick Whittington and his Cat. Dick Whittington was played by a soap star from Neighbours and the chief "baddy" -King Rat - was played by the guy who is Percy Weasley in the Harry Potter movies. There was lots of hissing and booing everytime he came on.
Dame Kitty Crumpet had a different costume everytime he/she came on and we all had to yell "Hello Kitty"! There were several times when he/she and other members of the cast completely lost the plot and dissolved into fits of laughter, at which point they would turn and talk to the audience and crack a few more corny off-the-cuff jokes. Needless to say there was much groaning and booing!
In addition to the slapstick, crude sexual inuendo and groan jokes, the audience got to do the old "Oh no it isn't"/"Oh yes it is" routines, shouted "It's behind yer" whenever the baddy crept up on someone and generally got into the act with rude comments shouted at people on the stage and other fun stuff.
As Bill said - it was a real hoot!
Jan 4th was our 37th anniversary. During the day we took a drive down to Hay-On-Wye, a town full of bookshops. Anyone who likes browsing through bookshops should plan to spend a few days there! We were only able to cope with a few. The three of us came back loaded with MORE reading materials - Goodness knows why, our house is overflowing with books now! The drive down and back was nice too and gave Bill a chance to see some of the lovely rolling, green, bucolic Shropshire and Herefordshire scenery. In the evening we had a delicious meal at our smashing local restaurant - The Studio. We really like it there. The food is wonderful, the atmosphere cosy and comfortable and the proprietors are friendly and interesting to talk to.
Jan 5th was a day of driving lessons, shopping and exploring around Shrewsbury. We ate lunch at our favorite Shrewsbury pub - The Three Fishes. This is a SMOKEFREE pub which serves nice traditional English food and very good, well kept beer.
Friday Jan 6th was the day Bill was supposed to leave for Manchester airport. So we left in the morning and went to Manchester via North Wales!!!!! It's a bit of a long way around but it was worth it. Drove up the Roman Road (A5 - Watling Street) from Shrewsbury through Llangollen, stopping at Pontcysyllte to take a walk by the canal and look at the terrifying canal aquaduct over the Dee Valley.
After coffee in Llangollen (a very picturesque market town and home to the International Eisteddfod) we carried on into Snowdownia National Park. The mountains were sheathed in cloud, but we could see the tops of some of them and they were snow covered - it was very impressive. I had forgotten what rugged mountain scenery there is in North Wales, and it's only a couple of hours drive from here.
We decided to pull over and eat cream doughnuts while viewing Llyn Ogwen when we were treated to the sight of a goat with the biggest horns I've ever seen running down the road. Shortly after we were able to watch as a panting and perspiring park ranger chased the goat back down the road and with the help of a co-worker shooed him through a gate in the dry stone wall and back onto the mountain!
From Snowdonia we headed to the coast and Llandudno. This is a lovely old seaside resort. The hotels on the front are all painted in pastel "icing sugar" colours and there's still a covered shopping street running parallel to the front. The pier seems to be functional and there's good walking along the promenade complete with views of oyster catchers, red shanks and lots of gulls. We took a drive around The Great Orme, walked along the front and then had the traditional supper of fish and chips before taking Bill on to his hotel in Manchester.
I had a great time with our first U.S. visitor and I'm very thankful to Bill for coming over. We hope to see lots more visitors in the months to come.
