Breathe England

Mrs. Shepherd is the ghost that resides in one cobwebbed corner of the BYU London Centre.  I’ve never seen her, but everyone can smell her.  Her cigarette smoke clings to the ceilings in flat 28 and even seeps into the library on cold days when she doesn’t want to open her windows.

Decades ago this building was just a normal flat complex.  Old Mrs. Shepherd lived comfortably on the third floor and apparently didn’t feel like moving out when BYU bought the place.  Technically, when she signed the lease for her flat she was promised to be able to live in the same place as long as she paid her rent.  BYU came along and tried to negotiate.  They offered to find her another place nearby, move all of her stuff there for her, and take care of everything to the point of she would hardly notice there had been a ruffle in her day-to-day life.

“Stubborn” would be the kindest way to describe the old lady.  BYU, having no other choice, finally settled for allowing her to continue to live as she always had.  I suppose they had been hoping that she would die soon and then they would have that problem off of their plates.

Naturally, she’s reaching for her nineties now and still puffin’ away upstairs, seemingly as healthy as can be.  She doesn’t leave her flat, as far as I know.  She has her groceries brought to her door and she doesn’t seem to have any friends to visit. 

She was a refugee out of Hungary and was widowed before she could have any children of her own.  No one ever comes to visit Mrs. Shepherd.  She doesn’t have a friend in the world.  That’s not to say people haven’t tried to befriend her.  For a good chunk of her elderly life she has been surrounded by sixty Mormons, of course she couldn’t escape attempts of people washing her dishes or reading her stories.  But she wont have it.  She wants to be alone.

All Mrs. Shepherd wants is her telly and her Belmont cigarettes.

I’ve told you about our shadow of a neighbor because I thought perhaps you might like to be updated on the rats.  Yes- we found the core of the invasion.

A giant colony is living in her walls, between her cluttered furniture, and probably even under her refrigerator.  Action has yet to be taken, although we have all been provided steel wool to stuff into holes in the walls that may look as though they are being used by rats or mice.  Comforting. 

To escape the epidemic for a few hours, several of us decided to go to a football game.  Upon entering the stadium we could hear chanting.  The fans of the German team that we were playing against were already in one corner of the stands, roped off and even guarded by some yellow-jacketed Bobbies.  What was funny was how organized they were.  A shirtless conductor with colors painted on his face stood at the front and led his large group in songs and chants that echoed across the field.  At that point the game hadn’t even started.  Their little production continued throughout the entire game.  Not a single German ever sat down.  In fact, I’m not sure if they ever took a moment to breathe properly. 

Brittany bought a scarf and was kind enough to let me wear it for a while so that I felt like a true British football fan.  The English didn’t have a constant hum of organized jeering going on like the Germans, but we did learn a few chants that we were able to catch onto.  My favorite: “Well done Fullham! (clap clap clap) Well done Fullham! (clap clap clap)”  

We were completely into the game the entire time.  In some cases this may have been because some of the girls picked players to watch throughout the game rather than actually watch the ball.  I just enjoyed the irony of the same single player getting bashed in the head over and over again.  Football players are so over-dramatic…

We won, and were pretty excited about it.

The Germans were excited too.  More bobbies appeared to make sure that we safely got passed the sore losers.  They weren’t allowed to move from their seats until the other fans had all evacuated from the stadium.  We were a little nervous passing them.  They screamed German at us but the little English that I did hear them yelling at us wasn’t very polite English.

That same week we had a day of Shakespeare.  We all set out for the bus early in the morning after packing our lunches, but were confused when we didn’t see Tony behind the wheel.  Luckily that got cleared up quickly.  Britain has some crazy bus-driving rules and our day trip entailed so much driving that we were required to split the job between two drivers.  Tony would be meeting us later and driving us home.  Once the girls were able to stop panicking over the loss of Tony, we filed onto the bus and started our adventure.

We visited the place where Shakespeare’s mother grew up, where his wife grew up, and finally his own birthplace.  All three places were relatively close together, either in or near the town Stratton-Upon-Avon.  It is so named for the river Avon that runs through it.  We tried to take a picture on this river but those boats are kind of hard to get into, hence my flailing legs.

Mary Arden was the name of Shakespeare’s mother.  She grew up on a farm, and so the location is again as it originally was.  Well, I suppose it’s more like a petting zoo now.  

I loved the pigs- they were adorable.

Falconry is also practiced here.  I put on a thick leather glove and held a stringy piece of red meat between my fingers. The end result was this huge owl on my wrist.  Precious bonding moment let me tell you.

The actual house was relatively small and filled with taxidermy.  I’ve never seen a country love dead, stuffed animals like England.  They even had cats stuffed and positioned as though they were the house cats of the Arden family, just hanging on the windowsill. 

This woman scared me when I walked into the entrance.  Not only is she set up to look as though she’s plucking a stuffed dead chicken splattered with ret paint, but she is very happy to be doing it.  

Ann Hathaway’s house was just a short bus trip away.  This was Shakespeare’s wife, not the current movie celebrity Ann Hathaway. 

It was cool; we got to see some furniture that belonged to Shakespeare and his wife’s family, like a large show bed and the “courting chair.”  We also got to learn a little more about what life was like for them. 

My favorite fact: they used chickens to clean out chimneys.  Obviously the buildup of soot was dangerous.  So all they had to do was climb onto the roof with a chicken and a rope.  Tie one end of the rope around the chicken’s feet and stuff it down the chimney.  Naturally, the chicken is going to get a little panicky being hung upside down in a dark sooty tunnel.  The flapping of its wings would loosen the soot and therefore clean the chimney out. 

Apparently this is still practiced in France.

It was nearly walking distance to the center of town where “the birthplace” is.

The town itself was very quaint, and really revolved solely on the very existence of Shakespeare.  Nearly every little shop or restaurant was named after him. 

“The birthplace” was basically like a Shakespeare Disneyland, as Sarah put it.  We walked in groups through rooms where the doors opened automatically and they were decorated to portray what it would have been like in Shakespeare’s time.  We got to see some neat things on display, like the playwright’s little Bible that he used to carry with him.  I was amazed at how much information has really been accumulated about him.  I swear I had a middle school teacher who told me that there was no evidence Shakespeare ever existed!  My whole life has been a lie! 

This is the place he was born.  Inside it had been redone to look as it had when Shakespeare was wailing all night from his crib.  I moved quickly through, not all that impressed with what they had there.  I did learn, however, that in those days people slept sitting up.  They had enormous pillows that propped them upright, which looks extremely uncomfortable to me.  But it was worth it to them; otherwise evil spirits could kill them in the dark of the night.  To lay down flat looked like death, and if you slept with your mouth open the evil spirits could go inside of your body and take your soul.  I’ve found that sleeping in a sitting position actually increases the likeliness that my mouth will hang open oh-so-attractively, but that’s just me.

“Alas, poor Yorik.  I knew him well.”

I found this skull sitting in some dirt at the base of a tree behind Shakespeare’s house.  To reassure the more gullible- it is plastic.

Walking around the town I spotted this library.  It was established in 1906.  Sadly no one else was excited about this.  I forced Ashael into this picture with me.  While everyone stood in the middle of the street debating about which Americanized restaurant we should eat at I slipped through the big ancient door and took a look around.  I was surprised at how modern the inside was, but appreciated that they kept the outside looking as it had back in the day.

Before we ate we spied a Christmas shop.  Ironically, we had been humming premature Christmas songs all week.  You know how it is when you can’t get them out of your head no matter what time of year it is?  

It was really cute inside.  I’ve never seen so many ornaments in one place.  A sign inside said 84 Days ‘Til Christmas.  Yikes!

This is the chapel were William Shakespeare is buried.

Low doorways are a constant reminder of how old things here are-- dating from back when people were a bit shorter.

Here they have a sign laminated and propped up so that visitors can read what Shakespeare had asked to be written on the stone above his grave.  The letters are still there, but are faded with time.  It reads: "Good Frend For Iesvs Sake Forebeare, To Digg The Dvst Encloased Heare. Blese Be Ye Man That Spares These Stones and Cvrst Be He That Moves My Bones"

There was once an idea to move Shakespeare's remains to Poet's Corner in Westminster Abby.  Maybe this is why they chickened out.

The font he was baptized in.

We each had a thin-crust pizza to ourselves at an Italian restaurant before heading over to the Courtyard Theater.  Dr. Paxman was at the door handing us our tickets to watch Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale.  I was less than thrilled when we took our seats in the back of the highest balcony.  It was our fourth Shakespeare play.  Uuuugh…

I like Shakespeare.  I enjoy his plays.  But four in three weeks is enough to bore me a little bit. 

By intermission I was sneaking out.  Megan and I looked out for professors that would have been disappointed to see us ditching Mr. S’s play as we slipped down the stairs and out into the night. 

We made it out without incident and were excited to look for something spontaneous to do.  A few streets down we came upon a haunted tour that we had passed by earlier in the day.  A group was gathered in front of the wooden gates and we tried to melt into the crowd.

We were soon spotted by a graying man in a top hat, who asked if we’d made reservations.

“No,” we admitted, to which he informed us that the tour was full.  We were in the middle of expressing our disappointment when a hunched, greasy man with stringy black hair approached our top hat man and began whispering to him.

After eying us over, the hunched man stalked off into the darkness behind the door and the Top Hat man turned and said, “That's my boss.  He says you can come if you make sure you squeeze real tight-like into the tiny rooms we'll be in.  You wont be any trouble, will you?”  

Seven pounds each, and we were officially ready to get the daylights scared out of us.

We passed through the wooden gates into a dimly lit cobble-stoned ally.  We finally stopped in front of a sagging old building that is a museum during the daytime hours.  The building is the oldest in the city, and also is supposedly the most haunted in England.  In it’s long history it has been a barracks, a hospital, and an inn- and apparently has been the scene of many deaths.  Part of the building is still used by the 26 “white witches” that inhabit the town.  This place has appeared on the television show “Most Haunted”.  Of course, I’ve always thought those shows are ridiculous, over-dramatic, and entirely staged.  I knew the tour would be the same.

Our top hat guide picked up a lantern just as all of the streetlights went out.  We could only see our guide’s profile standing up on a wooden bench when told us that there would be no people in there to spook us.  There were only “the spirits”.  Also, if we felt a wee bit possessed at any time during the tour, we should let him know.  Scoff.

But as we entered the first dark room Megan and I linked arms… just in case.  Our guide forgot to mention the creepy wax figures standing in every corner of the museum.  A frozen life-sized archer right next to my face almost had me running out of the room.  They were everywhere, depicting figures from history.  Some of their spirits were still supposed to be lingering in the darkness with us.

Mr. Top Hat had been telling us the truth about how no people would be in there to scare us.  His gory stories and sudden jerking movements were enough to make people jump and scream.  Some people even claimed to be feeling something paranormal brush passed them or grab their hands.  The only thing I felt was Megan cutting off the circulation in my arm. 

Some stories were really disturbing; like in one room they found the skeleton of a baby without any limbs hidden beneath a floorboard.  Apparently it had been used by some witches who practiced black magic, etc.  That is probably one of the tamer stories.

Perhaps I would have been more scared if I hadn’t been so excited to be with a group of British people.  The rooms were so small we were crammed in shoulder to shoulder.  Occasionally a little British woman would grab onto my free arm when she got scared.

“Sorry, love, I know I don’t know you but you do make me feel safer,” one said.  How can I be properly spooked with that happening?

Megan and I left the building without any of the spirits following us, which was a good thing because we really didn’t have time for the creepy stringy-haired boss to “help us get rid of evil spirits.”

We rushed back to the theater in time to see the last fifteen minutes of the play.  Our friends emerged half-asleep.  I was far from sleepy.

Back in London the next day a few of us decided to hit up the Tate Modern.  On our way we got a little lost for a while.  We found these tunnels, which was cool.  

I thought it was such a cool idea!  We've resolved to come back with spray paint to make our mark.

Eventually we made it to the Tate.  I must admit, I have a hard time truly appreciating modern art.  Not in all cases, I suppose.  I saw some things that really expressed an idea.  But blotching shapeless paint onto a blank canvas… someone please explain to me how that depicts some deep meaning…

But there were a few things I liked.  Seeing Andy Warhol’s stuff was pretty cool. 

The next day our whole group was scheduled for a nine-mile hike.  Apparently Mother Nature had also scheduled for intense downpours.  That didn’t stop us!  We ventured out to the countryside in Kent.  We walked through fields and down dirt roads until we came to Castle Farm.  I bought myself some Castle Farm apple juice, which was amazing.  Ashael got some lemonade and discovered there was alcohol in her little treat.  Quite funny.

At a nearby river there was a swan and her ugly grey ducklings.  I decided to share a bit of my packed lunch with her.  I've been bit by a goose before and it hurts!  So I was surprised that the swan chomping on my fingers to get the bread didn't hurt.  I've made the life-altering discovery that I like swans better than geese.

We ate berries that were growing wild along the trail.  Although I don’t normally love blackberries, these were truly amazing. They were tiny, but loaded with the taste of blackberry pie!  We couldn’t get enough.

We passed this old castle gate from the Tudor era but did not stop there.  In fact, we did not stop until we came to a wooden bridge that crossed a ditch and brought us to towering stone ruins.  

This was once a Norman castle with a moat surrounding it. I’m sure it was once pretty grand, but now Eynsford Castle is mostly rubble.  It was here that we sat down on the stones and had some lunch.  I took two bags of chips this time, being frustrated at the lunch options of either ham or pb&j. 

Some crazy girls decided to practice their rock climbing skills on the old walls.  This place was surrounded by nothing but forest, so there was no one to order them down.

It was as we were leaving the castle that it began to rain.  Most of us had umbrellas, so it wasn’t a big deal.  One girl insisted on leaving her umbrella tucked inside of her backpack while she got completely soaked.  I think she was hoping for a Jane Austen-created experience.  Too bad for her, handsome men gallivanting around on stallions are hard to come by even in England these days.

It was when we got deeper into the forest that the umbrellas became cumbersome.  I was forced to put mine away when our guide accidentally led us down a non-existent path.  Leaves covered the ground and were so slippery from the rain that it became nature’s slip n’ slide!  Girls were half slipping, half tumbling down the very steep hill that our guide took us on.  A few people hit trees!  Our guide, who was relatively old, slipped on the wet leaves and fell flat on his back.  I hardly had time to gasp before he was back on his feet and half-sprinting down the mountain again.  Who knew it would be so hard to keep up with such an old guy?

By the time we got back onto the train to take us to London my shoes were squelching and my hair was dripping.  The hour ride back was a cold one, which I spent buried in the book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which is hilarious and I recommend it. 

After showering and getting warm I was able to say that the hike was tons of fun.  Some others may not have considered it worth it, seeing as they woke up in the morning with the flu.  Two of those people happen to be in bunks right beside my bed.  Wish me luck in trying not to contract anything.

Everything we saw was gorgeous.