Day 4 - Much Better Evening!

After a wonderful lunch by the river Avon with Tony and Bren Hill, and a stroll up the river to Holy Trinity Church, where Shakespeare was buried, we had a nearly 4- hour nap this afternoon, which made a world of difference! We were picked up at 7:30 pm by the glorious Tony, whom Terry and I met in San Francisco at a Shakespeare Theatre Association of America conference in the early 90's (he was from the RSC, we were from Seattle Shakes of course, and we Bonded while passing rude and witty notes at the back of a rather boring lecture). We have been friendly ever since. Tony had Terry come over here for a job 8 years ago, and we keep trying to figure out how to get Tony to come work with us, as we just love he and his wife Bren.

Anyway we went to have a perfect evening with them and Bren's sweet Mum. There was champagne (Tallis had a taste of it) and exotic hors d'oevres involving anchovies and peppers and goat cheese (the boys ate it), then an utterly delicious dinner, created by Tony, an exotic chicken casserole cooked in their Aga stove (sigh) and a lovely salad followed by a tart made with organic berries and apples from Bren's mother's garden. Then Bren gave us this amazing Old Amsterdam cheese . . . we talked for six hours, about theatre and film and all sorts of glorious things - including the astonishing fact that I saw the 1986 "Dream" that Tony helped create, the one that totally blew my mind, with the cast (including Sean Bean and Pete Postlethwaite and Joely Richardson!) dancing all over an amazing steel cobweb that took up the entire stage. I told Tony that it had been a life-changingly transformative production for me. I told both Terry and Tallis all about it too (as well as the Jeremy Irons "Winter's Tale" also heh heh). Tony, after relating several anecdotes about Weapons Onstage, had told us about the steel cobweb - how at the first dress it cut up all their feet and hands and they had to send a crew in to sand the entire thing down before the next preview, and I said "Was that in 1986? I saw that!"

He made several documentaries for the RSC . . . one in teh Carpathian mountains with a crew of two . . . I hope we someday get to work together . . . how amazing would that be??

We are all very contented and feeling blessed to know such fine and generous friends.

And now to bed as it is 1:30 am here and we need to roll out to hit the train by 9 . . . Terry is already quietly snoring . . .

Hoping for a good sleep! *fingers crossed* Terry was so brain-dead that he washed a contact down the sink tonight . . .argh . . . being out of one's routine is . . . interesting . . .

I cannot seem to upload pictures with this very weak wifi in the b & b - here's hoping they fixed it enough so that it will take text at least . . .