Everyone involved with the Festival takes a rest on Monday, and so did we.
Well, not exactly a rest. We spent the morning packing up and moving from Jules and Jo's condo to Sally's Place, the B&B where we'll spend the rest of the week. Once again, we've lucked out. The house is cute as a picture in a story-book, as you can see. (Can you spot Bao?) It's divided into three apartments, and we're in the Graham Greene Suite, comprising the whole downstairs and the front porch, complete with our own Jacuzzi.
There really is a Sally. She lives next door. Our larder has been stocked with enough food to feed the entire cast of As You Like It -- and this is definitely the way we like it! Strawberries, blueberries, cantaloup, muffins, Danish pastries, chocolate (oh, yes!) even a supply of Microwave Popcorn for munchies. This is bed and breakfast, plus.
As nothing whatsoever was happening on the theater front, Bao and I took an afternoon stroll around town. It's smallish, and looks a lot like Australia; pubs and dark, brick buildings, small windows, residences and businesses sort of muddled together, and a rather magnificent courthouse at the far end of the main drag.
There are flowers everywhere, baskets of flowers hanging from the lampposts, orderly plantings of begonia and impatiens in immaculate beds cut into velvety, green lawns, and cottage gardens overflowing with roses, daisies, hollyhocks and lilies in front of many of the houses, an inordinate number of which are for sale.
I wouldn't exactly call Stratford a tourist town. There are a handful of up market restaurants and a few more art and antique shops than you'd expect to find in the average, Canadian town of 23,000, but mostly, I think people here just get on with it. They accommodate Festival visitors, but they don't exactly cater to them. It's as if there are two separate populations, each with its own reality, and each viewing the other's reality as virtual.
Alas! Nothing is perfect. The bad news is that the high-speed internet at Sally's Place doesn't work. The good news is that there's a UPS store practically across the street. Sally is trying to sort this out. Her manager Rose is trying to tell me it's all my fault. Meanwhile, it's costing me $10 per hour. And that's why you've got to tip your head to see the photo. But hey! They're Canadian dollars.
Bao says to tell you he's writing a critique of Henry IV.