Midsummer Night’s Dream

We were very lucky this week to be offered four groundling tickets to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Globe. My initial plan had been to take K, L and 6 with me, but then we realised that K and L needed to be elsewhere (last music school before exams and a choir concert) and that we would have Fortune with us, so plans evolved a little. Accordingly, Saturday morning found Fortune, 6, A and me getting into our Tudor clothes and catching the train to London, where we met up with MDJ and C, the latter also in Tudor garb (MDJ chickened out 😉 ). Sadly, M had decided she had too much to do, so had not come 🙁 The silver lining, however, was that this meant there was a spare ticket for Fortune’s friend, who had only come to say hello and then found herself coming in to see the play too 🙂
It was fab! I had been worried about such a long time standing, but in fact it was part of the experience. A could not see without being held up so I spent most of the performance with her on my hip (Fortune and her friend helped with child carrying too, but I guess I’ve had the most practice 😉 ) and I could certainly feel the after-effects of that later and even more so the next day, but she enjoyed it so much that it was worth every ache 😀 We had read a children’s version of the story on the train, making sure 6 and A knew what was going on, and the production was very lively and visual, which helped, I think, so both 6 and A were able to enjoy the action and the humour without worrying about the difficulty of some of the dialogue. The occasional rather blue joke or action went, fortunately, sailing over their heads 😉 We were well and truly ready for the interval though, and relieved to sit for a while!
After the play we sat and picnicked on the steps outside for a while, discussing what else we could do. MDJ suggested walking back via Postman’s Park, a little church yard he thought we might appreciate, where there is a memorial to heroic self-sacrifice. To get there we crossed the Millennium Bridge (windy!), skirted St Paul’s Cathedral (good place for a pause chocolat) and crossed Paternoster Square (watching people put their small children onto the backs of the sheep for photos – very odd!). We fielded a few questions and comments about our unusual attire, wished we had Kentwell leaflets and gave the website address to a couple of interested people.
Postman’s Park was lovely, a real oasis of calm. We looked at the tablets first, read several out loud and discussed possible circumstances, drollery or sadness, then sat on the grass for a restorative drink and cereal bar. MDJ mentioned that he had found a geocache there once, so the girls were keen to look for it and excited when they did, but it proved to have nothing of much interest so they just wrote in the book and put it back, richer by a two rupee coin donated by Fortune 😉
A little rested we walked on, skirting round a rather cool penny farthing race (and collecting some neat souvenirs on the way) to Farringdon, caught the tube and returned to the station, where MDJ and C were able to catch a slightly earlier train than we were, leaving us just enough time to buy takeaway (noodles and spring rolls) before our train left too.
Lovely day – thank you to Em for tickets and to MDJ, C and Fortune’s friend for company 😀