Grand Day Out

My mum and I had a great day out in Stratford upon Avon today.
Courtesy of Tescos I got tickets for the five Shakespeare houses and gardens, and my mum got Café Rouge vouchers so it was a cheap day!
First of all we went to the Church and saw Shakespeare's grave. The graveyard looked beautiful in the stormy Autumn light.
Unfortunately the stormy Autumn light gave way to torrential downpours and we got soaked but never mind!
We went to the site of the house that Shakespeare died in. The house isn't there any more - it was demolished in 1759 by the mad vicar who owned it. He was annoyed because he hadn't got planning permission to extend the garden!! But the gardens on the site are beautiful.
Then we went to Café Rouge for an extremely leisurely lunch. A shared platter of goodies to start and a steak baguette for me and a croque monsieur with mushrooms for my mum, and a trio of puddings to share with tea. Yummy!
After a good couple of hours in there we went to Hall's Croft, the house of Shakespeare's daughter. It is completely as it was when it was built exactly 400 years ago. We had it pretty much to ourselves and it was wonderfully atmospheric.
Then it was time to go home and a spectacular piece of incompetence on my part saw us heading northbound on the M40 rather than southbound.
Twelve miles to the next junction. Arse!
Our tickets are valid for unlimited visits for a year so we'll definitely be going back.
And we still need to go to Anne Hathaway's Cottage and Mary Arden's Farm.