Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare and flooding...

This past weekend I joined my friend K for a weekend in Warwickshire - she wanted to see a band perform in Leamington Spa on Saturday evening, and I plumped for a visit to Stratford on the way back to London on Sunday.

The Midlands had been subject to some heavy rain and flooding, so we were fortunate that Sunday featured a lovely sunny morning.

Stratford-upon-Avon is predominantly known as the birthplace of Shakespeare - but also is the place of his death...both events occuring on 23 April.

We started off with visiting the place of his birth - the building in the above two photographs where the young Shakespeare lived with his family, and his father manufactured gloves.

Stratford is full of these lovely half-timbered buildings...

After finishing our visit to his birthplace, we then wandered through the town to Trinity Church to see his grave...

The church is positioned by the side of the river Avon - which had been quite obviously affected by the flooding which has been having a significant impact in the South West and Wales.

It was a lovely way to spend the day - I can't believe it has taken me so many years to finally visit.

In other news, the predicted temperature for my arrival in Sydney this weekend is for 40 degrees - that should be interesting....