Kicking back the pricks of darkness

We speed out into road-worked carnage, picking our way between the jams and crushes of the rain-soaked night. Speeding out as lovers. Not Mum and Dad, not Nanny and Bumps .. but two arthritic lovers kicking back the pricks of approaching darkness.

My birthday. Another year past.

The evening is cold, sharp frost chiseled into the back-streets of Stratford upon Avon as we park up and retrieve our bags from the boot of the car.  The hotel is warm and welcoming.  A climb up the back stairs to our room. A huge mirrored chaise-longue in the ceiling to floor ambiance of a black and white tiled floor that leads, oak-beamed to a roll-top bath and the delicious sinful prospect of pleasured shared water to come.

We gorge in the restaurant below on rich food, listening to the passing chatter of actors and plebiscites, rich and spoiled in this warm-candled room.

Morning brings rain and breakfast. Barry the Butcher and succulent sausages from a shop just fifty yards down the way. We do not fit together in the roll-top! Our corpulent unbending forms yield to one bath, one shower and a fit of giggles.

Venturing out we find the ancient streets closed in grey clouds. We stumble upon Shakespeare's birthplace and venture in, untrammelled by nothing more than the passing presence of the odd tourist. A musician plays new melodies on an ancient stringed instrument and we look up to the loft where gay apprentices have bedded down above the rancid smell of urine-dunged skins in the backyard beyond.

The rain bears down once more and we return to the soft, silent pleasures of two books and a passing afternoon.  A presage to an evening of Jacobean drama in the Swan, hugging the skirt of the stage-floor as it plays out before us.

Our last day and sun shines as we look out from our breakfast feast upon the school where Shakespeare grasped slate and chalk.  A short walk and the elevator to the top of the theatre's observatory tower and views of the town below. Time for one last walk.

We visit the church which holds the last bones of the Bard. I mentored the Rector here some time ago and as we pass to the back and catch sight of a blu-tacked poster I smile. A mission statement is fastened to the unyielding stonework, a statement I remember taking shape in my offices all those years ago. It reads, 'Bridge-builders'.

The journey is complete and we return home in quiet contemplation. Two arthritic lovers kicking back the pricks of darkness as we seek bridge-building once more.