All in the name of research...

Sy takes his research very seriously when it comes to his writing- and rightly so.

He has been gathering and investigating information for his Shakespeare book for about twenty years.

I have been 'helping' him on his quest for the last four years, and thank God i haven't been there for the other sixteen too, or i would have probably shot myself by now.

Or him.


I can just about cope when he's got his head stuck in books or is on the web- it's when i hear those immortal words;



'Fancy going for a drive?'



I break out in a cold sweat and wonder if there is enough money in the Christmas fund for petrol.

In our early days, we did go for romantic drives- a forty or fifty mile round trip through the Cotswolds, stopping at a friends teashop in Broadway for scones and cream...but those drives are delegated to history now and 'a drive' has a whole new meaning.

So, I stop doing whatever it i'm doing, don my wellies, feed the cats (because i know we won't be back within the next six hours), raid the Christmas fund for fuel money and set off with Sy with a fixed smile on my face.

Now, I know exactly why Sy needs me with him for his Shakespeare research.


I would love to say it's so that he can bounce ideas off me, show me places where Shakespeare hung out and the suchlike.

In all actuality, it's for the reasons listed below;


1; I can change a tyre if I have to. (He can't- if he hurts his fingers/hands he can't work).

2; I know the best pubs within a radius of sixty miles.

3;If we should break down, the RAC card is in my name.

4; I know this area like the back of my hand.


We have been on a few of these jaunts lately.

Stratford itself, Feckenham, Earls Common (Shakespeare hid in a pub here for eight months- i'm sure the only reason was because he couldn't find his way out of the village. It's like that today- one village blends with another and you don't have a clue where you are if you don't know the area- and there's no pub anymore, so you would have to stay under a hedge.), Worcester, Alcester, Kings Coughton ( pronounced 'Cowton,' if you live here), Huddington...there are others too, but i've hit meltdown.


'Stop here, Sprouty.'

'I can't, we're on the main road into Stratford and there's a juggernaut behind me.'

'Well, pull over into that layby.'

'That's not a layby, it's the entrance to a field and it's full of mud'.

'But i need to stop there. There's a tree in that field where Shakespeare had a pee...'


And dutifully, i find somewhere to stop and Sy goes off to investigate the tree.


As I stand there in the gateway, up to my knees in cowshit and wondering how the hell i'm going to back the car out onto a main road where the average speed is seventy mile an hour, I see Sy taking notes and smiling.

Either he's completely lost the plot or maybe, just maybe, he's found out something that no other Shakespearean scholar has ever managed to find out.

I just hope i don't have to endure another twenty years of research involving 'a drive'-


Neither me nor the car will last that long.

Till next time,

Shakespeares Housekeeper xx