Shopping in Great Britain #2of2

Stratford-upon-Avon is loaded with half-timbered houses, hotels, and store buildings. We saw Anne Hathaway’s’ thatched-roof half-timbered home with flowers all over the place, and others that are similar. A few things were purchased at the outdoor marketplace across the street from Willie’s house, (Willie Shakespeare that is), including a brass hourglass. Well now, the stand is brass, but of course both the glass and the sand are made of something else.

In a woolen mill a mannequin was dressed in a skirt Emmy liked, another had a skirt with pleats she loved even more, and yet another had the plaid material she preferred. She couldn’t make up her mind right then, but a few days later, while driving across the countryside we wrote a letter to the wool mill, explaining how we wanted them to combine the preferred elements from each mannequin. We included our Visa number, and just a few weeks later a beautiful skirt, in the style and material Emmy wanted, arrived at our home in California.

We stopped at a small store next door to another wool mill near Fishguard. Emmy liked a pretty reversible tapestry quilt, but decided on several small cosmetic bags for gifts, instead. Emmy says it’s funny, in one store at one time she doesn’t find anything she likes, but then another time, another store, another credit card.

In Betws-y-Coed, a pretty Welsh village with a pretty name, I bought the first of many boxes of round, crisp, butter cookies, I said were the best ever. Over the next week I bought more and more, but should have kept an empty package, as a reminder. In the years since, a couple of times when a friend was going to visit Wales, I tried to describe the package so they could buy me a few boxes of the cookies, but so far that has never worked. If I only had an empty package, maybe they could have found it for me.

We may be brought back to London to pay for the three parking tickets we received while shopping. After the time expires on the parking meters, the clock continues to run so the police know how long we over-parked. Also, one ticket tells us we are not supposed to feed the meter and stay parked at the same spot.

Well, maybe after 30+ years we are safe.