Day 15 - A Day in the Life of a Groundling

I think if you're going to be a groundling (a person who stands in the yard during a performance at the Globe Theatre) you should 1) be young, 2) enjoy standing for long periods of time, and 3) see a comedy to take your mind off your aching feet.  Unfortunately, our visit did not meet any of those requirements.

Beginning with #3, the show was Macbeth.

Definitely NOT a comedy, though it did start with a rousing chorus of drums beating, which was a good beginning. At least it kept us awake....

Opening Scene

But then we kept trying to find a comfortable position, and standing on concrete is just not comfortable no matter how you try and rearrange your body.  Both of us wanted to see Lady Macbeth, since she's the major instigator of the plot, driving her husband to murder.

Though she appeared a great deal shorter than her husband, she was definitely feisty.  We also saw that she played Katherine in the Globe's DVD of The Taming of the Shrew, which I was tempted to purchase, but chose not to since I doubted we would have watched it.  However once Lady Macbeth made it on stage and her husband joined her we opted to sneak out.  I know, no stamina, but I don't think hubby and I were meant to stand for theatre, no matter how gripping the murder mystery.

After we left the Globe, we opted to walk along Bankside as we made our way to the Borough Market.  Though the day was slightly overcast, we had a magnificent view of St. Paul's Cathedral.

Continuing along Bankside, we came to The Anchor Bankside.  This pub is where diarist Samuel Pepys saw the Great Fire of London in 1666. He wrote that he took refuge in "a little alehouse on bankside ... and there watched the fire grow".  Today, The Anchor remains the sole survivor of the riverside inns that existed in Shakespeare's time, when Southwark was the center and heart of theatre land and the Thames was London's principle highway.

The Anchor Bankside

We also caught a fairly good picture of The Shard, an 87-story skyscraper in London, The Shard forms part of the London Bridge Quarter development.  The building stands approximately 306 metres (1,004 ft) high, currently making it the tallest building in the European Union, and the second-tallest free-standing structure in the United Kingdom.  I'm waiting for the disaster movie that involves The Shard in some way.  With all that glass, I imagine M. Night Shyamalan is concocting a plot as you read this.

The Shard

We continued on our stroll, stopping by a Pret a Manger (Ready to Eat) shop for some tea and coffee.  I also picked up a small tub of raw coconut cubes, since I was hungry and thought they might be refreshing. Different, but not bad.  I did finish the little plastic container.  Then we continued on to Borough Market.

I've been to other markets in London, and I thought Borough was like one of those filled with stalls of clothing and the like, and hubby didn't tell me what we were about to visit.  Turns out the Borough Market is a wholesale and retail food market in Southwark, England. Considered one of the largest and oldest food markets in London, it sells a large variety of foods from all over the world.

Cake Stall at Borough Market

The time of day we visited was not optimum for the market, which is open primarily in the morning, so it smelled a bit like low tide.  However, it was till an interesting experience.

We did purchase some fruit at one of the stalls, then returned to the flat via the RV1 bus that drops us off right at Covent Garden.  Tonight we had Shepherd's and Cottage pie for dinner, and we've settled down to watch some telly, just like we lived here.  Oh, we do, at least for the next month and a half.