Stage 3 - if it's Thursday, this must be ...

Stratford. Via Leicester to spend the afternoon in the Public records Office. Which isn't as boring as it sounds. Husband had a number of documents he wanted to view for his family history research and they were so old I was surprised they allowed us to handle them, and they didn't even make us wear gloves.

From there it was off to Stratford, which wasn't what I expected at all. I mean I knew we were going to Stratford but the town wasn't as I had anticipated. Instead of an old market town, we found a normal small modern-day town. Admittedly it had a few old buildings - but not as many as Chester - but the main thoroughfare was lined with shops we have in Swansea: Next, WH Smith, M & S, and so on.

Of course what we don't have in Swansea is the house in which William Shakespeare was born.

Or the farm cottage that was the home of his wife-to-be, Anne Hathaway. Theirs was an unusual marriage in that he was 18 and she was 26 and three months pregnant when they wed. Men in those days were more likely to be in their late twenties when they married, having served a long apprenticeship to a craftsman first.

Nor do we have Nash House, the home of Shakespeare's grand-daughter, Elizabeth, until her death in 1616. She died childless, so Shakespeare's direct line ended with her.

As we'd only sorted out our trip a few weeks before going I hadn't booked for the theatre. It was sold out, of course, and the only option was to queue for returns.

For two hours I queued - and for one of those hours I was in a queue of one - and it was worth every second.

The main theatre is being rebuilt and the only play on was Macbeth, which was showing in the Swan Theatre, a fairly recent addition of a theatre in the round designed to reflect what it would have been like in Shakespeare's time. The auditorium was incredible. Talk about 'in your face'. I was hooked before the play even started.

The play. It was AMAZING! Dramatic, gripping, scary, powerful: everything Macbeth should be.

P.S. Looking for photos I saw a review in the Independent of this production: it was not so enthusiastic, but, hey, I'm a small town girl not a pretentious theatre critic. What do I know?