Mary Ann: We’ve taken our first journey away from Birmingham and couldn’t have picked a lovelier site to visit than we did—Stratford-upon-Avon. It’s less than an hour’s train ride from here so we hopped aboard the 10:31 Central Train leaving Moor Street station, armed with two boxed lunches and our small backpack loaded with rain jackets (always a handy thing to have here in England), maps, and cameras.

The day turned out to be wonderfully sunny and cool and Stratford was the perfect place to enjoy it. Of course Stratford is known for its connection to William Shakespeare who was born here in 1564 and, although he lived for over 20 years in London, he maintained a home and strong roots in this small village. The home in which he was born still stands so we toured that, along with a very informative museum which is on the same property. We learned some interesting things there. His father John was a glove maker and was part of what we’d call the middle class. William probably started school about the age of five and finished by the age of 14 or 15. He never attended a university. He got married to Anne Hathaway when he was 18 and she was 26 (and pregnant) and they lived together until he died in 1616, bequeathing her in his will his “second-best bed”. The house is well preserved and the thing I found most interesting about it were the wall-sized painted linen clothes that hung in every room. They made it look a bit like they were covered with wallpaper, except of course they weren’t pasted on. The outside gardens were lovely, as the gardens all seem to be here in England. I was happy to refresh my memory about Shakespeare’s life and to have visited this site, since we’ll be coming back here in early July to see the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Macbeth.

Besides being the home of Shakespeare, Stratford is a beautiful village all on its own and has lots of well-kept shops, several 16th century buildings, colorful narrow boats, and best of all, a large, much-used park that meanders along the Avon River. Since the weather was perfect for eating outdoors, that’s exactly what we did. We took out boxed lunches and sat on a bench by the water, enjoying the sight of people feeding the long-necked swans, riding on the carrousel, and strolling leisurely through the grass and trees.

Mary Ann: It was just a week ago that we landed in England and already it feels very familiar. Woodbrooke is a wonderful place for us, full of stimulating people from all over the world, combined with a beauty and tranquility that soothes the soul.

We arrived here last Friday afternoon after taking the “coach” from London. (In this country long distance buses are called coaches.) We spent our first couple of days settling in, which meant sitting outside in the garden, walking the nearby paths and streets, reading in the quiet places, and spending many hours around the dining room table enjoying equal (and large) amounts of tasty food and fascinating conversation. During that time, we managed to find the nearest shopping areas of Selly Oak and Northfield, and also enjoyed a (luckily) non-eventful rowboat ride on the little lake here. (Let’s just say that I could use a little brushing up on my oaring skills.)

On Monday we began our induction as Friends in Residence (FiRs). I was actually looking forward to having some structure and a more defined kind of work to do after these past months of mostly making our own schedule. And I wasn’t disappointed. They say our main duties as FiRs is worship, welcome and well-being. We provide a sense of hospitality and caring, tend to some requests from visitors and perform specific “housekeeping” duties, mostly in the morning and evening.

First I’ll tell you a little about Woodbrooke and how it’s used. Woodbrooke is a retreat and conference center so on any one day there could be up to 150 guests. For an example, these might include a morning training session for the Birmingham Probation Department, a Quaker Yearly Meeting Finance and Planning committee meeting in the afternoon, and a Team Building Day for a local management company. These are day use guests. Then there are those who are overnight guests which can be up to 75 persons. This weekend there is a 3 day workshop called Mirror to the Soul which is “for women who are interested in exploring their deep essential self through self-portraiture, art and collage.” Currently there is a group called Working With Conflict that will be here a total of 10 weeks. These are folks from areas of the world where there is a lot of violence and wars, like Palestine, Israel, Sudan, Nigeria, and Nepal. Plus there are a few resident PhD students who are taking classes or studying at Woodbrooke, and a few people here for rest and personal retreat. It’s quite a mix of folks which makes for stimulating interactions.

So here’s what we might do on a typical weekday, if there is such a thing. We begin at 6:45 am when we do our rounds in the buildings. This involves turning off night lights in the halls, opening up curtains in common areas of the building, and opening up the fire doors between corridors. Because of the size of the campus, this takes about 30 minutes and includes inside and outside and up and down three flights of stairs. I consider it my morning exercise routineJ. We are then available in the FiR office to answer questions, answer the front door, or get emails off the computer. After breakfast, we have a half-hour Meeting for Worship at which we may greet attendees as they arrive and then end the meeting with a handshake. There is a meeting 3 days a week from 9:15-10 which we attend to find out what is going on for the day. After that, we are free for the day unless we have to be at lunch to ring the bell for silent prayer. In the evening, we are expected to attend Epilogue which is another, shorter period of silence.

There are 4-5 FiRs at Woodbrooke so we share responsibilities. So on alternate days, we do our rounds in the evening when we close up everything for the night. Two days a week, we are completely free, and are encouraged to take the time for ourselves.

Weekends are another story. Though we are only scheduled every other weekend for specific duties, in reality it is very busy here and we must all be available to help out. We might have to sign people in, to show them to their rooms, to turn on the hearing loop for those who are hearing impaired, and to work at events and functions like this Sunday’s Garden Tour. Every 4 days, we are also the “overnight person” who is the one called to handle any emergencies like people locking themselves out of their rooms, or running out of hot water before other staff is on duty.

We are just learning our duties, but I expect it will be a good blend of work and relaxation. There is a good spirit here and a lot of laughter. We have scheduled to go in early July with a Woodbrooke group to see Macbeth performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon which is nearby. That should be lots of fun.

We haven’t scheduled any short trips yet, but we were able to enjoy London for a day when we arrived. It was quite nice to feel like we were in familiar territory and we managed quite well to find our way down to the Thames and Big Ben where we had gone last year. In addition, we watched the very entertaining inspection of the guards before they “changed” at Buckingham Palace. We wish you all could have been there with us.