In the beginning

I wanted to give a more in depth account of my week with my mother as I don't know when I will see you or what we will have time to talk about here is a daily summary of what we got up to.

Our first day of fun started on Sunday with a visit to the The Globe. We decided to walk from St Pauls to the Globe and were lucky to have great weather. We went passed a house that Olivia got very excited about because a book has been written about it (the white house next to the Globe exhibition entrance). Then we headed to the Globe entrance and went in via the gates. The courtyard was full of catering carts full of traditional food like hog roast sandwiches and sausages as well as coffee shops with meringues! We collected our cushions and settled down to an afternoon of romance.

All's well that ends wells is based on a story from the Decameron. Helena is in love with Bertram the son of the Countess who she is living with. Helena's father was a famous doctor but Helena feels she is not worthy of Bertram. Bertram goes off to the French court and Helena is very sad. Desperate for news of Bertram she hears that the King of France has a dreadful illness and no one can cure him however she still has some of her fathers notes and sets off to the French court to prove herself. She cures the King and is rewarded with the hand of any man at court. She chooses Bertram and he is horrified...

The globe is such an amazing experience that if I had gone to see anything I would have enjoyed it. The actors all interact with the audience at the beginning and end. They have real renaissance musicians and they have beautiful costumes which are carefully thought out to show status and wealth. There was a beautiful back drop which was a line drawing of fields and trees and then was turned round to reveal the same picture but on a blue background for night.

The play its self was fine, well told and acted although the guy playing Bertram seemed a little awkward when doing love scenes. My only issue with the play was that in a cast of strong female characters - Bertram seemed a petulant boy getting upset about marrying Helena however I had not seen it before so enjoyed it anyway.

Facilities: I also think that reviews should tell you useful stuff like "well stocked bar" and "plenty of loos" so I'm going to review theatres and places on their 'facilities' and other issues.

The Globe had good loos with an entrance and exit door so queuing was easy and plenty of cubicles as well as being easy to get to. It also had a brilliant gift shop ranging from books and Manga comics to t shirts and jewelry themed for the plays in the season. It was very good and easy for us to navigate back to the tube station. A very solid 8.