Shaw's Corner

Wending our way from Woburn to Heathrow Airport, we stopped at Shaw's Corner -- the former home of George Bernard Shaw.  It was an interesting place to visit, with lots of his personal belongings still lying about the place, as if he'd just stepped out for a short walk.  Here you can see his hat collection in the front hallway, as well as the exterior of the house, and his 1939 Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay for Pygmalion, which stands proudly on the dining room mantle.  Interesting portraits of people like Stalin and Lenin also decorated the mantle.  I found the house a bit cold and dreary, but I quite liked his little writing hut hidden away at the bottom of the garden.  It was locked up tight, and I could only peer through the windows to see his spartan workplace.  The reflections in the glass made it impossible to photograph anything!

Closer to Heathrow, we saw signs for Hatfield House, and swung in to have a gander only to discover it is closed for the season until March!  So the extra shows the closest we got to seeing Elizabeth 1st's childhood home.

Flying back to Boston tomorrow morning after 5 weeks away from home visiting no fewer than 13 countries!  (Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Poland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Germany, Holland, Belgium, and England.)