Gatecrashing Shaw's House

Stayed the night in London at Stratford Moxy following meetings. Next morning, as Ann was sipping her first coffee, the fire alarm sounded. Ann insisted she would not go down in her night attire, so I told her we would leave or die together and waited while she got dressed and found her handbag. Finally, as we were ready to join the fleeing throng, the bell stopped ringing. Later, a maid told me it was someone burning the ironing had set it off!

Outside Shaw's writing hut

On the way home today, we stopped off at Shaw's Corner, always a favourite spot. We arrived at 11:00, and noticed the sign saying "Open from 1pm-4pm", but a woman was already opening the doors and told us she was nearly ready to let us in.

"Why does the sign say "1-4pm?" I asked.

"That's when we're open to the public, but we open early for groups," she explained. We showed our cards and waited in the shop area, and three more people joined us. "Right, we'll just wait for the last one," the guide said, but looked surprised when another three people came. "Oh," she said, "they must have made a mistake with the booking. Never mind, we can manage eight as well as six," and she led us off to view the house. We said nothing, and followed as though we were part of the group. This had the big advantage that all the rooms had the safety ropes drawn back and we were allowed to tread the hallowed carpets (albeit in overshoes) and get up close to the original artefacts, in addition to a personalized running commentary.