Kate Danley's Blog, page 3

Bureaucrazy Reading

Well.  It happened.

I hopped on a plane from our wee little local airport...

(Hello, wee little airport!  This is it.  This is the entire airport.  There's a gate behind me and a gate behind that wall aaaaaand... that's it.  Isn't it cute?)

I jetted down the west coast.  From the stormy, rainy days of the PNW, it was tough not to just "forget" to hop back on the plane when we landed in San Francisco.  This is February, people!  Look at those clear skies!  
I had to keep reminding myself it is NOT okay to buy souvenirs to remember an airport layover.  But they had a snowglobe with silver glitter fog and oh so many wonderful mugs... I love mugs...  And bread...
And a whole market filled with all the See's and Ghirardelli in one place...
Don't judge me.

Outpacing the sunset, I sped east, making sure to wave to Chicago as I sped by.  Hello, Chicago!  Hello!  You are very pretty up close, but also from 30,000 feet!


 Finally, I touched down in NYC.  After a quick cab ride, I checked into my first hotel.


It had a robot for your bags.

("Store your luggage with YoBot")
Thing about being on West Coast time was that though it was midnight in the Big Apple, my body was like, "Hey!  It's 9:00!"  So, I decided to take a stroll down to Times Square and stumbled upon an art installation.  Every night at 11:57 PM, a graphic artist takes over all the billboards to present something profound for three minutes.




And then I grabbed some halal food from a cart, because it is some of the tastiest and most affordable food you'll find in the city.  Go for the chicken and rice.  $7.  You're welcome.
And then I headed to bed.  The next days were Dramatists Guild meetings at a Broadway theatre and strolling along the west river at night with a fellow rep and eating at 10:00 PM at a little restaurant that had an autographed picture of Fred Astaire just hanging on the wall, and tea at the Russian Tea Room.





FYI - My traveling coffee system was a game changer.  (NYC has something against in-room coffee makers now, so you're faced with having to shower and dress before that morning cuppa.  Cruel.)

Collapsible tea kettle, pour over coffee maker, and a travel mug.  CHECK!  CHECK!  CHECK! 
So, that's all the exposition.  I was there for business, but in looking at my life went, "Self?  Remember those dreams you had?  Maybe you should look at them again."  So, I decided to do something to make a dream come true.
And that dream is providing roles for the really funny women I know.  Women who SLAY, but are constantly shuffled off to the b-storyline in romantic comedies, paired up with the awkward dude as some sort of prize, or bit character roles where they come in and KILL IT with a line or two, and then we have to sit through another 90-minutes of some hapless young man trying to figure out what he's doing with his life.
Enough.
So, I decided to put together a reading of my office, female-led farce, Bureaucrazy.  

I hauled out funny ladies I knew from all corners of the globe.  People like Sarah Jones Brinkworth, who now lives in Massachusetts, whom I met in Los Angeles nineteen years ago at a TOTAL "casting director workshop" scam where we paid something ridiculous like $1200 for a week of "auditioning" before the assistant to the assistant of a "casting director actively seeking out clients."  It was so ridiculous.  I began calling it a summer camp and in protest, started wearing macaroni necklaces and paper bag vests I made during evening "craft time" bitch sessions (it's so weird I never succeeded in Hollywood).  But Sarah admired my skillz with the penne pasta and we became best friends.  

And Diana Costa (who you may know from Pushing Daisies or the best Jack in the Box commercial to ever be made, and was a part of a weekly "Power Group" I belonged to, and we would get together to figure out our strategic goals over omelettes and coffee) 
(Yes, that is Walt Willey of All My Children fame.  We did an improv show where the star got to star in a movie he/she/they always wanted to do, and we did Jaws.  It was the most fun ever.)
And (Beth was fearless.  I, personally, made a tactical decision to play as many dead bodies as I could in improv.)
I worked with those ladies for... gosh... five years?  Six years? doing improv and sketch at the Acme Comedy Theatre in Hollywood (pour one out for the Acme, my friends...)   Two to six nights a week I was there at the theatre with these ladies.
And now, four years after I left LA, they were joining me in Time Square.


I called in Katie Thompson, whom I met in 2002 when we were working at a terrible office job and both struggling in LA.  She once hauled a piano up two flights of stairs to do a random show at a free theatre I had tracked down.  And now she's in NYC and just made her Broadway debut.
(2002, in that random free theatre off La Brea)
My friend Brian Olsen got roped in... erm... agreed to direct.  We met in the basement of a random theatre off Christopher Street in the West Village back in 1997.  
(circa 2002, sporting our matching vintage bowling shirts from Aardvarks on Melrose)
He's now doing comedy at UCB on the Maude Team "Afterschool Snack" and brought along his fellow UCB pal David McCall to play all the mens (who KILLED it and I will forever adore not just for his masterful ability to sexy spacework carrying heavy objects, but for being so method he actually carried all of the real heavy objects for me).  
And then recently a dear friend and producer and one of the guys responsible for my entire legit stage acting career in Los Angeles, Charles Johanson, passed away.  

Not to get all deep, but Charles was family friends with Kitty Carlisle, and took me out to dinner with her after a show once.  She asked me how my career was going, to which I could only shrug, and she oh so gently shared that she used to call 5:00 "The Suicide Hour" because that was the time the agents had gone home, and she knew she had not gotten the part.  It was a kindness of spirit that will always stay with me.  Charles and I spoke of it often.  And Charles gave me moments like that all the time.  He was so young and it made me realize how precious this time is.  And it made me realize I have a duty to prevent "Suicide Hour" whenever I can.  I have a duty to create the opportunities like Charles created for me.  Knowing someone with that spirit who gave so much to you means you need to the same for someone else.
At his memorial, I met one of his best friends, Amy Griffin, and was struck by her spirit and spunk and decided to call her in for this.  Charles' ability to connect people lives on and we were talking after the show about how he was so present in all of this.  
All this is to say, during this whole process, I was in awe of all the amazing people involved in, and how a lifetime of friendships and random decisions could gather us all in the Mary Rogers Room at the Dramatists Guild.
We started off at Alchemical Studios off 14th Street (lovely space and staff, brutal six-story walkup with no elevator.  Welcome to NYC) for a breakneck rehearsal process.
   (Note: Everyone is skinnier than they appear.  I had my phone on panorama, so they're all squished out like a flattened wad of silly putty.  But this is the only picture I thought to snap so we're going for historical importance here.)
A few of us wandered up out for a healthy dinner at Westville before settling in for an evening of practicing lines and stuffing goodie bags.

Okay, so maybe a few of us decided to walk to our hotels and stopped at Macy's on the way and rode the historic wooden escalators to the top floor.
(If any of you have listened to David Sedaris' Santaland Diaries, this is where he worked!  Not quite as flashy in the off-season, but Santa is busy in the North Pole making toys right now.)
The next morning, I was pulling my laptop down from a shelf in my hotel room and felt something hit my ankle.  This being NYC, you better believe I looked down.
It was a penny.

When my grandmother died, she began... saying hello (for a lack of a better way to describe it) by dropping pennies from heaven.  When I shared this with my mom, she said "OMG!  I found a penny on the counter this morning!"  And when I shared it with David as we gathered at call time, he said, "OMG!  I'm so tall, I usually don't notice things below my knees, but I was sitting on the subway and there was a penny!"  So hey, Grandma!  Glad you were here to shine on our adventure!   I walked down the street and across Times Square to the Dramatists Guild in the Paramount Building.


And went up to the...



(Pictures of all the current council members.  And I found out just the day before that I had joined their ranks.)
The cast filtered in and I thought to grab a couple pictures (something I forgot when I did the Building Madness reading and always regretted.)
[image error] [image error] [image error]
And Beth grabbed some great pictures, too, to which I have unabashedly stolen from her Facebook page.






The reading went great and we had a hoot.  I couldn't have been prouder of this crazy cast!
(you can't really see it, but there is a blob in the far left corner that is a piano that belonged to Richard Rodgers)



It was a joy to watch these kids play.
Some of the loveliest things that happened, though, were happening in the audience.  Back in 2016, I took off for six months to take every single CTI class I could to learn commercial producing.  Those six months were revolutionary and I learned things I didn't even know I didn't know.  In those classes, I struck up a conversation with Sue Cohen, who become a dear friend.  Do you know what she did?  She hopped on a train from out of state, gathered up some of her dearest friends, women like Amy Gewirtz, Jarlath Jacobs, Masako Tomita, Eri Nakano and Merrie Davis, and brought them along (check out all the shows they have going and buy top tier tickets for me, okay?  They are, seriously, some of the most fabulous human beings and anything they are involved in is going to be great).  My wonderful friend Danielle DeCrette showed up.  We spent a week at the (sadly now defunct) Kenyon Playwriting Conference in Gambier, Ohio, living in houses built by the Amish and doing plays in a barn.  We were assigned a cohort (Group C) and we all still madly adore one another after all these years (shout out to Brett Brewer who tried to make it, but came a month early, and was wondering why all the doors were locked).  I took an online class with Roland Tec in self-producing, and two of the people in the class, people I had never met in real life but knew over a computer screen came - Sam Affoumado and Pat Carroll and his wife (who came in from out of state!)  All this talk about self-producing and here we all were!  And then Evelyn Sullivan, whom I did undergrad with at Towson University and I hadn't seen in YEARS, showed up.  It was like homecoming week.  And all this magic was happening in a little room in Times Square.

Afterwards, Merrie had arranged for us ladies to go to lunch and we merrily walked around the corner.  I had no idea where we were headed, but then suddenly my breath caught in my throat.  We were going into Sardi's.
There are moments in a career that feel like an out of body experience.  Or maybe it's grace.  Or a glimpse into the infinite.  But that's what happened in my head.  To come from a reading in Times Square, to turn a corner and find yourself having a theatre lunch with other professional theatre women... at SARDIS.
It was like an alternate dream world.  I can't even begin to describe how wonderful that lunch was.  To be surrounded by whipsmart women who were passionate about this theatre thing and understood that way it fills your heart.  To have conversations about what thrilled us, about what was exciting, what was new, what steps to take next.  It just... Theatre people are my people and I have missed them. 
Needless to say, I bought the mug at the coat check.
The second show went even better than the first.  And I'm so excited to say that the wheels are in motion to bring this reading back to NYC in the next month or so.  Please come!  Come see all of the magic that is happening here.  And if you're not on the east coast, come to StagesOC in June to catch a full production there.  You can stay abreast of the awesomeness at bureaucrazyplay.com or by signing up for my newsletter.

I am so grateful for this gorgeous crew of unicorns.  Thanks to all of you who got us here and showered us with your support!  It means the world!
And here's to exciting things on the horizon.

Bureaucrazy - February 27, 2020

My heart is so full!  My play, Bureaucrazy, is getting a full reading in Times Square February 27, 2020.  This has been an enormous journey.  In 2018, I submitted this play to over one-hundred theatres and no one would touch it.  And then, in 2019, in the span of four weeks, I had requests for three readings and a world premiere, and then from one of those readings two theatres approached me to license it for full productions.
And I decided, what the heck... let's see if this could possible have a life in NYC.  
SO!  Here we are!  We've got a cast of people I adore: Broadway and television and sketch world veterans and all people who are so darned good that it KILLS me they aren't household names.  So, come witness them!
YOU ARE INVITED!!!
Join me Thursday, February 27 for this staged reading.  We have shows at 11:30 AM & 5:30 PM.  It is a tight ninety-minutes.  We are filling up quick, so if you want to come, RSVP now!
Click on over to the website and BEHOLD!
https://www.bureaucrazyplay.com/

The Scratch

Every other month for the past two years, I've put on my playwriting pants and headed out into the world to see what I can do to make life better for the artists around me.  Last summer, I had the honor of helping out with The Scratch, a fantastic play series in the Pacific Northwest.  I wrote an article for The Dramatists magazine, which you can read by clicking on that little link, if you'd like to find out more!

Dramatists Guild Holiday Party

Was one of your New Year's Resolutions to read more plays?

Well, the Dramatists Guild Seattle Region has got your back!

In December, we hosted a Holiday Party Play Challenge.  Playwrights were given a prompt of "snow" and "Seattle" and about 24-hours to write a three-page play for presentation before a live audience at the Palace Theatre and Art Bar.

Some of those playwrights have chosen to share their plays on the New Play Exchange, which is almost like indie publishing for playwrights.  They upload their play; people who are interested can read it and review it; and directors, producers, and students can license directly from the playwright (an easy process where you just hit a button on the right that says, "Inquire About Rights.")

Check out the list of plays performed below!  And we're going reverse alphabetical by first name because I read an article about how tough it is to be a "Z" in an "A to Z" world.  Happy 2020, y'all!
Thomas Pierce - It's the Most Wonderful Time of YearTammi Doyle - Taking Time"Mine was the one about a couple getting ready for the day when snow threatens and they consult "Snow Binders"- but then remember last year's snowfall and their homebound lovemaking."Stephanie Brooks - Warm SnowSherry Penoyer - That Snow AngelRyan Long - Thermidor"Mine was the one about the umbrella store and the meet-cute with the two women."Robert Flor - A Christmas PassingRobin Brooks - The Snowperson's Bill of RightsPaula Hobart Carter - Snowpocalypse Rendez-Vous"Mine was the one about a couple on a date at a snowed-in bar meeting a couple eager to make new friends."Margaret O'Donnell - First StarMaggie Lee - Snow WomanLaurie Spector - Stuffed in Snowy Seattle"Mine was the one about Grandma and the family sausage recipe."Kathryn Jean Keller - Seattle SnowJ.W. Marshall - White with Whole Milk"Mine was the one about the Shoreline split-level residing couple where the wife is intent on taking her father his requested loaf of Orowheat White With Whole Milk bread, her mother/his wife having died semi-recently, and her husband is intent on her not going out owing to a sincere snow storm."John C. Davenport - White Center ChristmasJohn Allman - A Long Way to PurdyJessica Andrewartha - The 'S' Word"Mine was the one about a bored meteorologist and a vengeful intern."Eugenie Trow - See the Snow?"Mine was the one about one person glad to be over an affair and lost in the snow (parody of It Never Rains in Southern California), the other person trying to get back together (parody of By the Sea, By the Sea,By the Beautiful Sea)."Elena Naskora - Sugar Momma"Mine was the one about the Playwright and the Older woman making a pass on him:)"Cinda Robinson - Seattle Sleeps like LenoreChristopher Kidder-Mostrom - Snow Job"In Winter's corporate headquarters, Jack Frost and the Snow Queen try to devise a way to prevent loss of market share due to global warming."Ashley Arai - Bob, Betty and Snow Boots

Announcing Miss Spell's Hotel

Did you know I have a new book coming out next week? It's true! I do! Here's the OFFICIAL official announcement!
*cue the trumpets*
May I introduce... Miss Elle Spell, owner of the Know Spell Hotel in her debut book Miss Spell's Hotel!

If you're a Maggie fan, you're going to want to pick this one up. It takes place on the Other Side a few years before Maggie's adventures, but several familiar faces show up. You'll get some insight into how the ball started rolling in the Magical Tracker series...

So, I'm up to my neck finishing this manuscript, but one of the questions I'm frequently asked is how do I get my ideas for my stories.

This one I actually have a good answer for!

It was October and NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) was right around the corner. They say a picture is worth a thousand words (four pages, double spaced in Times New Roman) and this cover designer I follow was clearing out some premades. This one grabbed my attention and I couldn't let it go.

At the SAME time, it is funny how what we watch or read inspires our imagination. What's the old saying... our thoughts are 90% just repeating the things we've heard or seen?

So I'm binge watching Twin Peaks for the first time and The Addams Family, and they squish together like chocolate and peanut butter.

Add them to the mix of this cover image and the world of my Maggie MacKay series and all the imagery of Halloween... and out comes Miss Spell!

If you'd like to check out Miss Spell, she is available for pre-order on Nook, Kobo, and iTunes.  (Amazon comes next week when she's live!)

https://www.maggiemackaymagicaltracker.com/other-side-hospitality/

Castles in the Sky - Part VII

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It was my final day in Nottingham and I rose from my schwanky room at a local hotel.  There had been a wedding going on, and it was awfully fun watching the families in the lobby on such a happy day. 
I made my way into the town and smiled.  I was headed up to Portmeirion in Wales to check out the filming location for The Prisoner after this leg and noticed this sign for a restaurant in Nottingham.  It's a sign!  Literally!  I am not a number!  I am a free man!

But I still had one more day in Nottingham.  My agenda included a visit to Nottingham Castle.  This is the bailey and pretty much the only remnants of the structure that would have existed back in Robin Hood's day.    

This is the backside of the bailey, and where the current ticketing office and smaller gift shop is located.

On entering, I stepped into the beautiful castle gardens.

And there was a little homage to my hero.

So, look at the upper right hand side of that picture.  That's where we'ere headed.  The path curved up a hill.  Gardens on my left, castle on my upper left, and this expansive castle green on my right.  So what's the history of this place?



Nottingham Castle was considered one of the finest castles back in the day.  Built by Henry II, Richard the Lionheart would come hang out when he wasn't fighting in the Crusades, Prince John holed up here when he tried to overthrow King Richard, and the only time the castle walls were ever breached was when King Richard came back to claim it from his dumb brother.  It has a darker history, too.  King John hung twenty-four young Welsh hostages (aged 11 - 15) atop the wall to punish the Welsh chieftains for rising against him.  Henry III (the reign in which I set my Robin Hood tale) turned it into a bit of a pleasure palace and would bring his friends out to hunt his deer (he would also make gifts of the trees in Sherwood Forest for said friends' fancy homes.  Unfortunately, no trees for the poor people unless they bought the wood from a royally sanctioned woodcutter.)
Here's what Nottingham Castle used to look like: 

Sadly, it feel into disrepair, and we have this quote:

 When Charles I's head was lopped off, Oliver Cromwell demanded that the castle be destroyed so it wouldn't fall back into Royalist hands.  And his minions set about doing it.  But when Charles II was restored in 1661, the people who destroyed the castle were thrown in jail, and William Cavendish bought it in 1663.  He hated the dusty, musty medieval vibe and decided to turn it into something more French.  He tore down the turrets and the balustrades and replaced it with... a square.  I mean, a highly decorated square, but the building was a brick.

(Not my picture)
I will say, it was an excellent museum.  They had paintings that were some of the finest masterworks I've ever seen.  Sadly, their display on Robin Hood was pretty much an exhibit in the basement aimed at kids.  Really well done, informative, and I thoroughly enjoyed it!  But not exactly what you'd expect.  THAT said, they have announced a new project to build an exhibit that focuses on Robin Hood and I'm so excited!  Here's a great little video that talks about the recent announcement and gives you a look inside:  https://www.nottinghampost.com/whats-on/whats-on-news/nottingham-castle-close-when-reopen-1705457
I apologize I was not able to get any pictures (museums and such), but I DID manage to hit up the gift shop and grabbed a Robin Hood lavender sachet with Nottingham lace and all sorts of books not available in the U.S.

The one thing that I was really interested in checking out was the caves.  SO!  Timeline - Edward the II got stabbed.  Edward III was the king regent, but his mom Queen Isabella was having an affair with this guy named Mortimer.  Edward III decided enough was enough and had Mortimer hauled out of his mom's bed, through the caves, and to the tower of London, where he was hung a month later. 
Note:  Brewhouse Yard Museum Caves and Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem Inn Caves.  There will be a test later if you read the book.

I TOTALLY signed up for the cave tour.
I grabbed a bite to eat on the terrace (lovely ham and cheese sandwich, and a bit of Victoria sponge)

This is all the same patio, just scanning from right to left



At the appointed hour we gathered and descended.

So, in addition to using these caves to kill your mom's lover, they were used to transport beer and went from that very high terrace all the way down to Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, where I was the day before and has been serving ale to the castle since the 11th century.

Here's our group descending

And turning around to snap a picture of where we came from.

Our guide was a dapper gentleman dressed in a smart suit and carrying an umbrella.

We descended into... oh jeez... my brain... Mortimer's Hole?  King David's Dungeon?  I can't remember which branch.  I would be a lousy spelunker. 

If I'm remembering correctly, this staircase is where the queen was dragged out.

Torches are dumb!  Light a brassiere!  I mean, a brazier!  One of the big myths is that a torch is useful in a cave.  I mean, better than the dark, but they burn fast and burn everything around them and are smoky and burn your face.  So, far better to carry a lantern or candle or light a campfire in a brazier.

So, we reached halfway, and suddenly found ourselves outside on a ledge overlooking the city.

What were these strange holes in the wall?

It was a dove cote!  Back in the day, WiFi was pretty spotty, so instead, they had trained pigeons.  Half of them knew how to fly to York, half of them knew how to fly to London, and they were dispatched from these little nooks whenever anyone needed to send a message.  Like owl post!  Except for real!  And with doves and pigeons!


We headed back into the system to continue our descent.  Here's a view of the dovecote looking back.

And finally we emerged out a door....
....Oh look!  Right next to Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem!

Look at the tip top of the cliff edge and that's Nottingham Castle.  Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem is to the left of where I'm standing.

Now, there's another charming little museum at the base called the Museum of Nottingham Life that has rooms set up with local historical items.  Here's a picture from their site.

You can see the outer castle wall.  Now, imagine it's the medieval times and most houses are only one or two stories tall.  I read that the castle wall actually extended 40-feet above this.  Pretty snazzy.
So, the museum is also built into the sandstone caves of castle rock.

These caves were used during WWII as a bomb shelter. 




Little display of ye olde brewhouseT
There were warnings in this section not to walk beyond the table because the ceiling in that area might collapse on you.  I appreciated that everyone went, "Cool.  Thanks for the warning."  As opposed to here in America where people would be doing flippin' handstands and shooting selfies as the boulders fell on their heads.
There was a bit of a drizzle, but with lighter crowds, I headed back to the Robin Hood statue and really enjoyed looking at all of the sculptures in the garden.


Now, it says in the ballads that Robin Hood was captured in St. Mary's and then dragged across the street and thrown into an oubliette.  This was generally considered just legend until recently when some archaeologists started digging around the Galleries of Justice (which are located literally across the street from St Mary's) and discovered a frickin' oubliette.  Here's the video:


The tour guide mentioned that the Galleries of Justice (a.k.a. Nottingham Gaol, pronounced "jail") were open and they had a little display on Robin Hood, so I headed over.



I'm not going to lie.  The place made the hair on the back of my arms stand up.  I'm not particularly superstitious and acknowledge I'm not a fan of museums that explore the darker side of human nature, so maybe it was just me, but the whole place gave me the creeps.  I didn't stay too long.  But I did go down four stories beneath the ground to look at the oubliette where Robin potentially, according to the ballads, had been thrown.




On my way out, a list of Nottingham Sheriffs caught my eye.  I was becoming more and more convinced that I wanted to explore the Robin Hood first mentioned in the court rolls around the 1220s.

On this list, there's this guy named Phillip Marc and he was the High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, and the Royal Forests.  He was not a nice man.
Quick history lesson:  King John was awful.  The barons made him sign the Magna Carta, but when King John refused to honor it, the barons in England rose up against him in a civil war called the First Barons War.  Peace was made, but King John was pissed that his people would fight against him, so he declared a bunch of them outlaws and banished them to Sherwood Forest (which is where the idea of the Merry Men may come from.)  The French decided they needed to come be the parent and invaded England as a peacekeeping force.
So when King John died, his son Henry III promised he'd honor the Magna Carta if the barons helped him throw the French out.  Henry III was a wee little boy, though, when he came to the throne (nine-years-old) and his mom and uncle ran the show until he came of age.  
However, when Henry III came of age, he was a party boy and slacked on the whole upholding the Magna Carta and caused a Second Barons War.
So, what's actually in the Magna Carta that had people so het up about?  A bunch of it relates to limiting the Sheriff's power.  There are sixty-three clauses and twenty-seven of them are about addressing the medieval version of police brutality.  In fact, Sheriff Phillip Marc was so hated, he specifically was called out by name as someone that King John needed to get rid of in order to be in compliance.  But he didn't.  And the guy stuck around to right about the same time Robin Hood came into the scene.
It's kind of strange writing about these men, because we came across this scroll of our family genealogy and as Maury Povich would say, "SURPRISE!  You're the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather."
Yep.  King Henry III?  King John?  Thems my family.  Sorry everyone.

It is strange living, literally, half a world away and finding yourself standing in a place someone whose DNA created you once stood.  To look at the same buildings he and she were looking at 1000-years ago.  These aren't just stories.  These are the stories of my family.  These are the people who had to happen in order for me to exist.
It's odd.
So, my day in (S)Nottingham was drawing to a close.  There were some sprinkles and I tried to find a place that was selling an umbrella, or at least a cool Nottingham sweatshirt.
And that's when I stumbled on The Robin Hood Experience.
Okay, at first blush, it seemed like this quiet little storefront.

And it was this four or five story townhouse where you climbed to the top and then popped into each of the rooms for a little multimedia show on Robin Hood.

It was absolutely glorious and I wish you were all there to experience with me because I cannot even begin to capture how unabashedly happy this place made me.

As Charles Phoenix would say, "I KNOW!"

You know I love a good museum.  And, sure, things might have been a little low tech.

But give me a well-curated, low-tech museum over a touch screen any day.  This was a frickin' greatly curated museum.

















And as I left?  They even had a room where a kind man dressed as Robin Hood handed me a bow and arrow and told me to shoot at the target as many times as I liked (before then leaving because he wisely knew I would probably shoot out both our eyes.)
But this is where I suddenly realized what Robin Hood was about.
The only reason we even have a clue about Robin Hood was because people told his story through whatever means they had available, and they did so because his story resonated with them.  He was not a fancy man.  No monks were illuminating his ballads in their monasteries.   People shared his story verbally around fires and festivals because it meant something.  And the couple that owned this museum?  (I had a lovely chat with one of the owners in the gift shop)  They loved Robin Hood and put this all together and ran this place (I think I was the only visitor) because they were passionate about it.  I had been combing the city looking for information on the Nottinghams's most famous celebrity.  I found tons about my royal relatives and clergy and lawmakers and "important" folks.  But it was in this teeny, tiny little building hidden away from the bustling crowds, I found all of the information I was looking for.  Just regular people, trying to tell a man's story.
And here ends my journey.


As I write this final sentence, Olde Robin Hood should be now be live and available for any owls awake at midnight looking for something to read.


I've been looking at this bulletin board for almost two years.  I'll be taking it down as soon as I press publish on this post.  It changed immensely from the inspirational images I had when I began to where I am now.  I have my pennant from New York, a map of Nottingham and Sherwood, my sachet from Nottingham, a pressed penny and card from Sherwood Forest, a battered postcard from St. Mary's that I bought for a £1 donation at a little side table.  I only have to sell four copies of Olde Robin Hood to cover the cost of that postcard!  
Two years.
Quite a ways from that first stroll through Chelsea where I got the spark of an idea to a journey that would lead me halfway around the globe to stand where my ancestors stood.   
I find it sort of fitting that fancy people weren't interested in this story.  I shopped this book around to agents and publishers and found, even with everything I've accomplished, the only doors open to me are those that involve me telling this story directly to you.  
Kind of like how this story has always existed.  
Person-to-person.  
Who knows... maybe it's terrible.  You release a book out into the wild and hope it isn't bad.  I could have spent the next twenty years of my life writing it.  Every time I turned around, the story became deeper.  
But here's the story if you would like to read it.  
It's about a poor man that history tried to forget, but somehow he did something that touched so many hearts, his life has lasted 800-years.  And I'm proud to add my voice to that echo to keep his story going on.
Oo-De-Lally.
Now Available!
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Part VI - Not in Snottingham

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New to this blog series?  Get started with Part I - My Secret
The next morning, I drove my wee little car through the streets of Nottingham to get to the historic district where I hoped to find Robin Hood.  I wedged my Ford Focus in the world's smallest parking space and I wandered along the deserted streets.  Nottingham is a modern, university town, but being August and sans students, it felt a little post-apocalyptic.  Whole blocks where I was the only living soul...  I was not eaten by zombies or raptured, however, on my way to meet up with my tour guide.
(I did, however, spot this fantastic mural)
I had a bit of time, and so decided to duck into St. Mary's Church.

You got it!  This church is the actual church mentioned in ballads!  A chance to walk the actually space occupied by our hero!
Here's a picture of the exterior:
(picture taken from their official website)
Sadly, time and acid rain has not been kind to the exterior of St. Mary's.

Now, when you read Olde Robin Hood, you may notice every single church is called St. Mary's.  St. Mary's church in Nottingham (where Robin is captured), St. Mary's Abbey in York (where Sir Richard and Robin's crew confront the abbot), St. Mary's in Edwinstowe (where Robin and Marian get married)...  It can get a bit confusing!  
During the medieval period, people revered Mary, comparing the emotional suffering she experienced as a mom watching what went down with her son (an emotional crucifixion) to the physical suffering of Jesus's actual crucifixion (a.k.a. medieval clergy acknowledging that emotional wounds can hurt like the physical, and that your mom's pain as she watches what you're going through is as bad as what you're feeling.  PSA: Call your mom.)  
Times were tough in the Dark Ages and this message resonated.  Most of the churches at the time were renamed to honor Mary, the original ballads have Robin extremely devoted to her, and there is discussion that if Marian was not based upon one of the two recorded historic wives of Robin (either Matilde or Maud), she was created as part of this "Cult of St. Mary" (as historians have named it) to honor the Blessed Mother.


But shall we go inside?
In the ballad Robin Hood and the Monk , Robin and Little John have a fight.  Robin goes into St. Mary's to pray.  So, this is what the inside looks like today.

From the altar looking at the door.
(From the door looking at the altar.  So, that wooden part?  That's called a "rood screen" and it says in the ballad that's where Robin knelt.)
Here's a little display they had on what it looked like over the years:





And if you'd really like to get into the nitty gritty, check out the Architectural Notes on the official St. Mary site.  It's got a GREAT article with pictures from 1916 that is a pure delight.
There was a really great documentary on The Mystery Files that goes into the history of Robin Hood.  In the Robin Hood episode, they explore St. Mary's.  Evidently, there is a floor board which can be lifted to show the original foundations.

I had a little more time before my tour, so spent a ridiculous amount of time wandering the city and trying to decide where to eat.  I tend to be a grab-and-go kind of gal, but I'm so happy I decided to indulge.  I ended up going to a place called Pitcher & Piano.  Rather than allowing a gorgeous old church building fall to ruins, it was repurposed as a restaurant, preserving the art and architecture.   









(Sorry for all the pictures.  It's just such a cool space!)


Properly fortified, I headed out for a grand walking tour with local historian and Robin Hood expert Ezekial Bone.  He was an absolute wealth of information and pretty handy with the sword, too.



If you're ever in Nottingham, I HIGHLY recommend grabbing this tour.  It is so funny how places will sometimes fight against that which makes them special.  Nottingham is a really cool town in its own right and worth the trip just to see it, but it seems like they're a bit uncomfortable with their association with Robin Hood.  There's this guy... a couple signs around the city... an exhibit in the basement of Nottingham Castle... a statue... and a little walk-thru museum.... And that's kind of it.
Not in Nottingham, indeed.
According to a BBC article dated 2015:
A Nottingham city centre tourist attraction The Tales of Robin Hood closed in 2009, due to a fall in visitorsAn attempt by Nottinghamshire County Council to win £50m of funding to develop the Sherwood Forest visitor centre failed in 2007Nottingham City Council's application for £14.9m of funding to develop an attraction at Nottingham Castle was rejected by the Heritage Lottery Fund
Here's a video of the now closed The Tales of Robin Hood ride-thru attraction. 
 (video not mine.  Dated 1996) 
And pictures of what it once looked like collected by Google Images

But at least we have Ezekial Bone!


So, a couple of fun facts I learned about Nottingham.  It was originally called Snottingham.  And during the industrial revolution, it was renown for its lace.  In fact, I had been in the Lace District for most of my time.  There was a specific "Nottingham Lace" pattern and on the roof off the Nottingham Contemporary Gallery, they pressed the concrete with the pattern.


The skies opened up on us and rain dumped from the skies, but Ezekial kept us distracted and entertained.  Here we are, back at St. Mary's, but this time in the church yard.

Fun fact!  That blue brick is actually a trademark architectural detail in Nottingham, going back to the 18th century.  (These are new, but I've got some pictures of the old later!)

Now, I had been ready after this tour to incorporate lace into Olde Robin Hood.  In fact, I wrote one of the characters as a tatter (someone who tats, or crochets, lace.)  But, doing some digging, lace wasn't really invented until the 1500s.  And I've chosen to set my story in the 1200s.  So, what was there before?
Wool.
Nottingham was known for its wool.
The women who used to spin wool were called "spinsters."  (Look at where we got that word!)  Spinning wool was a cottage industry for unmarried women back in the day.  Sheep were prevalent and some of the early poems about Robin Hood have cast him as a shepherd.  Fulling is the process where women would put the wool into urine and walk on it to clean it.  There is a Walker Street in Nottingham, and Walker Street was where all that walking was going down.
But back to the tour!  This area at one point had been a gorgeous gardened spot, but when the industrial revolution brought lace making machines to town, it was turned into an industrial complex.
That blue building has been around since the 1600.  It is a rather lovely pub called The Old Angel and features sandstone caves in the shape of a cross beneath.
Sandstone caves, you ask? 
Oh... we're getting there, my friend... 

But first, this art nouveau marvel was home to the very first Boots.  Tragically, the interior is now just white walls, but they say beneath the drywall, the original architecture still exists.
Ezekial took us to the indoor arcade (it's like an old timey shopping mall) 


And we paused to look at old murals paying homage to Robin Hood.


(Doesn't it just make your heart hurt to see them peeling?)
Here's that historic Nottingham blue brick.


FINALLY!  FINALLY (I know!) I'm getting to the sandstone caves!
Were you aware that Nottingham is the City of Caves?  This town is lousy with them.  Ezekial took us to Ye ("Y" is pronounced "Th") Olde Salutation Inn.  And, yes, dated 1240.  And you can go get a beverage here to this day!

Nottingham, known for its lace and known for its wool, was also best known for its ale and beer.
Why?  Well, back in the day, there was no climate control.  But Nottingham is built on sandstone.  It is so soft, when you touch it, it just brushes away.  So, the people dug tunnels through the town (this site says there are over 500 caves), and fermented their ale and beer at a steady, cool temperature.  And for any ladies reading this, women controlled the ale brewing market in the 1200s.  It was respectable work and alewives (which included both married and unmarried women) owned their own businesses, often operating out of their own home.
But back to the caves!  Evidently, there is a ballroom beneath the streets somewhere where the Victorians used to hang out with columns dug out of the sandstone and a fireplace mantle with a lion.  Alas, the caves have just recently started opening up to tourist, folks just not thinking anyone would be interested in going down there.
BUT I GOT TO GO INTO THE CAVES!
The very kind owners at Ye Olde Salutation opened up their cavern cellars to Ezekial Bone and let us go inside.


After our trip underground (don't worry!  More caves in the next installment!), Ezekial led us over to the base of Nottingham Castle and the ONE Robin Hood statue in the city.
Evidently, the folks who commissioned this statue hated it.
(and the base of his bow has since been broken off by some jerk)
This statue was made in 1952, and evidently, the townspeople wanted a more manly looking statue, a.k.a. they wanted Errol Flynn.  But the artist, James Woodford, wanted a statue that reflected how young Robin Hood probably was.
The founding fathers of America were in their late teens and early twenties when they organized the revolution that created the United States.  And with the the average lifespan of people in the medieval times... Robin probably wasn't some old dude when everything went down.  I've tried to incorporate that viewpoint into Olde Robin Hood and explore what might cause a person of that age to turn into an enemy of the state and a folk hero of the people whose story has resonated for over 800-years.
We finished up our tour at Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem.  It's a really cool place.  Purported to be the oldest inn in England, it claims to have been a pub since 1189.  It is built into castle rock.  As in, behind it is a mountain, and there are caves that go from Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem through the rock into the castle.  Prior to it being a pub, it served as a brewhouse (a place where they made ale) and supplied the castle with their beverage needs, probably dating back to 1068.  Some of its history appears to be Victorian revisionism, but the legend is that the soldiers on their way to the crusades would stop here for one last pint before heading out with Richard the Lionheart to fight in the Holy Lands.



Behind the tavern, castle rock is pocked with sandstone caves (the following day, I would exit out of that little metal gate, but more about that in the next installment.)  People used to live in there, there were dove cotes where birds were kept to carry messages between York and London (the doves were each trained to fly one direction or the other.)  Kind of an olde fashioned apartment complex.  


But what did Ye Olde Jerusalem Trip look like inside?
Well, here's one of the pictures.  My computer completely bricked out on me last October and I'm afraid my other pictures were victims of the crash.  I'll keep looking for them and adding if I find them, but here's one of the rooms with one of the bars!


And here is a picture I did not take, but is from an article that says Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem closed for renovations, and has a bunch of pictures of what it used to be and a great video walk-thru.  Check it out!
https://www.nottinghampost.com/whats-on/food-drink/ye-olde-trip-pub-closed-1310269
The legend says a crusader left that sword when he could not pay for his drink, telling the bartender that he'd be back to pay when he returned from the wars, but never returned.  There is a kissing chair where if you sit on it, your fertility is threatened to go way up.  And all of these little side rooms with tables and chairs.  Historically, there is some record of a cockpit in the basement and (supposedly) tunnels that go all over town.
But speaking of all over town, I had been all over town, and the day was growing long.  I headed back to my hotel and prepped myself for the following day on my adventure...
Part VII - Castles in the Sky
Complete List Part I - My SecretPart II - Cleavage and Turkey LegsPart III - The "V" Stands for WHAT??Part IV - Into the Dusty TomesPart V - Into The Woods - Sherwood Forest Part VI - Not in SnottinghamPart VII - Castles in the Sky
*  *  *  *
LIMITED Time Sale - $1Kindle USKindle UK
Kindle CA

NOW AVAILABLE IN KINDLE UNLIMITED!

Paperback

Part VI - Not in Nottingham

Coming September 20, 2018
Special Pre-Order Sale - $1Apple Books
Google PlayKoboNook
Other Sites
*  *  *  *  *
New to this blog series?  Get started with Part I - My Secret
The next morning, I drove my wee little car through the streets of Nottingham to get to the historic district where I hoped to find Robin Hood.  I wedged my Ford Focus in the world's smallest parking space and I wandered along the deserted streets.  Nottingham is a modern, university town, but being August and sans students, it felt a little post-apocalyptic.  Whole blocks where I was the only living soul...  I was not eaten by zombies or raptured, however, on my way to meet up with my tour guide.
(I did, however, spot this fantastic mural)
I had a bit of time, and so decided to duck into St. Mary's Church.

You got it!  This church is the actual church mentioned in ballads!  A chance to walk the actually space occupied by our hero!
Here's a picture of the exterior:
(picture taken from their official website)
Sadly, time and acid rain has not been kind to the exterior of St. Mary's.

Now, when you read Olde Robin Hood, you may notice every single church is called St. Mary's.  St. Mary's church in Nottingham (where Robin is captured), St. Mary's Abbey in York (where Sir Richard and Robin's crew confront the abbot), St. Mary's in Edwinstowe (where Robin and Marian get married)...  It can get a bit confusing!  
During the medieval period, people revered Mary, comparing the emotional suffering she experienced as a mom watching what went down with her son (an emotional crucifixion) to the physical suffering of Jesus's actual crucifixion (a.k.a. medieval clergy acknowledging that emotional wounds can hurt like the physical, and that your mom's pain as she watches what you're going through is as bad as what you're feeling.  PSA: Call your mom.)  
Times were tough in the Dark Ages and this message resonated.  Most of the churches at the time were renamed to honor Mary, the original ballads have Robin extremely devoted to her, and there is discussion that if Marian was not based upon one of the two recorded historic wives of Robin (either Matilde or Maud), she was created as part of this "Cult of St. Mary" (as historians have named it) to honor the Blessed Mother.


But shall we go inside?
In the ballad Robin Hood and the Monk , Robin and Little John have a fight.  Robin goes into St. Mary's to pray.  So, this is what the inside looks like today.

From the altar looking at the door.
(From the door looking at the altar.  So, that wooden part?  That's called a "rood screen" and it says in the ballad that's where Robin knelt.)
Here's a little display they had on what it looked like over the years:





And if you'd really like to get into the nitty gritty, check out the Architectural Notes on the official St. Mary site.  It's got a GREAT article with pictures from 1916 that is a pure delight.
There was a really great documentary on The Mystery Files that goes into the history of Robin Hood.  In the Robin Hood episode, they explore St. Mary's.  Evidently, there is a floor board which can be lifted to show the original foundations.

I had a little more time before my tour, so spent a ridiculous amount of time wandering the city and trying to decide where to eat.  I tend to be a grab-and-go kind of gal, but I'm so happy I decided to indulge.  I ended up going to a place called Pitcher & Piano.  Rather than allowing a gorgeous old church building fall to ruins, it was repurposed as a restaurant, preserving the art and architecture.   









(Sorry for all the pictures.  It's just such a cool space!)


Properly fortified, I headed out for a grand walking tour with local historian and Robin Hood expert Ezekial Bone.  He was an absolute wealth of information and pretty handy with the sword, too.



If you're ever in Nottingham, I HIGHLY recommend grabbing this tour.  It is so funny how places will sometimes fight against that which makes them special.  Nottingham is a really cool town in its own right and worth the trip just to see it, but it seems like they're a bit uncomfortable with their association with Robin Hood.  There's this guy... a couple signs around the city... an exhibit in the basement of Nottingham Castle... a statue... and a little walk-thru museum.... And that's kind of it.
Not in Nottingham, indeed.
According to a BBC article dated 2015:
A Nottingham city centre tourist attraction The Tales of Robin Hood closed in 2009, due to a fall in visitorsAn attempt by Nottinghamshire County Council to win £50m of funding to develop the Sherwood Forest visitor centre failed in 2007Nottingham City Council's application for £14.9m of funding to develop an attraction at Nottingham Castle was rejected by the Heritage Lottery Fund
Here's a video of the now closed The Tales of Robin Hood ride-thru attraction. 
 (video not mine.  Dated 1996) 
And pictures of what it once looked like collected by Google Images

But at least we have Ezekial Bone!


So, a couple of fun facts I learned about Nottingham.  It was originally called Snottingham.  And during the industrial revolution, it was renown for its lace.  In fact, I had been in the Lace District for most of my time.  There was a specific "Nottingham Lace" pattern and on the roof off the Nottingham Contemporary Gallery, they pressed the concrete with the pattern.


The skies opened up on us and rain dumped from the skies, but Ezekial kept us distracted and entertained.  Here we are, back at St. Mary's, but this time in the church yard.

Fun fact!  That blue brick is actually a trademark architectural detail in Nottingham, going back to the 18th century.  (These are new, but I've got some pictures of the old later!)

Now, I had been ready after this tour to incorporate lace into Olde Robin Hood.  In fact, I wrote one of the characters as a tatter (someone who tats, or crochets, lace.)  But, doing some digging, lace wasn't really invented until the 1500s.  And I've chosen to set my story in the 1200s.  So, what was there before?
Wool.
Nottingham was known for its wool.
The women who used to spin wool were called "spinsters."  (Look at where we got that word!)  Spinning wool was a cottage industry for unmarried women back in the day.  Sheep were prevalent and some of the early poems about Robin Hood have cast him as a shepherd.  Fulling is the process where women would put the wool into urine and walk on it to clean it.  There is a Walker Street in Nottingham, and Walker Street was where all that walking was going down.
But back to the tour!  This area at one point had been a gorgeous gardened spot, but when the industrial revolution brought lace making machines to town, it was turned into an industrial complex.
That blue building has been around since the 1600.  It is a rather lovely pub called The Old Angel and features sandstone caves in the shape of a cross beneath.
Sandstone caves, you ask? 
Oh... we're getting there, my friend... 

But first, this art nouveau marvel was home to the very first Boots.  Tragically, the interior is now just white walls, but they say beneath the drywall, the original architecture still exists.
Ezekial took us to the indoor arcade (it's like an old timey shopping mall) 


And we paused to look at old murals paying homage to Robin Hood.


(Doesn't it just make your heart hurt to see them peeling?)
Here's that historic Nottingham blue brick.


FINALLY!  FINALLY (I know!) I'm getting to the sandstone caves!
Were you aware that Nottingham is the City of Caves?  This town is lousy with them.  Ezekial took us to Ye ("Y" is pronounced "Th") Olde Salutation Inn.  And, yes, dated 1240.  And you can go get a beverage here to this day!

Nottingham, known for its lace and known for its wool, was also best known for its ale and beer.
Why?  Well, back in the day, there was no climate control.  But Nottingham is built on sandstone.  It is so soft, when you touch it, it just brushes away.  So, the people dug tunnels through the town (this site says there are over 500 caves), and fermented their ale and beer at a steady, cool temperature.  And for any ladies reading this, women controlled the ale brewing market in the 1200s.  It was respectable work and alewives (which included both married and unmarried women) owned their own businesses, often operating out of their own home.
But back to the caves!  Evidently, there is a ballroom beneath the streets somewhere where the Victorians used to hang out with columns dug out of the sandstone and a fireplace mantle with a lion.  Alas, the caves have just recently started opening up to tourist, folks just not thinking anyone would be interested in going down there.
BUT I GOT TO GO INTO THE CAVES!
The very kind owners at Ye Olde Salutation opened up their cavern cellars to Ezekial Bone and let us go inside.


After our trip underground (don't worry!  More caves in the next installment!), Ezekial led us over to the base of Nottingham Castle and the ONE Robin Hood statue in the city.
Evidently, the folks who commissioned this statue hated it.
(and the base of his bow has since been broken off by some jerk)
This statue was made in 1952, and evidently, the townspeople wanted a more manly looking statue, a.k.a. they wanted Errol Flynn.  But the artist, James Woodford, wanted a statue that reflected how young Robin Hood probably was.
The founding fathers of America were in their late teens and early twenties when they organized the revolution that created the United States.  And with the the average lifespan of people in the medieval times... Robin probably wasn't some old dude when everything went down.  I've tried to incorporate that viewpoint into Olde Robin Hood and explore what might cause a person of that age to turn into an enemy of the state and a folk hero of the people whose story has resonated for over 800-years.
We finished up our tour at Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem.  It's a really cool place.  Purported to be the oldest inn in England, it claims to have been a pub since 1189.  It is built into castle rock.  As in, behind it is a mountain, and there are caves that go from Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem through the rock into the castle.  Prior to it being a pub, it served as a brewhouse (a place where they made ale) and supplied the castle with their beverage needs, probably dating back to 1068.  Some of its history appears to be Victorian revisionism, but the legend is that the soldiers on their way to the crusades would stop here for one last pint before heading out with Richard the Lionheart to fight in the Holy Lands.



Behind the tavern, castle rock is pocked with sandstone caves (the following day, I would exit out of that little metal gate, but more about that in the next installment.)  People used to live in there, there were dove cotes where birds were kept to carry messages between York and London (the doves were each trained to fly one direction or the other.)  Kind of an olde fashioned apartment complex.  


But what did Ye Olde Jerusalem Trip look like inside?
Well, here's one of the pictures.  My computer completely bricked out on me last October and I'm afraid my other pictures were victims of the crash.  I'll keep looking for them and adding if I find them, but here's one of the rooms with one of the bars!


And here is a picture I did not take, but is from an article that says Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem closed for renovations, and has a bunch of pictures of what it used to be and a great video walk-thru.  Check it out!
https://www.nottinghampost.com/whats-on/food-drink/ye-olde-trip-pub-closed-1310269
The legend says a crusader left that sword when he could not pay for his drink, telling the bartender that he'd be back to pay when he returned from the wars, but never returned.  There is a kissing chair where if you sit on it, your fertility is threatened to go way up.  And all of these little side rooms with tables and chairs.  Historically, there is some record of a cockpit in the basement and (supposedly) tunnels that go all over town.
But speaking of all over town, I had been all over town, and the day was growing long.  I headed back to my hotel and prepped myself for the following day on my adventure...
Part VII - Castle in the Clouds (coming 9/18/18)
Complete List
Part I - My Secret
Part II - Cleavage and Turkey Legs
Part III - The "V" Stands for WHAT??
Part IV - Into the Dusty Tomes
Part V - Into The Woods - Sherwood Forest 
Part VI - Not in Nottingham
Part VII - Castle in the Clouds (coming 9/18/18)
*  *  *  *
Coming September 20, 2018
Special Pre-Order Sale - $1Apple Books
Google PlayKoboNook
Other Sites

Into the Woods! It's Time to Go! - Part V

Coming September 20, 2018
Special Pre-Order Sale - $1

Apple BooksKoboNook
*  *  *  *  *
New to this blog series?  Get started with Part I - My Secret
August 14, 2017, I hopped aboard the new Boeing Dreamliner ready to begin this fantastic journey to seek out Robin Hood.

Fun fact, a family member of mine built this!  Like, if I'm remembering correctly, I think he actually suggested the name...

I've become an expert in finding package sales.  Flight, car, hotel?  You time it right, you can get a first class ticket cheaper than a solitary ticket in cattle class.  
And SERIOUSLY, don't ever fly cattle class to Europe!  I made that mistake once and my knees still hurt.  Imagine the seat in front of you being so close, they have to make it so the tray table can be folded in two so that you don't get bisected when the person in front of you pushes back their chair.  Business class is almost a health necessity for us tall people.
Also, I think this 1st class sticky toffee pudding was a health necessity, too.

I arrived in London and gave myself a few days to get over the jetlag.  I'll dig in deeper into my London trip in a later London Calling report, but here's the stuff I did that ended up being useful for the book.  
I had the best time crawling around old castle ruins in the Cotswolds.  This is Minister Lovell Hall. 

It was built in the 1400s, but some of the older tech was still in use.  They didn't have chimneys back in the day, so you'd set a fire in the middle of the room and then have this huge, tall ceiling and the smoke would be drawn out through that teeeny tiiiiny hole at the top.


This is St. John the Baptist church in Burford. Construction began in 1175 and some of the features are still original.


And while not from the 1200s, I was particularly delighted by the kneeling pillows.



So, with my "adjustment days" over, it was time to head on up to Nottingham.  Knowing that I was going to have to get behind the wheel of a wrong-sided car, I decided that London was not the place I wanted to embark on that adventure.  Rather, I decided to take the train up to Nottingham and pick up my car there.

I made my way to the beautiful St. Pancreas Station (which is just across the street from King's Cross, for you Potterheads out there.)


I once took a train up to York the same weekend as the Edinburgh Fringe.  I didn't reserve a seat and I ended up having to stand for almost four hours.  And it was once again August.  And time for the Fringe.  So, I ponied up the cash and opted for first class.

If you buy ahead, it's not that expensive and you get a reserved seat and a free sandwich.



I arrived in Nottingham and the car rental place was right there at the station.  With much trepidation, I climbed behind the wheel.

THERE IS SOMETHING SO WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE!
My mantra just became "Left, Left, stay to the left" every time I entered an intersection... or a roundabout... so many  roundabouts...  "Go left when you turn left.  Go left when you turn right."  I was muttering it aloud to myself the whole time.

Driving a right-hand drive car in a left-side driving world is not impossible.  It's like when you are sitting in the passenger seat and wishing the driver would drive the way you think they should drive.  Except now you have a wheel and pedals in front of you.

I'm not going to say it was fun, but if you've driven the Pacific Coast Highway around Big Sur, you probably have some idea what it's like.  It takes a lot of concentration and every moment, you're pretty much like, "Concentrate or you're gonna die."  But you concentrate.  And you don't die.  And I gotta say, England is great with the road signs.  They make it very clear what you should be doing at any particular moment.  Not fun, but totally doable.  I was very grateful I ordered an automatic instead of a manual shift, though.

ANYHOOGLE.  Fear and white knuckles aside, I headed out of the busy metropolis of Nottingham and into the countryside, finally arriving at my goal...

Sherwood National Forest.

I parked my car and made my way to the front entrance.  Do they know how to make an entrance or what???





Right from the get-go, they completely acknowledged and embraced the reason most of us were here (which ended up not being the case in some other Robin Hood sites... but I get to that later...)
I was greeted by a statue of Robin Hood
And Little John fighting Robin Hood on the bridge

They had the BEST info center.  I mean... Folks who know me well?  This was up there with some of the greats.  And for those who don't know me well?  I LOVE a good museum.  Don't give me any of this highfalutin' touch screens and tech.  I want analog. I want it immersive.  I want it dark and moody and like I'm stepping into the world.  And this, my friends, was a SPECTACULAR museum.



TREES!  ON TEH WALLS!  Because OF COURSE!  And they had the most wonderful, informative signage.  I learned so frickin much!




And I should probably say more about it, but I took pictures of the signs to use as research and the information is SO good, you should just read it.  There may be some folks in the future who are doing research on Robin Hood who can't make it out to Sherwood Forest, or some jerk may come along and say the visitor center needs to replace everything with clean, white, modern lines (DON'T DO IT!!!), so read and enjoy these beauties.  Or scroll past quickly and I'll meet you at the bottom.


LOOK AT THIS GUY!!!  LOOK AT HIM!!!  I LOVE HIM AND WANT TO BRING HIM HOME WITH ME!!  AND LOOK AT THAT OWL IN TEH STAINED GLASS!!!


So, the Romans built a road through Sherwood Forest that became the Great North Road.  There were "dark spots" known on the road where bandits would lie in wait to rob folks.  One of the jobs of the Sheriff's guards was to escort people through the forest.


I mean... COME ON!


So, here's some fantastic information about the history of Robin Hood.



And all of Robin's friends!


Hi, Maid Marian!


We leave the forest and head into Nottingham castle!


 How can you not love this Sheriff of Nottingham??





 And you got to walk across the drawbridge to say hi to the king??


We like to party!


The Death of Robin Hood is in one of the old ballads.  In it, he goes to this prioress for healthcare (save the NHS!) who murders him by over bleeding him.  Weak and dying, he pulls out his bow and tells Little John to bury him wherever his arrow lands.


And there is a grave purportedly to be Robin Hood's outside of this purported abbey.  The marker currently visible was made by the Victorians, but there is record of an older stone that once existed beneath it (but was chipped away by passing travelers who thought it would bring them special strength.)  Now, someone went in and checked to see if there was a body there, and the grave was empty.  It could be there once was a body there and it was stolen at some point over the past 800-years.

But more likely, it was placed there by the ancient church as a phoney.

The grave is too far away for a bow to shoot, much less a bow shot out a window by a guy dying in bed from blood loss.  And there are some records that say the grave was placed by the road so that travelers could see it and all would know Robin Hood was dead and would not trouble them any longer.

Fascinating stuff...

ANYHOOGLE.

I exited and started to make my way to the Major Oak.  What is the Major Oak?  Oh, you will see, my friends.  In the gift shop, they were selling bows and arrows for kids.  My American maternal instinct kicked in and I was like, "They'll shoot their eyes out!"  But you know what?  No one did.

One of the other really fun things that they had in the shop was Robin Hood hats for just a few pounds.  It was so inexpensive, pretty much every kid in the forest had one, and I LOVED the thought of being little and running around this place.


As I walked, a little kid called, "Look, mummy!  A robin!"

Indeed, we had found robin of Sherwood Forest.  The robin and I sat and had a lovely little chat for a bit and she followed me around for awhile.


Along the path were little fairy houses for the spirits of the forest.  
The era of Robin Hood was a superstitious time.  Folks started thinking werewolves might be real and Sherwood was believed to be haunted.  And if you look at the trees for faces, you can see totally see why...


One of the things that really stuck with me was the undergrowth.  Now, I grew up near the redwood forests, so am no stranger to ferns, but it really struck me how, if you were out here hiding out, these ferns were as tall as a person and you'd have to fight your way through for every step.

(The ground was level.  Picture was taken at eye level.  These ferns stood above my head.)

I finally made my way to the Major Oak.

This tree was about 1000 years old.  It is held up by those sticks because during the Victorian era, people would gather around it and it packed the ground down so hard it did damage to root system.  The branches are heavy and this mighty oak is nearing the end of its natural life (1000 years for an oak is pretty elderly.)
But look at the face on the left side of the tree!

There was some great signage about the Major Oak.

Here's some close ups if you'd like to read:



The Victorians really romanticized Robin Hood after Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe came out.  That book was HUGE.  It was the 50 Shades of its day.  So, the Victorians came up with the thought that this tree was where Robin Hood and his men lived.  Now, this tree would not have been this size in the 1200s or 1300s, but it is fun to imagine.
There is also debate whether Robin Hood ever actually lived in Sherwood Forest.  
Oops.  
A whole trip planned and scheduled and I discovered that I might have been in the wrong corner of the country.  The Robin who lived in 1226 was from Barnsdale (sort of northeast-ish) and there is a Barnsdale Forest.  The earliest ballads of Robin actually place part of the action there and part in Nottingham.  BUT!  The distance between Barnsdale and Nottingham would be a long day's ride, so it's not out of the realm of possibility to think someone might travel between the two.  Sherwood Forest was also a MUCH bigger place back in the day, coming within 200-yards of Nottingham Castle and stretching out until it merged with Barnsdale Forest, so there wasn't exactly a "You Are Here" sign to keep track of where exactly you were among the trees.  In Olde Robin Hood, I mainly stick with Sherwood Forest.  There's enough stuff in there that's different from what we all grew up believing that I decided getting hard core about which trees he was hanging out in didn't buy anyone anything.  But you and I know what actually is going on.  He hung out in both.
But speaking of finding one's self among the trees...  the crowds were starting to build around the Major Oak, so I decided to seek out some of the quiet and solitude of the forest, and take the long way around to the front entrance.

Well, it was most definitely the long way.
I once went to a travel class on how to get around the UK, and the one thing they emphasized over and over again is not to underestimate the elements.  You think you're in a nice little field.  You think the sky is blue.  Suddenly, there's some drizzle.  Except it is quite a bit more than drizzle and the field you're standing in is mud with no rock beneath it and you're up to your ankles...  I mean... not on this trip.  But you'd think I'd learn.

But what was supposed to just be a simple stroll turned into this rather... long... walk.  March?  Forced march?  And it began to rain.

But I have to say, at about an hour or so, the rain cleared out and... my... 



It was just magic.

So, one of the age old rights in England is that you are allowed to cut across a private field.  Once a year, people walk across the countryside to maintain these ancient footpaths.  Now, one of the problems is that people traipsing in and out of your fenced land can mean that your sheep get out, so there are gates like this, where you can climb up and over.  So, I figure, "Heck!  Let's do this!"

There were signs to beware of cows.  I was like, "Pshaw.  Cows."  And headed in.

I suddenly found myself in a field of heather...


Brigadoon?



It was gorgeous.  And it just went on and on and on.  But along the way, I passed by some of the biggest cow patties / meadow muffins I'd ever seen.  And I thought to myself, "Self?  Maybe you don't need to walk across the field to get to the other side."

One of the rather cool things is that Sherwood Forest parks management realized that you have to clear out some undergrowth in order to keep a forest healthy.  But rather than having folks come through with saws and bobcats, they released these cows into the wild.  And they. Ate. Everything.  Note the horns.  Note the fence.  I had been inside there.  And you can't quite tell the scale, but I'm 5'8 and probably came up to their shoulder.



I found my way back to a path and passed by a couple more awesome trees.


 This is me, hours into being lost.  I'm still having the best time.




And I should note, I never really got LOST lost.  There were well tended paths and such.  It was just that none of them seemed to lead to the entrance.


But still, I was seeing all sorts of loveliness that all those people who decided to hang out at the ice cream hut were missing.

I liked this stump someone assembled.  It reminded me of my sister's shitzhus.



Look at this guy's arms!  Imagine coming on this tree in the middle of a fog!


But eventually, all roads lead back to the Major Oak.


And I TOTALLY ordered myself a soft serving ice cream cone for the walk back to the front gate.  On they way, I also stopped by the gift shop... and the cafe for some coffee... There was a restaurant I would have ate in, but a wedding was going on.  Can you image?  Getting married in Sherwood Forest?!  Why are we not all getting married in Sherwood Forest???
I bought a pen for my nephew and entirely too many books for myself.  I'm STILL kicking myself I didn't buy a mug.  Darn that whole "gotta fit everything into your bag" thing.


And for those of you unfamiliar with how I write, one of my favorite things to do is to create a "dream board" of my project.  The mind likes to create connections between things, so having a cork board with inspirational images is a great way to get grounded when I'm sitting down to work on something.  So, these have been hanging on my cork board for the past year.  A postcard of the forest.

In the corner is a penny I pressed in the exhibit.  And then this was the very last notecard of this image, which is an image taken from the "Merry Adventures of Robin Hood" by Howard Pyle, written in 1883.

I also bought myself a keychain made of a bit of wood burned with an image of Robin Hood.  I carried it around for awhile, but then got scared it might get damaged, so later hung it from my Christmas tree.  I'd take a picture, but it's in a box.  And I'm not allowed to get out my Christmas stuff until September 12th.

All in all, it was a GLORIOUS day.  There are places in corners of the globe that just take your breath away.  The redwood forests of California.  The Grand Canyon.  And I gotta say... Sherwood forest.  If you have a chance, it is just... I don't know how else to describe it beyond magical.   There is a spirit there... a loveliness.  I look forward to the day that I can go back.

But until then, the day was growing long and I needed to go find out where this hotel I was staying at was located.

I walked out to my car, and lying there on top of the roof was the perfect twig of oak leaves, as if a gift.



Tune in next week for Part VI - Not in Nottingham (coming 9/10/18)
Complete ListPart I - My SecretPart II - Cleavage and Turkey LegsPart III - The "V" Stands for WHAT??Part IV - Into the Dusty TomesPart V - Into The Woods - Sherwood Forest Part VI - Not in Nottingham (coming 9/10/18)
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Part IV - Into the Dusty Tomes

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One of the things about writing about a subject people know well is that you really have to fact check your stuff.  There is nothing worse than having some expert come around saying, "You messed this up!"  Man, it feels like a kick to the gut. 

Unfortunately, the thing about Robin Hood is that the deeper you dig, the more you find.  It's like the Grand Canyon. 

(amount of research to scale)
You could spend your entire life combing over every inch and cranny and still not discover everything, meanwhile, while your back was turned, the landscape you looked at before has totally shifted. 

(WHO STUCK IN THE TREES??)
As I was talking to some publisher types about this project, the biggest question was, "How is this story different than every other story that's been written about Robin Hood?"

And it's a legit question.
But in order to find out how the story I was writing was different meant I needed to start figuring out what were the stories.

So, I started off with a simple search.  I asked the interwebs what the earliest written mention of Robin Hood was.  It turns out it was passing reference in Piers Plowman , published around 1377.
"I know not Paternoster as the priest it singeth, But I know rhymes of Robin Hood and Earl Randolph of Chester."

(don't worry about trying to read it.  The Robin Hood reference is actually on the page before, which does not seem to be scanned in.  But enjoy page 31!) 
That's it.  Robin's grand literary debut. 

Piers Plowman is a dream poem written from the point of view of the seven deadly sins and Sloth says he can't remember any bible verses, but he can tell the stories of Robin Hood and the Earl of Chester.  
It seems just a passing comment, but it indicates that the Robin Hood ballads were popular and widespread enough by 1377 to deserve mention.  And not only mention, but chastised as lowbrow and the sort of egregious stuff those suffering from Sloth held dear.

And let's just talk about sloth for a moment here.  Sloth was considered not just a deadly sin, but the DEADLIEST of sins.  We now talk of sloth as laziness, but originally, sloth was despair and depression.

To translate: those suffering from despair and depression cling to the stories of Robin Hood as they hurtle towards their impending doom, but true hope and happiness is found in the church.

I should note at this point that two of the original surviving ballads of Robin Hood involve him 1) fighting a monk and 2) robbing the abbot of St. Mary's after discover the dude was up to some very un-Christian like financial behavior.

At which point, you may say, "But those are just stories!"

Eeeexcept...  as I was digging around the interweb, I discovered that in 1226, something happened at St. Mary's Abbey (the abbey mentioned in the ballad The Lyttle Geste of Robyn Hode) that made the Pope get himself out of his chair and mandate a semi-annual audit.  (And we'll get to that monk fight when I show you pictures from a recently discovered oubliette where Robin may have been held after the monk turned him in.)

"Okay!  Okay!" you may be saying.  "But was Robin Hood even alive in 1226?"

Yep.

There are several real men who lived who went by the name of Robin Hood.  These men had lives that intersected with the ballads.  Some of the later ballads found in the Percy Folio seem to be describing Robin of Wakefield, who lived in 1322.  He lived in the forest.  There is a written record that the king took a shining to him and brought him into the court, and then Robin ran away and decided to go home.

But after looking through all the stuff I've seen, I'm inclined to believe that the first Robin Hood and the guy who started it all is a fellow known as Robin of Barnsdale. 

"On 25th July 1225, the royal justices held an assize at York. When the penalties were recorded in the Michaelmas roll of the Exchequer, they included 32s. 6d. for the chattels of one Robert Hod, fugitive. The account was carried forward into the following year, when he had acquired the nickname of 'Hobbehod', and indicates that he had been a tenant of the archbishopric of York."

What does this all mean?  In 1225, a guy named Robin Hood shot a deer.  The royal justices took all his stuff (chattel) and charged him with a fine of 32 shillings and six pennies (d = Roman denarius, which became the penny).  He did not pay it.  He was called up three times to pay the fee and he never showed up.  And of all the Robin Hoods out there, he was the only one declared an official "outlaw." 

Now, what does being an outlaw mean in 1225?  It meant you had to go live in a place outside of the rule of law... like a forest.  It is also where we get the term "beyond the pale."  A "pale" is the area in the forest where the king's deer hung out, and if you were an outlaw of grievous crimes, you were so badly banished that you had to live "beyond the pale."  You had to go live in the physical location beyond the pen where the deer were.

It is after this that "Robin Hood" became this name that starts showing up in the rolls.  It became a bit like a "John Doe."  An anonymous criminal would be recorded as a "Robin Hood."  But it also became this sort of "I am Spartacus" call among the lower classes.  Rather than saying their name when called to court, they would start saying they were "Robin Hood."

But that started leading me to the ballads.  The earliest ones are Robin Hood and the Monk and The Lyttle Geste of Robyn Hode (written down sometime in the 1400s, but thought to have been spoken in the 1200s and 1300s) which I have incorporated into Olde Robin Hood. 

There is also a ballad called Robin and the Potter, but when you read it, it makes more sense that it was perhaps a play someone wrote down after watching it at the May Games.  I could be wrong and the real Robin did fight a potter and then dressed up as the guy and went into town to sell all his pots super cheap, thus getting the Sheriff of Nottingham's wife to invite him to dinner, where Robin and the Sheriff have an archery tournament and then Robin tricks the Sheriff into going into the woods, and Robin makes him camp out overnight, and promise never to hunt Robin Hood again. 

But it seems a bit of a stretch. 

There is also the Percy Folio in the 1600s, which consists of ballads thought to be spoken around the 1400s.  Most of them I dismissed:  Robin Hoode his Death - it's about Robin lying on his deathbed after being bled to death by a prioress.  He shoots an arrow out the window and tells Little John to bury him wherever the arrow falls.  There is a grave for Robin Hood outside of a place where a prioress would have lived, but it was created by the Victorians.  There is some evidence that there was an older grave beneath it, but it is too far from the building for any arrow to fly, so I decided not to include this story.  There is Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar.  It is believed this is a story from the May Games plays where Robin Hood carries Friar Tuck across a river.  We know the real Friar Tuck lived in the 1400s, so I skipped that one, too.  
But then we come to Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne.  It is believed to be one of the oldest ballads (perhaps even older than Robin Hood and the Monk), but just not published until this later collection.  There was something to that ballad and it mirrored some of the action in The Lyttle Geste of Robyn Hode, so I decided to draw upon that one in Olde Robin Hood, too.
I also realized that there are so many different stories of Robin Hood, maybe it would behoove me to pick up some older books to read what folks were writing about the guy 100 years ago and 200 years ago.  I'll be honest, they are pretty much just retellings of Mundy's and Sir Walter Scott's stories.  But the pictures are gorgeous!
 


Until I came to a little book of Scottish Ballads.



There is a thought that after Robin and Little John did whatever they did, and then around about 1260, they headed up to Scotland to help out with some fights up there.  There's a couple ballads about them in this book.  Mainly romantic tales of them hooking up with the ladies.

But I found this little historical note on something that went down in Scotland that just tickled me as something I had never heard before.


It reads:  "The game of Robin Hood was celebrated in the month of May.  The populace assembled previous to the celebration of this festival, and chose some respectable member of the corporation to officiate in the character of Robin Hood, and another in that of Little John, his squire....As numerous meetings for disorderly mirth are apt to engender tumult, it was found necessary to repress the game of Robin Hood by public statue. The populace were by no means willing to relinquish their favorite amusement....In the year 1561, the mob were so enraged in being disappointed in making a Robin Hood, that they rose in mutiny, seized on the city gates, committed robberies upon strangers; and one of the ringleaders, being condemned by the magistrate to be hanged, the mob forced open the jail, set at liberty the criminal and all the prisoners, and broke in pieces the gibbet erected at the cross for executing the malefactor.  They next assaulted the magistrates, who were sitting in the council chamber, and who fled to the tollbooth for shelter, where the mob attacked them, battering the doors, and pouring stones through the windows.  Application was made to the deacons for the corporations to appease the tumult.  Remaining, however, unconcerned spectators, they made this answer:  They will be magistrates alone; let them rule the multitude alone.   The magistrates were kept in confinement till they made proclamation be published, offering indemnity to the rioters upon laying down their arms.  Still, however, so late as the year 1592, we find the General Assembly complaining of the profanation of the Sabbath, by making of Robin Hood Plays."

You don't hear often about the Robin Hood Riots of 1561.

ANYHOOGLE!

As time was passing, though, I realized that I was stumbling with the whole "Write What You Know."  I was generally creating a world from some hard-to-read maps and bastardizing a story from some old tales passed down.  But what did the world look like?  What did Sherwood Forest smell like?  How does the light fall down from the sky?  How is Nottingham laid out?  What stuff was there that I couldn't find in a book?  What is the truth of that city?

It was at this moment I was also stumbling into the wonderful world of radio drama.  There's a radio project I've been working on that I'll get into later -BUT- I saw that there was this organization called Arvon and the brilliant head of BBC Radio North, Susan Roberts, and the brilliant poet Simon Armitage were teaching a week long writing retreat which focused on how to write radio plays. 

The country house where the retreat was taking place was really only accessible by car. 

And one of the reasons I had never been up to Nottingham or Sherwood Forest was that you really need a car to get around. 

And for those playing at home, in England, the wheel is on the right-hand side and they drive on the left side of the road.

I remembered the one and only time I tried to learn how to downhill ski, I realized I should have been doing it ten years before, that I was going to kill myself as an adult trying to learn.

And I realized that driving on the wrong side of the road was not going to get any easier as the years passed.  If I was going to do thing?  It was never going to get any easier, I was never going to be any sharper that I was at that very moment.

Sooo....

I bought my plane ticket, booked my hotels and rental car, and got ready for my trip to Nottingham!

Tune in Monday, August 27 for Part V - GROUND ZERO, Sherwood Forest

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