JUST back from a few days in Stratford-on-Avon with my family for half-term.

It’s hard to avoid Shakespeare when you’re there. It’s hard to avoid Shakespeare anywhere, actually, so embedded is his work and influence in our culture and society.

Putting aside the acclaim his plays still enjoy worldwide, there is the simple matter of the expressions he forged that we still use 400 years after his death.

We open our mouths and unwittingly pay homage to the Bard of Avon.

We all know ‘To be or not to be...’ and ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’.

But reams of phrases he coined slip unnoticed through our conversation like currency passing through our hands.

I pondered this during our visit with the luxury of time to be footloose and fancy-free*, for once without a schedule to keep.

While you might be liable to catch a cold* if you don’t wrap up, these crisp autumn days are perfect for a stroll by the Avon.

Suitably exercised, we ate the hostelries of Stratford out of house and home*. A lucky find was an excellent ice cream parlour, where my bare-faced* wife stole a scoop from my cornet. As nice as mine was, the green-eyed monster* made me wish I’d chosen the same flavour as hers.

For goodness’ sake*, why do I always choose the wrong flavour?

But every dog will have his day*, and I got my revenge by stealing a scoop of hers. I asked my daughter if I could try her flavour, but she wouldn’t budge an inch* despite my pleas.

It was a foregone conclusion* that we would pay a visit to Shakespeare’s grave at Holy Trinity Church. There was hardly elbowroom* as it was packed with tourists from all over the world, such is Shakespeare’s fame. They all wanted to see the Bard’s tombstone, where he lies dead as a doornail*.

Before I breathe my last* I want to take my children to see a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

They don’t know any Shakespeare yet, so for them it is a brave new world*. But they do know Stratford is the be all and end all* of British theatre, even if it’s all Greek* to many people.

Our day in Stratford nearly at an end, it had got to the witching hour*, the moon reflected in the oily-black ripples of the Avon and so we headed back to sleep, perchance to dream*.

You might think this column much ado about nothing*, but of course, all the phrases marked with an asterisk first flowed from Shakespeare’s nib.

Brevity is the soul of wit*, so I will bid you adieu and exit... pursued by a bear*.

*Phraseology courtesy of William Shakespeare