1) Bath presents a quiet face of grey and cream in the crisp fog of a cloudy, early morning. I had the chance to contemplate it on the five-minute walk to the bus station, wondering if I could finagle a bus ticket to London on Saturday. Late the night before I learned that the railway strike, which was only ever going to be Friday, was officially extended into Saturday. It is likely my train will not run, and I have pre-arranged plans Saturday night and Sunday morning I don’t want to miss.
1a) This came to my attention just before bed the night before. The website for the railway I was traveling on had been taken down by the strikers. Definitive information about whether or not trains would be leaving Bath could not be found in any news source. Frequent attempts to book a bus ticket online met with failure because I have an American address and method of payment (this happened before with one of the railways). What I was lacking was a) knowledge, and b) certainty that I would actually get to London.
This beautiful building, beautiful in the dawn, is just across from the bus station.
1b) At the bus station I learned from a bus driver in a bus that there were no ticket terminals (as I had used at Heathrow), and that the closest ticket office was in Bristol.
1c) Wouldn’t you know it, just at that time my sweet Paulikins Whatsapped me a news article, which led to him taking care of everything in a twinkling. I am blessed.
1d) I will say only that the worst things in the world, the absolute worst, are being late, being misunderstood, and simply not knowing. It all leads to feeling powerless, and I got all three of ’em today.
2) So thank goodness I’d booked a two-hour slot at Thermae Spa this morning, just five minutes from my hotel. An hour in the rooftop pool contemplating the shade and sunshine, the roofs and steeples of Bath, and the collection of other tourists who wanted to take the waters soothed me to a better place. Blazing sunshine made me wish I’d brought my sunglasses up there.
Leaving the spa, where photography is so forbidden you must lock your phone in a special pouch before entering.
2a) Over that hour, the pool population almost doubled, from ~30 to almost 60. Mostly visitors to Bath, like me, mostly British (though one couple was speaking German), and a couple hairdos direct from The Mikado.
2b) A succession of steam rooms provided different levels of heat and scent (botanicals), and I would move from one to another as large family groups (of adults) would arrive and hold the door open for each other long enough to let the steam out. Oopsie!
3) With my afternoon unscheduled, I decided to check out the Holbourn Museum. En route I passed through Laura Place, the address of Lady Dalrymple and Hon. Miss Carteret in Jane Austen’s Persuasion. A nice little collection of 18th-century English portraits, Imari china, North German Renaissance paintings, and a gallery full of small things, from tiny and intricate ivory carvings to intaglios, coins, and portraits in miniature. I’d never seen magnifying glasses offered for viewing like this, but they did — what a great idea!
This could be Ann Miller!
4) I had a snack lunch there of a vegetarian sausage roll (should it even be called a sausage roll?) which came with a salad of blanched green beans. At first I sat outside, but the weather was “freshening” as they used to say at sea, and like my chips at Kensington Palace, I nearly lost some of my salad greens to Augusta Wynde.
5) After that, I wandered with the idea that at 5 PM I’d end up in the vicinity of the one gay bar in Bath. I ended up finding it well earlier than 5 — which is just as well, ‘cause they don’t open until 8, by which time I’ll have retired.
David Garrick as Jaffier and Susannah Cibber as Belvidera in ‘Venice Preserv’d,’ by Zoffany.
6) Mother always said “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” but when I saw Persephone Books, and that all their paperbacks are bound in an elegant unadorned pale grey, I just had to find out more! I ended up choosing three British novels by women authors, and having a lovely discussion with the clerk about my favorite British woman author, F. Tennyson Jesse.
7) After that, and committing Acts of Retail at a stationery store, I chose to tour Bath Abbey (which is right by the Roman Baths, and therefore moments from my hotel). My tour time coincided with an active and rhythmic youth choir rehearsal; like the steam room, the church didn’t turn out to be a contemplative space today. But Bath Abbey makes quite a thing of their being an active and engaged congregation, and the sheer number of children rehearsing (about 50ish) made a much better impression of the Body of Christ than the profusion of beautiful and severe Regency-era memorials lining the walls.
7a) I laughed when I saw one in the floor that began “This stone covers the Complicated Dust of . . . ”
8) Almost promptly at 5 I ducked into the Huntsman by my hotel for an old fashioned, and then on a whim, around the corner to Sally Lunn, “the oldest house in Bath,” for dinner. My whimsical reason for this (only I would think of this) is that the Tyler Administration is represented in The First Ladies Cookbook with a Sally Lunn cake, which was made with a specifically shaped mold.
8a) Well . . . they don’t have that cake on the menu, and the Sally Lunn Bun is basically an enlarged base (or top) of a hamburger bun lovingly coated with butter and . . . oh, something savory.
8b) This would be the Lobster Pot of Bath if it were larger and crowded, but the small dining room (distempered in yellow with sea-green woodwork and blue-and-white china hung from the walls) had the silence of the grave among the ten diners — except for the family of three sitting next to me. Adult daughter and aging parents, when the waiter brought the credit card thingy for them to pay their bill, he said “Just tap it or swipe it.” “Swipe it?” the father retorted. “Why would I want to steal it?” Before I could stop myself I barked out a laugh and said “I see what you did there!” And we all had a good laugh together.
9) Packing took less time than I expected. I’ll add my suit and dress shirt at the last minute tomorrow morning to spare them wrinkling before I wear them to the Royal Opera House tomorrow night. That is . . . if I get to London in time.
