Month: September 2011

A very feminine day today starting with a tour through the Bath Fashion Museum which I must say even from a male perspective, was quite interesting with, dare I say, lovely samples of clothing through the ages. There you are, it’s out. I enjoy looking at gorgeous clothing on women. It was really worth more than the free admission with our National Trust card.

I offered to take a photo for a trio of women at the Royal Crescent and pretended to run away with their camera which was a laugh, probably not for them, though. I paraded with Sharon down the Royal Parade to where the best example of tourist exploitation was to be found on all of our trip. A short, stout man with a bad hairdo in period dress beckoned us inside, The Jane Austen House! I found out later she didn’t even live there! We paid 7.50 pound each then sat in a room and watched a nice TV showing old ladies in old dresses dance around a floor with each other, waited there for 20 minutes for a pooncie young man in a flowery waistcoat to tell us about Jane Austen’s brothers, “And please do not take any photographs of me while I am speaking!” Maaate! We were led to the exhibition of Jane Austin and her life which consisted of a 20 metre walkway displaying large posters showing where she lived in Bath with a couple of quotations from her novels like, “I hope, Mr Darcy, that in the future people do not use my name to exploit unknowing tourists from far lands who come to this fine city expecting to get good value for money and having entered such an establishment they find after paying such hard earned cash from honest toil, they get nothing in return but disappointment and a feeling of having someone’s hairy paw in their trouser pocket rummaging for more coins.  .

We left there having a good laugh and after browsing through some very fine vintage clothing stores (reminded me of my own wardrobe), had an fine Italian dinner and wandered home.

We like Bath.

Take a bath in the Roman Baths at bath or even bathe in the bath at Bath and you are likely to have a similar life expectancy of those who used to partake of the warm waters gurgling up from these subterranean depths. For those waters in the Roman tub are now green with algae and are said to have poisons from the urine of rats swilling around in them. However, let’s not get down to the nitty gritty too soon and turn people off, for it was a great place to visit and we had a wonderful three hours wandering around the baths, museums and displays. I particularly liked the idea the Romans had of scratching a “curse” on a flat piece of lead and tossing it into the spring to place a hex on those who had done them wrong. One Roman had his bathing robe stolen and the curse he tossed into the spring to be found 2000 years later, read something like, “Ryanus Werderus stole my bathing robe and may the goddess Minerva come to his abode and kick his chook pen down.”

It was cool, steam was coming off the warm waters and Sharon became a little entranced by the mists and the green bubbles formed on the surface from sulphurous gases. It was fortunate I was on hand to snap her out of her trance and grab her for I was sure she was about to plunge into the great, grey, green, greasy, depths. She wasn’t too pleased. The spell must have been a pleasant one. Someone grabbed the image for posterity.

 

In reality, warm, clear and sunny, showers, cool, sunny, windy, rainy, clear, cool, showery, clear fine night. All in all, a good day had by all after we decided to stay another day. More drawing and lounging and wandering. I could get used to this.We avoided the showers by running into the National Trust’s Merchant house from the 1500s and the local art gallery and museum which was good. We laughed at the bathing machines the women used to preserve their modesty when swimming. They were boxes on wheels, backed into the ocean by horses, then the woman would enter the sea away from lecherous, prying eyes. We decided to have a light dinner tonight. We looked at an orange, looked at each other, then decided a glass of wine would be enough.

We have figured that after being in the UK for 9 weeks its about time we had a Bath so will drive there tomorrow.