Bath Scape

I would like to point out that when we went to Bath, James led the way. Almost immediately turning in the wrong direction we hadn't even exited Frome before he admitted defeat and asked us to go ahead. I'm pretty sure that we got us lost at some point after that, but that isn't the point, and I may not even have what scant excuses for facts I haven't bothered to mention here straight, but I will accept no revisionist counter-revolutionary claims of falsehood.

And so, to Bath, the jewel in the crown of the West Country, or possibly just the crown?

We headed for the Park and Ride, not daring to take two cars into the city, and had nothing but (faint) praise for the bus service which whisked us through the drenching sun into the city before dropping us unceremeniously (lack of ceremony only in the interests of punctuality, I'm sure) in the city centre.

We had an abortive attempt to find a picnic spot by the canal before deciding that water expanses wasn't the best location and headed into the city to find a park, which we did, sitting down amongst the pasty-faced office workers and East European builders to munch upon our most excellently catered lunch.

With the briefest of stop-offs at a self-compacting refuse unit, we pressed on to find a pseudo-flashmob performance art dance thingy making some progress, stopping to watch it for a while before mapping our way through a high street of delights.

I sneakily sneaked into a McDonalds to use their facilities, which were sort of reminiscent in their compact efficiency of an aeroplane, and reminisced nasally over the redolent fragrances of cooking processed meats which brought we so much joyless satiety in my younger years.

The cobbled streets of Bath left my stroller in pieces, and stopping several times to re-attach wheels left me behind the uncaring crowd within a crowd, clearly caught up in their destination wherever that might be, and I did feel the need to take the occasional photograph. As we arrived at the Roman Baths, the stroller and its occupant and I, we circuited the collonnades and courtyards with their bustling crowds taking all this history around and underfoot for granted, with the street guitarist's chords and tonics echoing between the columns and tourists on benches looking faintly miserable while other folks in period costume followed each other around with Canon SLRs masquerading as video cameras as they masqueraded as pie-shop punters.

I jumped the queue to join my compadres, we ditched the pram in the pram-ditching area, we accosted the tour-guides-on-strings and began the process of controlling children whilst incidentally attempted to enjoy the ambience of the Roman Baths.

Lyra was creating merry hell, and true to form Nicole and I were soon left behind to control the Imp as she screeched, climbed, ran, and generally cried havoc through the museum section. I won't deny that I was a little jealous of the placidity of little Erin at various points throughout our time together and this was one of those times.

Still at least she didn't bite anybody (that we didn't know).

Anyway for all that the Baths were rather spectacular, bathing in the sun if not the water was very pleasurable, and the experience was done very nicely. If only the pretend Romano-British performer with their easy conversation and authentic ancient perfume had spoken Latin, but then that was probably too much to ask for.

After the Baths we wandered around before finding a place for some drinks. Actually we got sort of lost again. Which was nice.