Weekend in Bath

We spent the weekend exploring some of the region to the west of London, spending most of our time - two nights and a day - in the city of Bath.

We arrived separately. Sarah had her last day of school holiday, and Margo took the day off to drive them west. They spent time in the Cotswolds area, also seeing Shakespeare's home of Stratford-on-Avon, and stopped for tea before heading for Bath in the early evening.

I took the Tube to Paddington Station and boarded a train to Taunton. It was a little odd joining the homebound commuters on another train, like being a gang member in a different neighbourhood. Heading west, I saw planes from nearby Heathrow airport. We followed the Thames in parts; where we crossed it I saw some larger homes by the riverside.

We passed through Reading, which I know as containing the Reading Gaol as well as being the groaningly appropriate setting of the Jasper Fforde literature detective books. Swindon and Chittenham went past before we slowed down for Bath, and I left my southern-viewed seat early to go to the doorway and look to the north at the hills, trying to guess which one is Solsbury Hill.

Now of course Bath is known for lots of things, but with my music glasses always on, I mostly know it as the home of Peter Gabriel and his Real World studios. Likewise, nearby Bristol (the next train stop) can only be known to me as a centre of trip-hop in the 90s with Massive Attack and Tricky, and in the nearby town of Portishead, the band of the same name. I wish we'd had time to see them, but of course, what's there to see for the family - a Museum of Massive Attack? Not yet, I'm afraid.

I should also mention here that Bath is surrounded by hills, which is unusual in flat England. I know the hot spring was part of its founding by the Romans, but I can't help but wonder if the resemblance to hilly Rome was another.

Margo and Sarah were parked near the station, and we went on to our bed and breakfast. Then, without taking off our coats, we went back out to find dinner. Margo had got a recommendation from one of our hosts for a pub two minutes' walk down the road, but we set off in the wrong direction for a happy accident, settling in at The Hop Pole, a pub in a local chain named Bath Ales.

I was glad to see that they brewed their own, so Margo and I tried some of their darker offerings. I had a Barnstormer strong ale, which tasted quite similar to the popular Adnams Broadside, if not better; and Margo had the Dark Hare stout, which I liked even better. Good local beer alone would have been impressive enough, but our dinner kept getting better. My soup of the day, broccoli with local Stilton cheese, was fantastic; Margo greatly enjoyed her liver with bacon and gravy over mash; and Sarah's mac and cheese was freshly baked and very tasty. The staff were noticeably friendly, but when I went up to visit the toilet and a staffperson pointed it out to me without my even asking, I was by now shocked at the friendliness. We're just not used to this in a pub. Margo had a three-scoop sample of locally made ice cream for dessert (honey, strawberry, and chocolate) and we acknowledged that, if we had a pub like this in Ipswich, we'd visit three times a week. Our bill was also considerably lower than we'd expected.

As we had rubbish weather - blustery winds and light rain - and we were all tired from our days, we called it a night. Sarah and I shared a bed and even in her sleep she'd be annoying me by rolling into me and getting her feet into my side.

In the morning Margo and I had full English breakfasts and Sarah had porridge. We walked behind our block to see the Royal Crescent. Sarah is the little blue dot running up the hill on the left.



We passed The Circus, a roundabout surrounded on all sides by more crescent-shaped buildings. Then we walked down some shopping streets to the site of our day's two destinations: the Roman Baths (entrance on the right), and the Bath Abbey (on the left).



Something like a museum had been built up around the baths, and we took in lots of information along the way. Bill Bryson narrated some of the audio tour, and he's somehow associated with the café also. The baths are fed by underground spring water - we had a chance to taste some later for 50p, and it was hot and stinky - and has some therapeutic attributes. We saw Roman artefacts including tiles and sculptures. We also saw the spring source, and later the baths themselves. This is the largest bath.



Next, we had tea and cakes in The Pump House café, a room that could also be a ballroom. A string trio played from a stage. Sarah brought an air of grace and respectability to the proceedings, making us very proud.



The Abbey was next. It's one of the largest structures in the city, and recognisable from some distance.





Margo added to her collection of close-ups of sculptures like this.



As we returned to our room to rest a while, it started raining again. We got cosy and all ended up taking naps.

After a while I went out into the rain to take in a few more sights. I started with some of the shopping centres, ending up at the Pulteney Bridge over the River Avon, which looks inspired by the Ponte Vecchio in Florence with its shops.



I visited the Victoria Art Gallery and quite enjoyed the oil paintings on the first floor. Then I found myself at a Waitrose and got the Saturday Guardian and a bottle of port for a rainy afternoon tipple.

After some more downtime, we considered where to have dinner. Despite being given a map of fine dining by our hosts, we decided to return to the Hop Pole as we enjoyed it so much, and well-done pub food sounded much better than taking a chance on Italian or French or other cuisine. My fish and chips came with a tasty chef-made tartare sauce, Margo enjoyed her steak, and Sarah ... had the same mac and cheese. (Kids ...)

I'd also done a bit of reading from a book at our bed & breakfast and got the impression that Bath has a reputation as a place to relax. Not just for the spring water, but also in other ways. It seems there are (or at least were) more places to get a drink here than in the average English town. And there seems to be an emphasis on cooking with local organic ingredients in the Slow Food manner. You could call it a Slow Town.

After a bit of telly in our room, we retired.

In the morning we checked out after breakfast and drove back east in lovely morning sun. We followed a valley for a while and enjoyed the extra drama that hills give a countryside.

We hadn't much of an agenda, so the day before we decided we'd visit Stonehenge on the way home as it wasn't far out of the way. And who could pass an opportunity to see such a famous site?



The site is near two main roads; you park in a lot, pay admission, and cross a subway under one of them to see the site. A fenced path winds around the stones; sheep graze nearby.



For me, with my music glasses on, Stonehenge of course cannot be mentioned without bringing to mind Spinal Tap, so I gave an appropriate salute.



For the remaining hours driving home, we listened to a programme of show tunes on Radio Two. The Radiohead I'd brought to play didn't go over well, and it was hard to hear k.d. lang over the road noise, but radio fit nicely. I also skimmed the Sunday Times we'd got at a petrol station whilst filling up.

Approaching London, Margo took us to a rest stop. I was expecting a parking lot and loos, but this Road Chef was more a small food court. Margo announced she'd give her patronage to Wimpy's burgers, and I went with the flow, eating my first fast food in Europe. Skirting under London on the M25 ring road, I got my first look at the Dartford Tunnel as we crossed underneath the Thames.

Returning to Ipswich and unloading the car, I marveled in the Springtime, light-jacket weather, realising that just a week ago there was fresh snow on the ground.

White Easter?

Yes, there are snowflakes mixed in with our rain, being driven at us vertically by the strong winds. That's when it's not hailing.

The Next Adventure

Just wanted to share the news that I have been offered admission to the PhD progamme in Social Work at University of British Columbia. Whilst I was optimistic about my chances, it was still a relief to be informed this week!

So - now I just have to settle on a dissertation topic, and organise another overseas move... Also, if my experience in the MSW programme is at all predictive, I'll also need to prepare myself for feeling rather intimidated and overwhelmed for the first few months of school.

I am looking forward to returning to academia and to the Northwest and to driving on the right side of the road - though I suspect I'll be cursing the decision re: school from time to time during exams and when papers are due. Still, in a few years you'll be able to call me Dr Nelson!

Cheers,
Margo

Soundtracking

Sometimes I leave my iPod on when I get off the train and listen to music as I walk to work, soundtracking my journey. Sometimes a happy accident happens: when two unrelated events conspire for a unique effect. Lots of people claim that if you start playing The Dark Side of the Moon at the same time that The Wizard of Oz has started, there are all sorts of meaningful coincidences. Mine was walking through the ticket barrier and into the vast interior of Liverpool Street Station during the crescendo of Radiohead's All I Need, right where the drums kick in. It gave an implausible poignancy and weight to the moment, as if I'd overcome huge obstacles to be reunited with, well, something in the train station.

F1

Yesterday I watched the Formula One race in Melbourne. I never watch sports, but I made time for this. I guess I was curious, and it was a rainy afternoon with little else to do.

Part of my interest was stoked by months of playing Gran Turismo 4 on our PlayStation. I've spent many hours pushing high performance cars around tracks and learned some appreciation for things like finding your line with a corner. GT4 doesn't offer F1 cars, so I was also interested in seeing the fastest auto racing for real. Those cars accelerate and brake more quickly than anything short of aircraft; I'm gaining an appreciation for such engineering.

Lewis Hamilton, from England and on the Maclaren Mercedes team, is probably the best-known racer, but two other stars are Finnish and I love their names: Heikki Kovalainen, Hamilton's teammate, and Kimi Raikonen of the Ferrari team.

I wasn't exactly rapt for the whole 50-some laps; in fact I napped through much of them. And the action is mostly quite boring. But when things do happen, they are quite exciting, and over in seconds. For me the climax was Raikonen's overtaking of Kovalainen on a corner after tailing him closesly for some time. The overtake was successful, but it seems he put too much mental effort into it as he subsequently could not pull out of the corner fast enough and ended up in the gravel, and from then on the race most mostly over for the Ferrari team. It's how much those seconds matter that interests me.

Battle in Seattle

One of the nice things about having an obsolete game console is that games can be had on the cheap. So when I was out shopping yesterday I picked up some second-hand PlayStation 2 games for a couple of quid each.

One of them was a Godzilla game. You play Godzilla or one of the other monsters, and get to fight monsters and destroy buildings. You also get to pick which city to destroy and one of the choices is Seattle. It's neat to stomp around a place where you used to live. Sarah demolished the Space Needle. I got to smash the Columbia Tower. We went down to the waterfront where they had little Washington State ferries. Sarah threw an oil tanker at my head. It's been great fun so far.

Belgian

Tonight I went to Belgium. No, not really, but the next best thing.

I've been mildly craving a Belgian dinner of late. It's about the same distance as Paris by Eurostar and I was thinking perhaps we could shoehorn in a quick weekend visit for a last taste of pommes frites and the excellent Belgian beers.

But today I remembered I could do that already in London, so I did after work. When I've visited Covent Garden in the past, I've typically taken the Central Line from Liverpool Street, but tonight I took the Northern Line from Old Street, transferring at Kings Cross to the Piccadilly Line, alighting at the Covent Garden station. Exiting the platform, I saw an unusual backup of people (I assumed they were taking the escalators to the surface), so I followed the trickle of people taking the circular stairway. But after a while I noticed, they kept going. Some stopped to rest. It was like climbing a cathedral. Finally at the top I saw lifts and perhaps that's the only other way up, instead of the typical escalators.

Outside the station I noticed police and heard lots of men chanting. Perhaps footballers, or a BNP rally. I wasn't curious enough to investigate.

Instead I made my way to the Seven Dials and Belgo Centraal. I was naughty and ordered the frites as well as the croquettes de fromage (cheeses, breaded and fried). To drink, I started with their beer of the month, St Feuillien Brune (6.9% ABV), then followed with a bottle of Brugse Tripel (9.0%) which I might have had in Brugges but probably don't remember.

Radio

I tried to listen to the radio on the way to work this morning. I forgot how hard it is.

Radio was one of the things I was looking forward to most in my time in the UK. I'd read about legendary DJs like (the late) John Peel and Terry Wogan and wanted to hear more.

A while back I got an attachment from the Apple Store on Regent Street that adds an FM tuner to my iPod. Unfortunately I'm mostly unable to use it. I can only seem to tune in stations for moments at a time. Even when I'm sitting in my office, right in EC1 London, I can't tune in stations decently.

As I take the train, stations come and go. I can get BBC Suffolk, Ipswich radio, Radio One (hits), Radio Two (a bit more mature and edgier), and when I'm lucky, XFM modern rock (wherhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gife Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant got started). But it's always momentary.

Margo gets better radio in her car. My tuner's probably not too strong.

But I get the impression that most people listen to digital radio here. Unfortunately the UK implemented their DAB broadcasting with a much lower digital resolution than what's standard for much of the European continent.

In the meantime I keep reading my favourite UK music magazines like Mojo, Q, Uncut and my current favourite to keep up.

Sarah's Assembly

Sarah lost her other front tooth a few days ago, so before school today I got this picture.



And then I brought our camera with me on the school run to see Sarah's class assembly, scheduled first thing in the morning. Each class is putting on an assembly for the others, and today was her class' day.

The theme of her assembly was "Big Eats", which has been an ongoing thread in their studies: healthy foods and exercise. A microphone was passed around as pupils shared information with us. The bottles on the table below were pulled out by some students to represent the amount of blood in a human body.



A song was sung, and a poem was recited. Sarah had memorised it and been telling it to us for days:

Mashed potatoes on the ceiling
Green beans on the floor
Stewed tomatoes in the corner
Squash upon the floor

Prickled peppers in my pocket
Spinach on my sleeves
Mushrooms in my underpants
With leeks and lettuce leaves

Sprouts onion celery
Cabbage and beets
Buried neatly underneath
The cushions of our seats

All the rest I've hidden in my socks
And down my shirt
I'm done with all my vegetables
I'm ready for dessert

Sarah's part came towards the end. She thanked us for coming, and invited us to look at their artwork, still lifes of fruit and veg in the style of Cezanne.



Tonight Margo and I met with Sarah's teacher for a scheduled conference. She's doing well, performing at nearly a 3rd grade level in most of her subjects.