If it's Monday ( and it is) it must be Bath.
For as long as I can remember I have wanted to go to Bath. It's an old Romqan town originally called Aquaeus Solis ( Bath is so much more catchy!) I am impatient in the car - like a little kid really. Fortunately Tony has never been either and is equally on edge. Sometimes things, people,places, just don't live up to expectations. But this isn't one of those times.
We drive through through the wiltshire villages, then past stone henge, looming against the clear blue sky. Somehow we miss the white horse carved into Salisbury plain but we manage to find the Park and Ride.
Park and ride is a fantastic idea which would work in Sydney and Melbourne. You just park your car in a large free car park on the outskirts of the city and you catch a non-stop bus to the city centre at a nominal fee. Brilliant - innovation you don't expect from 21st century Britain.
And suddenly, after a painless 10 minute ride, we are there......and all the waiting has been worth while.
The city has an aura which is not like any I have experienced before. It's a little like Brigadoon in that it's perfect and you expect it to disappear back into the midst without warning. A little like a film set, or a landscape painting, and a whole lot like a history lesson..... Bath exists, as my friend Rachel says, in a bubble. It's untouched by what happens in the rest of Britain....no homeless on the streets, no gangs, no street kids, no traffic, no litter - it's white bread middle class through and through. That ought to annoy me with shades of The Stepford Wives But it doesn't. It's beautiful and something to aspire to. It's also full of divine Georgian architecture and Roman ruins, though parts of it look very french with grey slate roofs and attic windows.
I am charmed......worse:- I'm in love! The likelihood of moving back to Britain is about the same as winning Miss World 2012 - but if the former were to happen I would live in Bath. If the latter happens I will die of the shock and have no need to live anywhere.
For hours we just wander the streets, filled with their hanging flower baskets, and ogle the buildings and take countless pictures.
We meet Tony's youngest nephew at a lovely pub and say yet another hello/goodbye. There is nothing morbid about this. We expect to live another hundred years...give or take a few.... ut it's wonderful to let people know what they mean to you....just in case.
The famous Roman Baths....fed by the same spring for more than 2,000 years, are beckoning us...but we want to see them at twilight by torchlight so content ourselves with the Abbey and The Circus and The Royal Crescent....then catch the Park and Ride back to our car and head for our B&B.
We are staying at the Bath Long Barn in the tiny village of Farleigh Wick, which lies between Bath and the little town of Bradford Upon Avon. The satnav takes along a range of single file farm roads so we see far more than we expected - but finally we find the long barn. It'sdelightful,...words like quaint, eccentric, slightly wacky and character filled come to mind. We fall in love with it instantly from the moment we see all the glass cased military uniforms in the entry hall and climb the stairs into the roof space where our four poster bed awaits in a little room with a huge skylight window overlooking the summerhouse and the fields beyond. It's magic!
Carol and Peter look younger than their years - though they are still far younger than either of us. This is their home, but they welcome us like long lost rellies from the Antipodes. We just have time for a quick cuppa and then it's off to meet Mike L....a relative by marriage and an all round great bloke - for a beer, all very civilised.
Later we go to a recommendation of Carol's for dinner. The Kings Arms is a 16th century stone Inn which serves exquisite food in gorgeous surroundings. It's a Monday night and we don't arrive until 9.30pm...but there's no suggestion that we are too late. We stuff ourselves on trout (me) and sausages and Mash...Wiltshire pork sausages made just down the road. Tony is determined to sample pork sausages in every county in Britain. They really are delicious. One thing we DON"T do well in OZ is a good pork sausage.
When we leave it is quarter to 11 and the sun has set but the long twilight still casts its eerie light across the skies.
Home via the country road and the smell of wildflowers and honeysuckle. We fall asleep in each other's arms...the way it's meant to be; the way we promised it would ALWAYS be when we first met.
Was ever a day so perfect? France will have a lot to live up to. And we have another whole day and night here. Bliss!
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