Bath

Last night Lyn avoided running over a squirrel. The night before she missed a bunny. Judging from the lack of roadkill the animals are smarter here. Or maybe they have a better mathematical chance of survival because the roads are narrower ... hmmm

We caught the train from Bradford on Avon to Bath. Got there just in time for a nice volunteer guide called Gwyn to take us on a free tour. We saw the Abbey and the Pump Room and Queen Square and the Crescent and the Circus and the Assembly Rooms - from the outside anyway. Then we had lunch at this pub - because it was there and it had a good sign.

In the fashion museum we agreed that everything in it from the 20s and 30s was great and the rest mostly ordinary and some of it just silly. Speaking of silly, we also played dress-ups. (All photographs inside with an iPad are dodgy - but we looked dodgy too.)

After this we split up. Lyn did retail therapy.

I toured the Roman Baths. Another excellent museumy thing but I'm starting not to care. Frankly, the Romans were awesome. I get it. 

Lyn had success too. Then we walked to the river, saw ducks and the fancy bridge, and came home via the supermarket.

The strangest things I saw today were the angels. Gwyn mentioned that the Abbey church was inspired by a dream of angels climbing and descending ladders to heaven. I thought, "weird", but didn't realise the decoration was as literal as the dream. While I was waiting for Lyn to finish shopping, I SAW the angels.

So this is what I was looking at.

Can you see the ladders? Lyn and I missed them initially.

It was cold today - about 13 degrees - but fine AGAIN.

I've been thinking. As I visit places in England, and hear English sounds and voices, I notice, above all, how familiar it all seems. It isn't part of my memories, but it is hard-wired into my cultural memory. This is a feeling much deeper than 'Pride and Prejudice' or 'Downton Abbey' on television could create. It comes from my own childhood and youth. I spent years in a world of books. I half expect the Famous Five to cycle down Ivy Lane past the farm with a basket containing ham, cheese and lettuce sandwiches and lashings of ginger beer. Just William might appear grinning from behind that ivy-covered wall ready for conkers. At the Abbey yesterday a light aircraft flew overhead very low. If Biggles had flopped his Sopwith Camel into the next field, I could have said, "Steady on old chap! Let's get some hot tea into you." This is a feeling that Australians of previous generations must have felt much more strongly when they spoke of going 'home' to England. I suppose I am from the last generation to have this feeling. My own children certainly won't. I suppose many modern English children are remote from this too.