Weekend in Bath
On Sunday morning a car was waiting to pick us up and we went back to Paddington Station where we met Helena for our trip to Bath. A nice train ride, about an hour and a half, past lovely canals with canal boats and fishermen and sheep. Bath is an amazing sight - all of local limestone which gives it quite a unique look. We checked in at the old Mercure Francis Hotel directly on Queen Square and then hurried over to the Guild Hall - next to the Abbey and the Roman Baths - for my presentation.
Everyone involved with the Bath Literature Festival was welcoming - as was the constant aroma of whiskey (at 11 am) because a famed whiskey maker was a sponsor and handing out samples. We sat in a very grand room before one of those enormous fireplaces and were brought tea and sandwiches and fruit. Lots of good writer conversation - Martin Amis had just been there and Margaret Drabble was speaking in the afternoon and writers were coming in. We did a tech check - not entirely satisfactory because of a strange built-in screen that no matter what we tried, showed my Power Point pictures stretched. So everyone and everything looked short and squat. I forged ahead. A nice audience of children and parents but the theater wasn’t particular user friendly in that it was very dark and I was up on a high stage with the children below. (I like to get up close and personal.) Still, a lovely, lovely group with a nice signing afterwards - my first in the UK. And the only signing I’ve ever done with the scent of whiskey all around me and the children!
Afterwards, we were given vouchers for a catered lunch upstairs in the Guild Hall and then Frank and I tried to see a little of Bath. We waited and waited and waited some more for a bus which finally came and took us up the hill to see the Royal Crescent and the fabulous view of Bath. But it was late afternoon and we got off at the Roman Baths, the one thing we definitely wanted to see. Luckily we were able to spend enough time there to feel we’d seen it all. We actually did go to the Pump Room and drink the water. People told us not to, that it tasted so bad, but we’re both as curious as Humphrey and we drank it. It tasted well, not great, but not as bad as I was led to believe. However, no miracle cure seemed to result from it.
After a quick freshen-up, we joined Helena and John and Gill McLay, founders of another festival, the Bath Children’s Festival. We ate at a hole in the wall called The Hole in the Wall and had a delightful evening. Ummm and good mussels!
And then….. more to come! (more pictures of Bath - some of them are still on a little throwaway camera bought when we mistakenly thought our camera battery had run down.)