Bath
Last week I didn't get work on Monday so I trotted down to Bath to visit Julie, who was staying there for a while. Even though it poured rain all day (of course) we still managed to get around and see quite a lot in a few hours.
We started with a good long catch-up over Bath Buns at the Sally Lunn bakery. Apparantly the famous recipe is now handed on as part of the property deeds for the business.
We wandered around the streets for quite a while. Most of Bath is heritage listed - hundreds of buildings - and it is just beautiful. I spotted a lot of streets I recognised from books, Georgette Heyer and Jane Austen in particular set a lot of their writing here.
The Upper Assembly Rooms are still preserved for visitors and house the Museum of Costume. Once again, it was strange to see in real life the kind of gowns I have seen described many times in period novels. We also visited the Jane Austen centre and had tea in the cafe there, but were too late to tour the musem.
The centre of Bath is dominated by the Abbey which towers over everything around it. It is equally stunning inside and absolutely crammed with memorial stones and, presumably, dead bones! The Roman Baths and the Pump Room are right next door but I left those for when I go back for a longer visit with Neil - we just did the girly stuff :-)
White Cliffs Country
It was our anniversary on Friday - 4 years - and we booked ourselves a retreat weekend in White Cliffs Country, Dover.
Sadly, when I pulled the camera out of the bag I discovered the batteries were flat so no pretty pictures except what I pinched from other websites.
We stayed at
Wallet's Court Spa Hotel. Not far from Dover and about a two-hour drive from London (train connections weren't great and we thought we might want a car for day-tripping) It is a fabulous 17th century farmhouse - all uneven floors and low doorways.
Our stay included dinner in the (very posh) restaurant. We sampled local game; I had highly authentic pheasant complete with buckshot. Neil had steak and declared it the only decent steak he's eaten in Britain so far. This all came on top of high tea in the lounge which had included salmon and cucumber sandwiches, cake and scones with cream. Breakfast was also included in our package but we, like Leon*, turned up our noses at the black pudding.
We followed hotel directions to a local walk taking us along the cliffs from the little village we stayed in to another little seaside village. The very pleasant, rambling downhill walk took about an hour and we failed to spot any indications of the vicious head-winds and steep climbs we would encounter on our return. We battled bravely on however (not like we had a choice) and made it back to the car. Great views of the famous white cliffs and the channel abounded. Also had a laugh at the locals attempting to play golf into the driving wind.
We had planned to visit Dover Castle, but after a leisurely lunch in the village we turned up to discover it closes at four during winter, not five as we'd been told, so we left it for another time.
We will definitely return to Dover, it was our first view of the English countryside and was lovely even in winter. We would like to do some more walking and want to have enough time to do justice to the castle.
NB: Driving around the city tonight (we thought we'd come home via Putney so I could pick up something from work- famous last words) has cemented my belief that we will NEVER own a car in London.
Ciao, Diane
* See Georgette Heyer's These Old Shades
