Chester to Bath to Dinton

4 Jun 2007

We wake up in Penrith refreshed after a great night's sleep to a beautiful breakfast - fresh fruit, the obligatory full English breakfast, and great coffee. Juxtaposed outside however, we find that bank holiday revellers have kicked the side mirrors off five cars parked in the street - ours being one of them. Ric manages to cobble the mirror back together despite a few broken pieces that are missing. Off we zoom to Chester past Manchester and Liverpool without so much as a sideways glance. Truly this place has just too much to see - and you can turn yourself in knots worrying about what you've missed or trying to get everything in. We've finally surrendered to only doing a few things well.

We arrive in Chester welcomed by blustery winds and freezing rain showers, and umbrella our way into town. We are at once entranced by the striking black and white Tudor buildings. The main street is a mall and is lined by building after building, all with their own signature style. Some ornate - others simple, but all distinctive - black and white. The amazing things are the walkways on the first floor that traverse across the first floor of each building a sort of incorporated veranda, where you can get a birds eye view of the building across the street as well as everything happening below. The floors lurch crazily in every direction from building to building and some don't even have enough head room to accommodate Ric standing erect. Looking at the buildings from the outside you can see the crazy floor levels evidenced by huge beams that probably were never quite straight and appear to have sagged considerably over their 500 year lives.

After looking around we beat our retreat to the B& B – nothing to report there, but we head down the street to the pub and are enticed into the smoky environs by £4 meals. We sit down and engage in conversation with a local who was bemused that we travelled across the world to visit his local pub. We discuss the upcoming ban on smoking - which annoying begins after we leave - and he remonstrates that he thinks everyone will give up going to the pub. I doubt it! Smoking indoors is already banned in Scotland (and Ireland) and from what I've seen so far there are not many empty pubs!

Next day we are off Bath and drive around madly trying to find our accommodation - only to discover some streets have two names in this city - one side is called one thing the other is called another – making navigating most infuriating. Bath is distinguished by it's Georgian architecture; the best collection in the world apparently - although I find it much more flat and less ornate and while more perfect than the Tudor much less appealing- Ric tells me it's not his favourite. After a nights sleep we wander into town for decent coffee and drop into the impressively huge cathedral. We listen to a guide who tells her group that the interior and exterior has been recently cleaned - using toothbrushes! It must have taken a few years! She goes on to say that the rector asked parishioners from the pulpit to bring in their old toothbrushes!! She also tells her group that the cathedral has the most memorials dotted around the walls - second only to Westminster Abbey. A lot of people came to Bath for a miracle cure even from Roman days, and apparently a lot of them never left, hence the far afield places many people hale from in the memorials. We wander around for a while and I read a plaque that said 'In Memory of Bill Jones, suddenly translated from earth to heaven this night aged 81 years'. Very poignant.

Then we head off to visit the roman baths. As we wait in line to buy our ticket the sign regales us with the myriad tourism awards this place has won. We weren't disappointed! The whole complex is nothing short of remarkable. The audio tour is included in the price and has a varied range of commentaries to choose from including one for kids, one by Bill Bryson and various others including actors being Romans. The site itself is amazingly intact in parts considering its age. In other parts where only fragments remain they have cleverly filled in the gaps with fake walls depicting original finishes. Brilliant videos that recreate the rooms from their present state to their original glory further fill in the gaps. I dip my hand into the hot sulphurous water as I listen to the commentary and hear that the Emperor would have taken 2 baths a day if he had time, along with a massage, and then indulged in consuming oysters, brought to Bath in sea water to keep them fresh. I'm sure I was an Emperor in a previous life - it all sounded perfect (or 'pairfect' as they say around here) to me. I hear Ric laughing listening to his commentary - he tells me he thinks I was a Roman Emperor!
It's quite amazing to hear that the baths themselves are still waterproof over 2000 years later - as built by the Romans - lead lined - with special joins! Other pipes have reinforced lead joins indicating water was piped around the baths under pressure. Quite extraordinary! On our way out we are given a glass of hot spring water to drink. I can only manage a sip as I think of the guide in the cathedral who said so many people died after drinking it. Maybe they didn't die from drinking the water but I'm not taking chances. We planned to stay a couple of nights in Bath but the particularly nasty weather and the decidedly unfriendly B&B proprietor spur us onwards on journey to Salisbury, not far down the road. Here we hit the B&B jackpot at a farm stay in the nearby village of Dinton.

The spacious room is welcoming along with the hosts - Fiona and Mark - who like are us are empty nesters but with a huge 17th century house on their hands. The house was a temporary home for a wealthy family who was waiting for their 'proper' house to be completed. Mark's family has been farming sheep and crops there for 3 generations.

We decide to stay 2 nights and enjoy the king sized bed and the absolute serenity outside the city. We are sweetly advised of the morning by a chorus of birds and the sound of squirrels scampering industriously outside our window. Speaking of birds and such, we have become addicted to a brilliant show on BBC TV presented by Bill Oddie called Springwatch. They set up a range of cameras to catch the action in various bird nests, a badger's hole and follow the fortunes of a clutch of rescued blue jays. The action is mostly live and a whole hour of prime time is devoted to the show. Amazingly they advise people to feed birds and a competition is on for viewers to provide their favourite bird food recipe! It's like an animal version of Big Brother - without the manipulation. A clutch of five owl chicks reduced itself to 3 over the week we'd been watching through the bigger chicks eating the runts -is that called siblicide? A family of five kingfishers learn the fishing ropes and a large family of badgers tackle climbing for the first time - all gripping viewing. We have our own animal encounter next morning with Henny Penny - the resident sole surviving chicken (her coop mates where cleaned up by foxes) jumping into our car and meticulously cleaning any crumbs of food off the floor. Ric is surprised how friendly chickens can be! More later. Cathy & Ric