Saturday Bath Time

 

Linda’s ancestors may have invaded and defeated England, but fortunately centuries later they had no influence on the English love of tea. That means I was able to have tea for breakfast. In my earlier years I would have never let milk touch my tea. After our first trip to England it has become another way of drinking it.

A full English breakfast for both of us this morning. Bacon (ham), mushrooms, sausage, egg, toast, tomato, baked beans and black pudding. I was surprised Linda even ate any of her black pudding, and totally amazed when she ate all of it.  Afterward I asked her how she liked it and she said it was good. I got out, “You know it…” when she added “I figured it was black because it had blood in it.” That didn't stop her from eating it and when she looked it up she learned it is a blend of onions, pork fat, oatmeal,  and pork blood. Talk about someone coming a long way as to what they will eat!!!

Our first trip to Germany she wouldn’t eat any of the different types of wursts. Over time she has come to recognize that what we call hot dogs has no relationship to what wursts are. Now she realizes wurst is made with quality ingredients while hot dogs are loaded with waste products and fat. It is also the same for what we call lunch meat. What they make in Germany is nothing like what  we have in the States. The fact she eats these foods only in Germany proves the point.

There was a time when she would have never tasted even the smallest speck of those things. Travel, it opens our minds to things we never knew. Though something tells me we won’t be making any black pudding when we return to Texas next week, it will most likely be fish tacos every day for the first week.

Early Saturday morning and the streets on Bath were almost deserted.

And you thought where you live had problems. But talk about ingenious solutions, we saw these solar powered trash containers throughout the city.

What better way to learn about the city than to take a city tour. Bath provides free tours a number of times during the day. As we learned, taking one is very well worth the time.

Chimney pots, some buildings have more than I could count. There was one for every fireplace and every room had a fireplace.

Another thing I found intriguing were the circular staircases found at the rear of some buildings. The curved area in the photo enclosed them and they were built so invalids could easily be carried in and out of the buildings. Bath, spa, heated healing waters, people suffering infirmities, it all went together.

While I was focusing on chimney pots and unseen stairways, Linda’s mind was elsewhere. See the gray structure hanging from the stone house near the center of the photo? This is her photo of one of the famous hanging outhouses of Bath. And no, certain excretions would not fall unexpectedly upon the head of someone passing underneath. A pipe lead down to a container where the waste was collected.

Another of the things that intrigued Linda. Where the horizontal stone is was once the top of a small opening in the wall behind the houses. The opening was so the pot of waste could be collected by what was called, The Night Soil Man. Though, as we learned there were also night soil women. Just think of all the people the flush toilet put out of work.

We didn’t just eat something different from the usual for breakfast, later we also had a Moroccan meal. The best way to  describe it is to let the fact we had both eaten our first and second courses before Linda thought to take a photo say how good it was. It had been a while since we had a Tagine meal, but the wait was worth it. Amazing how good apricots, prunes, golden raisins, almonds with chicken or beef cooked in a clay pot can taste.

Wedding in the park. Everyone was getting into the act of taking wedding photos.

Several hundred feet from the front of our hotel, this is the view.

Not the reflection in the water we had at our last gite, but how many bridges lined with shops are their in the world?

French cheese and English cheese in a stall in the old Guildhall Market. I may or may not buy a piece before we leave. Though if I do, I’m afraid Linda might put up a stink.

A covered shopping arcade. We didn’t buy anything but we sure had a great time window shopping in the old medieval center of town with its narrow streets and no cars.

Linda took this photo. I wonder what was going through her mind? Most likely something on the order of, “Old guys rule? What a crock.”

Bath is always crowded with tourists and all month long they are having a food festival called the Great Bath Food Feast. Something tells me there is going to be more food photos as the week continues, It takes a good deal of energy to make our way through the crowds, but the food reward makes it more than worth it.

We had no idea this would be taking place when we decided to make this our week to stay in Bath. How in the world do we ever get to be so lucky?  Life can’t get much better than this, but then, we find ourselves saying this over and over.