A nice, relaxing Bath

LOML and I are staying with family in Northern Ireland, and enjoying the rest, home-cooking and general coddling! We spent Thursday and Friday nights in Bath - on the Thursday was a reading at Topping and Company, a really gorgeous independent bookstore. They are so supportive of authors, new and established, and made me feel so welcome (the wine definitely helped). Thank you, Mark and Robert! And thanks also to everyone who came along that night - I met some lovely people. One lady had lived in Gweru in Zimbabwe (back when it was Gwelo in Rhodesia) and brought along a flame lily brooch from her time there to show me. It turned out to be an exact replica of a flame lily brooch that my great-grandmother bought while living in Rhodesia (which I inherited)! It was quite an amazing feeling seeing its doppelganger in a bookstore in Bath.




We went a bit crazy with our multiple photos of the books, but it was really exciting to see them piled high like this.

Bath was just beautiful, as always. I had been before but LOML hadn't, so I was able to show him about a bit. We went to the Baths, of course, and the Assembly Rooms, as well as local bookstores, charity stores and vintage shops. I bought a biography of Georgette Heyer from Topping and Co - I have loved her books since I was little, and I read and re-read them to soak up the language, high spirits and delicious comedy (I highly recommend them when you're feeling low!). Many of her Regency novels were set in Bath, or had a Bath excursion included somewhere in the plot, and although Jane Austen's spirit certainly still possesses the place, to me it always brings Georgette Heyer's strutting beaux and elegant ladies to mind.



Bath!

LOML being a Roman.

The classic arm's-length photo.

In the Costume Museum beside the Assembly Rooms. I liked the Miss-Havisham creepiness of all these wedding dresses together. Wouldn't want to be there at midnight.

I'm pretty sure this place was called Jack and Danny's - packed (literally) to the rafters! The Yellow Shop was my favourite Bath vintage store, though.

Just a couple more days in the UK, and then we're off home! I'm looking forward to having some time to reflect and process everything that has happened - and to seeing Mink, of course.