Bath
Bath was beautiful in the cold winter sunshine. With a day of freedom, L and I languidly explored the Roman baths, with their moist sulfurous air and holograms of naked Roman bathers, as A had warned! L cringed in discomfort and disgust at the ghostly nude men splashing in the water. We tasted the slightly revolting water, which A made us promise to try, having visited the baths on a school trip. She was excited for us. I was surprised by L’s ready acceptance of the trip. She confessed that it was better than a walk, which she knew would be on a stay-at-home-day’s agenda.
We learned that Romans wrote complaints against those that had wronged them on small sheets of lead and dropped them into the spring, asking the goddess to fulfill their requests for gory retribution! L was privately composing some juicy curses of her own. Beyond the baths we discovered hip retro stores, a gorgeous yarn boutique and a shop selling lush house plants and vinyl; a strange but fun combination. This is the store L and A would create if they ever went into business together! Walking the hilly streets of Bath with their yellow stone houses, I felt I was within the pages of a whimsically illustrated children’s story. Quirky studios perched atop and squatted at the base of a wall that soared up from the opposite side of the street. Elegant Georgian terraced houses lined the horizon high above. Streets leaned across the hillside, sitting not just next to each other, but above and below.
The day was refreshingly enjoyable, free from conflicting desires that trigger a downward slide into a frazzled me, Jon quietly angry, the girls bickering. I was relieved to discover that I can be calm and even pleasant when there is only one other person to usher across the road, to call dog poop warnings too, to squeeze into a busy coffee shop. Meanwhile, Jon and A spent a relaxed day at home, playing games and cooking. A looked happy and revitalized when we reunited in the afternoon. In the night she had clambered into our bed, pale faced with dark shadows below her eyes, burning with fever. We were supposed to be going ice skating. We sadly delayed that adventure, yet it was serendipitous.