Day 3: Taking the Waters

RANDOMOSITIES

Windows around here don't have screens . . . maybe because they don't have any kamikaze mosquitoes.

Whenever a little English kid talks, I want to pick them up and kiss their whole face because they are so stinking cute!

After watching the Regency Costume Promenade in Bath today, I totally understand why Lydia and Kitty were ga-ga over redcoats.

Note to self: Besides brilliant and smashing, add lovely to my vocabulary.

Pastys are bland. Go for the Thai food.

The Crescent is everything I dreamed it would be.

TIMELINE

8:30 Dine in the Radstock Inn breakfast room and feast on an almost full English breakfast (missing the beans).

10:00 Arrive in Bath to witness the Guinness breaking world record Regency Dress Promenade. At 549, they beat the Austen Society recent record in Kentucky.

Noon Toodle over to the Market Faire where there were sellers of fine Regency garments, silhouette cuttings, palm readings, yada.

Afternoon: Tromp around Bath and enjoy the street performers. What's up with the creepy gold people pretending to be statues?

4:00 Attend a lecture: Rummaging Through the Reticule.

6:00 Pick up some amazing Thai food.

8:00 Make it back to Radstock and take a hike in the dusk.

THOUGHTS

I want to move to Bath. Why? It's totally charming in every respect and so rich in history. Things I learned today at the lecture:

Many folks carried around their own cutlery.

Some women, like Jane Austen, kept small books in their reticules.

Widows mourned for 2 1/2 years, the first year of which was spent as a recluse, covered in black crepe. But widowers only had to mourn 3 months and were then encouraged to marry...at which point his new wife would be expected to go into mourning for his former wife. What's wrong with this picture?

The rolling farmland around here is stunning. Happy, happy cows. Plus, I had no idea a cow chewed so loudly.

We did not do the touristy thing and take the waters nor visit the Roman baths. We people watched instead. Highly entertaining.