English road signs can be so … English, in their understated way of stating directions. One that we’ve seen a few times recently is “Calming Area Ahead.” Now, one might hope that this is an area for soothing your jangled nerves (perhaps agitated by two weeks of traveling with your parents), but it seems that it refers to speed bumps, meant to slow down traffic (which certainly needs slowing).
My favorite, which I only saw once, is “Changed Priorities Ahead.”
Doesn’t that have great philosophical implications? Imagine driving along, at a crossroads in your life (as well as the roadway), and seeing a sign that says “changed priorities ahead.” Certainly that might appear to be a sign from above! (The real meaning, I believe, is to change which lane of traffic has the right of way and which has to yield, for sections of road where there is only a single lane and traffic has to take turns.)
Just as roadwork and detours force you to change direction in your driving, sometimes circumstances conspire to change travel plans as well. On Wednesday I was determined to go to Prior Park Garden in Bath (which is a bit of an effort to get to because cars aren’t allowed to park there), but a sudden change in the weather forced me to change my priorities and make other plans.
After Tuesday’s beautiful, sunny weather, it was quite a shock to get up on Tuesday morning and see rain and clouds. I went for a run anyway, running up Wellsway then down into Bath. When I refer to “up” and “down” in Bath I mean it literally—Bath is built on hills. The route from Haydon House to the City Center is a long, steep hill, and other hills rise up the other sides of the city. After a loop through Bath I turned back to the hotel, running up the hill very, very slowly! (I think walking might have been faster!)
With the rain falling, I had less desire to go walking in Prior Park, so we drove my father to the railway station so he could take a train somewhere (turns out he went to Southampton), then parked in the Manvers Street car park, a very convenient location for the city center and railway station both. There had been a lot of deliberation over whether to walk or drive into town. The traditional way (my tradition) is to walk down the hill into town. But with the rain, I thought it might be better to conserve my mother’s energy for actually getting around town, not just getting there. Walking in the rain has a way of sapping your enthusiasm, sometimes.
So here we were in Bath, on a sporadically rainy day—what to do, what to do? The time had come to do what Bath does best—shopping! The National Trust shop, the craft show at the Roman Baths—each was good for a trip back to the car to drop off a bag (just a few purchases, not excessive). Then a stop at Starbucks for a latte infusion and a break. (It was also a break from the off and on rain.) We sat upstairs at a table by a window and read our books (conveniently carried along in my backpack), occasionally looking out the window at the Bath street below. Could we have been in any Starbucks in Seattle just as well? Well, yes, although there was a strong predominance of English accents among our fellow patrons which we probably would not hear in Seattle. But to me, some of the fun of being in a place like Bath is to be able to do the ordinary things, like sit and drink a latte, rather than feeling obliged to spend every minute doing and seeing the sights.
However, we couldn’t spend the whole day sitting in Starbucks! After a while we picked ourselves up and headed back into the street. We wandered up the street, looking in shop windows and occasionally wandering into a shop—Waterstones was unavoidable, despite my vow not to buy any more books (I only bought a couple). I dragged my mother into a cute home décor shop to look at some whimsical creamware dishes made by a company called Big Tomato Company—appropriate (and inappropriate) phrases printed on teapots, mugs, etc. I am now on a search to find a source that sells the pieces I liked and will ship to the U.S.!
To get away from the shopping scene, I talked my mother into taking a walk up to the Royal Crescent, a curved row of houses overlooking Bath.
It’s a little bit of an uphill walk, but takes you through many scenic streets on the way, including the Circus (rows of houses forming a circle). The center portion of the Royal Crescent is a very expensive and exclusive hotel (called Royal Crescent Hotel). That was further evidenced by the line-up of cars parked in front of the hotel—all Range Rovers, BMW’s, Mercedes, and one Porsche.
The big grassy park in front of the Royal Crescent offers a lovely view of the Crescent, and is also a popular spot for dog walking!
As we walked along the walkway below the crescent, my mother spotted a small gate marked “Georgian Garden.”
We went inside to find a small, pretty garden tucked behind one of the houses on the Circus. Rose bushes were centered in three circles of clipped box, with an additional box hedge around the rectangular perimeter borders. 
The interior surface of the garden was rolled gravel, as was common in the Georgian era (according to the descriptive plaque), and a gravel roller was on display alongside at one end.
As we made our way down the hill back toward the Abbey and Baths, it was approaching 3:00 and clearly seemed like time for tea. In all my past trips to Bath I have always had tea either at the Pump Room at the Roman baths, or Sally Lunn’s shop, but this time I had an urge to try something new.
Several times I had walked past another tearoom called Hands Tearoom, in Abbey Street just around the corner from Sally Lunn’s and near Bath Abbey. I had peered through the windows (both before it was open and when there were people inside) and studied the menu (seemed satisfactory—they offered a full tea with sandwiches rather than just the cream tea that is more common in the southwest). (Since we are usually hungry by teatime, we appreciate sandwiches!)
Happily, we got in before 3:00 and staked our claim to a nice table, tucked into a nook by the fireplace, before many more people started coming in after 3. We ordered the Hands “High Tea” (which includes a sandwich, scone with jam and cream, and a small selection of sweets), and were quite impressed when it arrived. The sandwich, cut into four triangles, really hit the spot (we are fiends for tea sandwiches), the scone (split and pre-spread with strawberry jam and lots of clotted cream) was large and tasty, and the sweets included small pieces of Victoria Sponge cake, chocolate cake, and a couple of chocolate fingers.By the time we scraped up the last bit of cream and last crumbs of scones and cake, it was about 3:45 and we were approaching the last quarter hour of our paid parking. We had just enough time for a final foray into the National Trust Shop (to buy a “His Lordship” mug for my father, as he had seemed fascinated with them at prior National Trust stops), and a visit to Sally Lunn’s shop to buy Sally Lunn buns to use for our dinner later that night.
Then we hustled back to the car and drove on back up to Haydon House. By this time the route between Haydon House and Manvers Street (both for parking and access to the railway station), had become second nature to me. The roads by the rail station are all torn up for construction, so in order to drive through the area you have to follow a complicated route that wanders all over the place. It seems complex, but actually once you get onto the right road you have no choice but to follow it through. We had about an hour and a half to relax in the hotel before going back down to pick my father up at the station.
At one point I had hoped to spend some time at the new Bath spa (Thermae Bath Spa, Britain's only natural thermal spa), but I reluctantly decided that I’d rather not make the effort to go back down to town for a third time that day, so I cancelled the spa idea in favor of a quiet evening at the hotel (eating bread and cheese for supper once again). (And then did make another trip into town later, driving down to the railway station to pick up timetables for my father.)
And so it was the end of a lovely day in Bath—in spite of my changed priorities!
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