"If adventures do not befall a young lady in her own village, then she must seek them abroad." Jane Austen
I'm still on holidays from classes, and there are no urgent deadlines as yet which means I'm still (for the moment) free to explore. And to that end, tommorrow I'm going to Roma, to see the sights and hopefully see the white smoke which signals a new Pope has been elected. Hopefully no Dan Brown-esque international incidents (I'm ashamed to say I loved Angels and Demons) will occur.
Anyways, last weekend Charles and Camilla got hitched, and Edy and I made the trip down to Windsor on his motorbike to see what we could see, which turned out to be not very much, although we did get a good shot of Camilla in the car (to be posted later), and Prince Harry waved at me, which made me jump up and down. Anyways, I waved my Union Jack flag, got the commemorative keychain (with the wrong date, of course), and we were off down the M4 to Bath. It's only about an hour and a half from Windsor, but an hour and a half on a motorbike is...cold. I am still recovering from windburn, but I have to say it is quite a rush to zip around the countryside on a bike.
We went looking for a place to stay in Bath, and found a B and B on Bath High Street. I went up to the door to inquire about price and a weird old woman on a cordless phone came out, pointed at my shoes and said, "no stilettos on my floors!" Before I could answer, she smiled, told me she was full for the night anyway, but not to worry, she would find me a place. Two minutes later we were following another local innkeeper (who didn't mind my stilettos on his floors) up a windy mountain road to his B and B, which was lovely but which was renamed "The Igloo" by Edy and I because it was so cold.
We spent Saturday night and Sunday in Bath before zipping over to see Stonehenge on our way home. Bath is quite happenin' on a Saturday night. It's like Night of the Living Dead, there are so many tarted up teenagers walking arm and arm around the small town. We also passed the Guildhall, where some sort of fancy dress event was taking place, as people in all eras of historical dress were passing in and out of its enormous carved wooden doors. As we sailed by on the bike, a woman in Regency dress, complete with reticule and bonnet, smiled and curtsied to me. In my tomato red bike helmet, I nodded back. Jane Austen lived here from 1801 to 1806, and it was fun to imagine myself meeting Anne Elliot from Persuasion...or perhaps the ghost of Jane herself...