Bath-Part 4: The Rivers/Canals

The Avon River runs through the city of Bath.  It has a really nice walking path that meanders through parks, residential areas, and connects with the Kennet Avon Canal.  The kids and I walked along the Avon River one afternoon, then showed Uwe our discoveries.

 

The Hub and the kids walking carefully along the river.

Where the river and canal meet.

The Kennet Avon Canal was built to take goods from Bath to London faster. But, soon the railroad was built and the canal is now used for casual living.  People buy or rent boats and live on them for a few months to maybe even years. Some of the long boats we saw looked like they were year rounders.  That would be interesting to do with the three kiddos..I. Think. Not.  (More like something to do once the nest is empty.)

 

One afternoon we took a boat ride from Bath to Bath Hampton on the Avon River.  We had read that you could walk back along the Kennet Avon Canal....so we gave it a go. The boat ride was so peaceful and lush with green.  

 

At the Mill they dropped us off and we were on our own to get back.  After asking a local, they directed us toward the village and the canal. We walked along a little country road, in which, my little city girl was just mortified by the bugs, the smells, the country-ness of it all. She did better once we got by the canal and she could throw rocks. *whew*  I was a bit fearful that she would be against all things country. The hour long hike back was just wonderful.  Sheep grazed in pastures, long boats docked along the banks, rocks were thrown, and the view of the city of Bath was just spectacular.  

A few more pics from our walk along the canal. I loved the buildings, the flowers (and I'm not a huge flower person), and well, just the beauty of nature.

 

  

I can't mention rivers and not talk about bridges, now can I?  Well, just one. The Pulteney Bridge is the famous bridge that crosses the Avon River  in Bath. I believe the style of the bridge makes it famous, but what do I know about architecture?  Not much, but I did make my kids sit and draw it...well, they had to draw something that they saw while sitting on the bench at the little park. 

 

  

"Seagull" by Marcus.

We also spent an evening there feeding the birds.  The kids thought it was magical, but the Hub thought it was torture because the birds would peck at his toes.  Seagulls are vicious animals...just thought I'd warn you.

 

 

And to end with one last photo...our favorite thing beside the river....

...the homemade ice-cream cart. YUM! YUM!

Bath-Part 3: Parks

This post will mainly be a photo journal of some of the parks that we visited during our stay in Bath.  This was one way I could bribe my kids to go do the touristy things.  Another encouraging way was by reading "Hometown History Bath" by Jane Walker.  In the morning we would read about whatever I had planned to go visit that afternoon. The book was excellent because it gave great info in a kid friendly way. The best part about this book was the "Spot This" Sections...the kids had to spot something at each tourist destination. So, while I looked and took pictures. They scrambled to find the hidden object. I'll be talking more about this in future blogs, but it really was brilliant!  

After each tourist adventure, I'd take the kids to some park. This city has a wide range of parks and many that are just lovely for children.  Our first park experience was Henrietta Park, just outside our building. This park is nice for picnics, a quick stroll, or a toss of a Frisbee. But, after discovering the children's playground at the Sydney Park, which was just a five minute walk away. We didn't bother with Henrietta Park the rest of the time.  

We discovered Green Park as we were searching for the open market.  It was a nice little park with some playground equipment for all three of the kids.  When we took Uwe back one evening to show him our discovery, we soon realized it was probably not such a good place to visit after dark. It seemed to be a hangout for punks and drunks.  In fact, at that point it was all trashed up. My son was so sad and just couldn't believe that people would do such a thing to such a great place.  But below are pictures of the kids doing their favorite activity at this park. 

The kids' favorite park was Royal Victoria Park, a 52 acre field with wide open spaces and a HUGE playground.  This place was about a 30min. walk from where we lived. But. So. Worth. It! They had three large sand-pits with climbing ropes, slides, and other exploring type contraptions. They had other slides, swings, and a zip line. And there was an ice cream truck and a coffee shop inside the playground as well. 

Marcus loved climbing up the ropes.  Most all of the slides and climbing had huge sand-pits underneath. 

One of the large open fields to run, picnic on, or just sit and relax!

   

Of course, we had a picnic almost everyday!

    

The girls enjoying time with Papa.

The only park we visited that required an entrance fee was the Parade Gardens.  And the great thing is that we got to go in free. No, we did climb the fence after hours.  The gate attendant was getting ready to lock up and told us we had 5 min.  5 min. was long enough because this a very small park that rest on the back of the Avon River.  

This deserves a caption...this was a "Spot This" item from the book.  It is the statue of King Bladud.
He was a Celtic Prince with leprosy who discovered that the mud where his pigs wallowed could heal him.
He helped to develop Bath after he returned home.

Bath -Part 2; Celebrating Independence Day

Yes, we celebrated the 4th of July, the day Americans celebrate independence from England....yes, we celebrated in England. In fact, we celebrated at the American Museum in Britain...the only museum outside the US that exhibits American history and artifacts.  It was started by two Brits that moved to the US. They wanted to show people back home that Americans were not wild and uncivilized. Where did they ever get that idea?

The reason we came here to celebrate was the fact that they advertised an American Independence Celebration with food, music, and demonstrations from the war.  I thought it would be the perfect time to go. Marcus would learn a bit about the US history from the museum (education); the boys would get to see some gun action; the girls would get to hear some music; we'd all be outside; and we'd get some good American food.
The museum is located just a few minutes from the University of Bath, which is where the Hub had classes. This is just outside of Bath with some walking trails that we didn't get to explore...looked like rain and the kids were tired by the time we finished the museum.  The museum was well done.  They had furniture sets from early colonial days to pioneer days. The girls were bored, but Marcus enjoyed listening to the audio tour that was included into the price.  So, my good man took the girls out and let Marcus and I enjoy.  I have to comment about the audio tour.  It was very pro-England with comments such as this, "As you can see, even though the Colonist fought for independence, they were still very loyal to the King by the style of furniture that they had in their homes. Take for instance the fireplace with the metal cover. It has the emblem of the King of England....or the tea cups were the English style..."  Very amusing to me...but educational...check.

The grounds just outside the museum was transformed into a campsite for the Red Coats.  They had their tents and camping gear there for all to see what it was like for them at that time.  The demonstrations were, again, pro-England.  It was a show of how they fought during the war. There was no sign of any American fighters, and definitely no mention of the loss.  This made me and my German Hub giggle...but gun action for the boys...check. btw, two girls HATED it.

Music...yes, there was some pretty good Creole music played by an older couple. They told a few stories, but mainly talked about the song they were about to sing, the history of it, etc. Kids got bored...and so did we to be honest. But, what was interesting was watching the crowd. One lady in particular sat down with her tray of food and her bottle of wine. So, the music wasn't the best, but...check, did that.

Food...expectation was a hotdog with maybe some baked beans...HA! No hotdogs at all. So, here is what we got...Baked potato with baked beans on the side, quiche, and chili. Sort of American, but not what you'd expect at a celebration like this.  But, eat we did do...check.

It wasn't all a loss...we did have some very good cookies!

The kids did have fun...there was a tee-pee the girls played in. And Marcus climbed a tree. AND, we spent the afternoon outside, which is always a treat!

And one last fact....Winston Churchill gave one of his first speeches here at Claverton Manor, the building where the museum resides.  Boy looks thrilled about that fact, ya think?  But still educational...double check on the educational.   So, that means we did everything on my "Must Do List" at the museum. Now we could cross that of our "Places to See in Bath" list.

As Promised....Bath Part 1-Our Home

I must say that we had a true European Vacation with the rental car and all. We flew Ryan Air, which if you know anything about cheap European airlines, then not much explanation is needed. But, for those of you who think that the US has cheap airlines, in the sense, that they cost a fortune and you get squeezed into a miniature sized seat...this is NOT what I mean by cheap. Europe has a few airlines out there that cost hardly anything, but the plane is pretty bare. 

No carpeted floors.

No food.(unless you buy from there)

No drink (unless you buy from their menu).

No fancy boarding passes, no fancy gates, in fact nothing fancy at all. 

The one thing they did have was smokeless cigarettes that you could buy. But, I don't smoke, so I didn't try them....afraid that I'd get addicted, which I could totally see happening to me. And I have enough habits that drive me and the Hub crazy, so I don't need to add another one. =)  

Simple and clean.

I honestly felt like we were getting ready to board a bus or train as we stood in line to walk between two airplanes to board ours.  

Smooth flight. Next to the car rental place. We had rented a car online. We knew to get a larger car with 4-5 doors.  I had packed fairly light, considering that I was packing for:

1. a family of 5

2. winter and summer because the weather changes that drastically.

3. Matthea's needs (food and diapers)

But, if you look at the picture below you will see that we almost didn't have room. The stroller would not fit into the truck even without luggage, so it was laid across two carry on bags in front of the kids. Thankfully they are still little enough that putting their feet on the bags was not uncomfortable.

Our little rental car all packed up.

Our drive was about three hours long and it was not my favorite part.  But after we got off the freeway and rounded a few corners I got my first view of Bath. I was stunned by all the buildings that dotted the hillside. 

We lived on Great Pultney Road, just up from the City Centre. The road was lined on both sides of the street with huge stone buildings. It was like a fortress wall reaching to the sky with each door as an individual soldier saluting the pedestrians that strolled by. 

Great Pultney Road...#23 is my son.

Our flat was on the fourth floor with no elevator. I'm not complaining, just if you know Matthea's needs then having no elevator makes it a bit of a hassle, but doable. She got quite good at climbing up.

We lived at #16.
Meg recognized our door from the others because the paint was coming off of ours.
She called it "The broken door". 

Our flat was two bedroom, one bathroom, and completely furnished. The kitchen had a stove, fridge, and microwave. We had access to the washing machine and dryer. It really was just perfect for us.  

Our living room with a small fireplace that worked, but we never used it.

The view from our flat was great. Lots of green! From the living/dining room the flat overlooked a small park, Henrietta Park.  Past that we could look up at the hill lined with trees and more Gregorian style houses. The bedrooms overlooked Great Pultney. But if you stuck out your head and looked towards the City Centre, you could see the top of the Bath Abby.

The view from the dining room window. I LOVED the green!

No Longer Hiding

Cover of Hiding (Olly & Me)

I'm back...No longer MIA.
Yeah, I'm still alive. Wasn't even sick.
Kids and the Hub are all healthy....just the computer was in ICU.
But, as of this morning, we are up and blogging once again.

This past month I've been wanting to blog about Bath, UK. So, starting tomorrow, or maybe even tonight I will start a little series on my thoughts about our trip with pics!

Since I've not been able to blog, I've been reading and writing. I ditched an idea I had for my novel and made it take different route. It seems to flow much easier and seems more realistic. I now have a little over a month before the outline synopsis is due to my tutor. I am in need of a few readers to look it over for plot holes and critics to push me forward. If you are interested leave a comment with your email address and I'll get back with you.

As for reading...I've finished a couple of books for my FitG list which I need to post some reviews on one day. And I've started reading for the school library. I'm helping them review the new YA books that have come in to see where they fit....so I'm getting some good reads in there.

As for other odds and ends. I'm in a decluttering mode. I've come to the conclusion that because we usually move every two years we don't keep clutter. But, this is year #5 in this apartment and I'm feeling itchy (not from the dirt, but from not moving). So, to stop the move itch I'm decluttering and selling it all next weekend. Also, to help this itch we moved our son's bedroom to a different room and are thinking about switching the living and dining rooms around....again. So, to say the least I need to get back to work and get the apartment back in order somewhat.

FitG List is Finished

I've just joined a challenge to read 100 books in five years. If you are interested in doing this really great challenge, you can check out the details here.  I learned of this challenge from Amy over at The Green Bathtub...if you've not checked out her blog, you should. She is great!

I finally got my list together and posted it just a few minutes ago.  It sounds crazy, but it took me a few months to complete my list. I have sat here and wondered why and have come up with very good excuses, but I won't bore you with those. All I can say is, "It's Done!"   But, I must confess that I started reading some of the books before I got the list posted. I got so excited about this challenge and I found the books on my list and just couldn't let them sit there and NOT read them...so I'll post some reviews about them one of these days when there is time (HA!).
But, if you want to check out my list you can go here.  So, now I should get back to reading off my list....or maybe I should finish unpacking from our trip. It has been a week since we've returned home and I honestly can't give "jet-lag" as an excuse anymore (I'm good at excuses if you haven't figured that out.)

Oh, one other "reading" news. I also just joined Goodreads. I know, I know...."finally..."  But, you can find me at mdmaurer....