Greetings from Bath!
Well, we arrived in one kind of shaggy piece on Thursday. The train ride was a bit rough, with 4 large bags and 6 smaller bags to put on and off twice, but managed ok, and then took 2 taxis to the house.
Ah, the house. A beautiful old, big house right on a hill (Newbridge Hill) overlooking part of the town and green fields. It is beautifully decorated, with a multi-level deck and hot tub by the house, and a grassy garden with table, chairs, and a small trampoline at the back. Absolutely wonderful. The kitchen is brand new, very modern, and has everything I could want to cook – including a stash of cookbooks I will go through as soon as I get a minute.
The city of bath is about a 30 minute walk in – and we have walked for miles and miles! There is a huge park, Victoria Park (named for Queen Victoria when she was 11 years old), with a HUGE playground. All kinds of things to use that our council would ban as unsafe as fast as they could! There is a huge BMX/skateboard park that our guys would love. And, behind the park, there are several public tennis courts (with lawn bowling). Yesterday, after playing in the park, we rented tennis raquets and had a couple of good games of tennis. We are thinking of putting Steph, Eric and Austin into lessons for a week – the weather here is nice and cool, great for playing tennis.
Speaking of the weather, it has been quite good up until today. There are some cloudy, drizzly times throughout the day, but they don’t last long and then the sun came out. Today, though, has been cloudy with a bit of drizzle here and there, all day. Coolish weather – probably in the 60’s.
The city itself is remarkably old – most of the buildings were constructed in the 1700’s when 4 separate men worked very hard to renew the village. We haven’t had a chance to do a lot downtown, spending our time shopping and finding our way around the general area around the house. We did have dinner last night in a little restaurant, in a mall constructed in the 1770s.
Steve drove the car for the first time today – it is a manual car, seat on the opposite side, road on the opposite side, and I find it terrifying. Steve finds it exhilarating. He dropped us off at the neighbourhood market tonight.
We have met the next door neighbour and her husband, and Maryanne’s sister dropped by today with a very young baby and her 4 year old son. She has promised to come back for another visit sometime soon, and is very nice to visit with. The neighbour came back today bearing cake, so the kids like her very much.
We are hoping to get to Cheddar Caves and Gorge on Monday (no sense going on the weekend when things are bound to be quite busy) Check it out on http://www.cheddarcaves.co.uk/ to see how huge and impressive they are.
We all miss everyone at home, and the kids are constantly checking the time, “translating” it to Toronto time, and trying to figure out what folks might be doing.
We will “talk” to you all soon ….
Well, we arrived in one kind of shaggy piece on Thursday. The train ride was a bit rough, with 4 large bags and 6 smaller bags to put on and off twice, but managed ok, and then took 2 taxis to the house.
Ah, the house. A beautiful old, big house right on a hill (Newbridge Hill) overlooking part of the town and green fields. It is beautifully decorated, with a multi-level deck and hot tub by the house, and a grassy garden with table, chairs, and a small trampoline at the back. Absolutely wonderful. The kitchen is brand new, very modern, and has everything I could want to cook – including a stash of cookbooks I will go through as soon as I get a minute.
The city of bath is about a 30 minute walk in – and we have walked for miles and miles! There is a huge park, Victoria Park (named for Queen Victoria when she was 11 years old), with a HUGE playground. All kinds of things to use that our council would ban as unsafe as fast as they could! There is a huge BMX/skateboard park that our guys would love. And, behind the park, there are several public tennis courts (with lawn bowling). Yesterday, after playing in the park, we rented tennis raquets and had a couple of good games of tennis. We are thinking of putting Steph, Eric and Austin into lessons for a week – the weather here is nice and cool, great for playing tennis.
Speaking of the weather, it has been quite good up until today. There are some cloudy, drizzly times throughout the day, but they don’t last long and then the sun came out. Today, though, has been cloudy with a bit of drizzle here and there, all day. Coolish weather – probably in the 60’s.
The city itself is remarkably old – most of the buildings were constructed in the 1700’s when 4 separate men worked very hard to renew the village. We haven’t had a chance to do a lot downtown, spending our time shopping and finding our way around the general area around the house. We did have dinner last night in a little restaurant, in a mall constructed in the 1770s.
Steve drove the car for the first time today – it is a manual car, seat on the opposite side, road on the opposite side, and I find it terrifying. Steve finds it exhilarating. He dropped us off at the neighbourhood market tonight.
We have met the next door neighbour and her husband, and Maryanne’s sister dropped by today with a very young baby and her 4 year old son. She has promised to come back for another visit sometime soon, and is very nice to visit with. The neighbour came back today bearing cake, so the kids like her very much.
We are hoping to get to Cheddar Caves and Gorge on Monday (no sense going on the weekend when things are bound to be quite busy) Check it out on http://www.cheddarcaves.co.uk/ to see how huge and impressive they are.
We all miss everyone at home, and the kids are constantly checking the time, “translating” it to Toronto time, and trying to figure out what folks might be doing.
We will “talk” to you all soon ….
Chris, Steve, Steph, Eric, Austin and Tommy
