Touristy Stuff

Wonderful Husband has just spent 15 minutes on his parents' piano reconstructing from memory the Tetris theme. Given that he doesn't even play piano, he has declared this a feat of geekdom. I am inclined to agree. ^_^

Have been keeping relatively busy. On Sunday, WH and his family and I went to the Whitchurch Silk Mill, which I think everyone found interesting. Between the three of us, WH & Sister-in-Law & I wove maybe an inch of silk taffeta on one of their practice looms. Very fun, and the intricacies of the machinery were sufficiently fascinating for the more technologically-minded (IE, the men) among us.

Monday was a bank holiday, so we went to the (new) Costco near my inlaws' home. I was surprised - it was just as big as the one at home! Though the contents were a mix of American stuff and British. Or, at least, the one at home doesn't have family-sized cottage pies, ready to bake, nor lamb steaks, venison and cranberry sausages, nor bathmat-sized squashy packages of Tetley's and PG Tips teabags. (Had either of those latter been decaf, WH's favored type of tea, at least one would have found its way into our luggage.) We also went window-shopping around West Quay.

Yesterday, Wonderful Husband and I went off to Bath. It was good timing because yesterday was warm and sunny and today is cooler and rainy. We went to the Roman Baths, of course, which turned out to be a surprisingly huge museum complex! And, yes, we both drank of the water. Though the bath itself was being drained and cleaned that day, the red-brown crud getting scrubbed off by two men in hip waders wielding push brooms, clumps of it drifting toward the drain....

We also went to the Assembly Rooms, which, hominahominahomina, are gorgeous, and of course (me being me), the Fashion Museum under them, where I took lots of photos. We then walked over to The Circus and the Royal Crescent, then stopped by the Jane Austen Center on our way back to the park and ride. I've mostly been in the flatter places of England, so it was a bit surprising to me that Bath is very hilly! Not quite as bad as San Francisco, but not too far off either. It made riding on the second story of the park and ride bus kind of scary and kind of fun.

That's all so far from England! More reports to come as warranted.

On Roads and Roadkill

So, I do not drive while in England. Wonderful Husband thinks I am unjustly paranoid about driving on what is to me the wrong side of the road. I cheerfully agree with him that I am unjustly paranoid about it, and just continue to refuse to do it. The ingrained habit of nearly twenty years of driving on the right is hard to break, and given that I frequently still forget which side of the vehicle is the driver's side over here, I see no need to risk my life and the life of my passengers.

This does, however, give me a fair amount of time to be looking out the car window, observing the scenery. Which is fine by me, and still fascinating, after all these years and visits! For some reason, this trip I've been noticing the local roadkill a bit. Maybe because it's the first time I've been here in the warm season, and thus animals are more likely to be out and about?

For comparison purposes, please realize that I live in the middle of suburbia. I normally see dead opossums, cats, dogs, and pigeons. (British pigeons, BTW, are huge. Easily twice the size of the ones at home. I can see for the first time why people started putting them in pies.) Here in England, however, I see deer at the side of the road. Fawns, rabbits, badgers. And, perhaps most fascinating to me, ring-necked pheasants. There's a tiny voice in the back of my head that says "Wait - can we stop? I just want the feathers." Fortunately I am very adept at ignoring this voice. But oh, as Monty Python put it, they do have beautiful plumage....