Goodness me, it is a long way to Bath.
It is almost as far as it is to go to Gordonstoun, except in a curiously inverse sort of way, because we are accustomed to journeying north into the wild chill. Here it is very much warmer, and the air feels somehow thicker and heavier. There are leaves on some of the trees already, and the world lacks the sharp fresh tang even of the Lakes, never mind Gordonstoun. Oliver has travelled a long way in the last couple of days, and must be beginning to feel jet-lagged. By the time he gets back on Saturday he will have travelled over a thousand miles.
It is a peculiar sort of experience. Bath is very lovely, but it is so civilised that it is just a bit unnerving, I have never in my life seen so many people trying to be middle-class all in one place.
Most of them look as though they are considerably better at it than I am.
We are staying at an undistinguished branch of the Hilton, which has long cast off its aspirational self-image, and is now merely an expensive Travelodge. Having said that, it is very pleasant, and the concierge was astonishingly helpful. He produced a map for us and made us sit down whilst he gave us a brief history of Bath, an account of its geography and hierarchy of eating establishments, and entirely merited his Clefs D’Or, not that he seemed to have one.
We ambled off and explored some of the places he had suggested. Regrettably it was getting a bit too late to do very much. I would have liked to investigate a museum of Ladybird Books, and had a look around the Jane Austen Centre, but the day was already drawing to a close, and we were so weary from our early start that we decided to have an early dinner and then go to bed.
It had been an early start. We set the alarm for seven. I think probably most cases of early death and senility are caused by alarm clocks, they are a horrible experience and cannot be at all good for your health, and a still more horrible experience was to follow.
Of course Lucy had stayed the night. She was taking the dogs back home with her, since I was disinclined to bring them to a reasonably pleasant hotel in Bath, even if it said it was Dog-Friendly, because there are limits to every welcome. This made things a bit of a rush because she had got to get back for work, and we were all flapping about, when Oliver suddenly said What’s That Dreadful Smell?
I suppose you can work out the rest.
Roger Poopy had had the most terrible liquid misfortune.
Several terrible liquid misfortunes, in fact. He was terribly guilty and unhappy, which did not make me any more pleased with him, and both dogs were booted out into the back yard with a lot of bellowing.
It took ages to clean up, and then I had to go outside in the yard to clean the shoes which, perhaps fortunately, had discovered the accident.
It was pouring with rain and I got soaked.
I made the dogs stay out there anyway. Some things take a while to forgive.
I took them both around the Library Gardens until I was quite certain he was completely empty, and then Lucy loaded them into her car to take them home, not with any great enthusiasm, I might add. She had a very full car, what with her luggage, and the cats, and the dogs, and all of their associated paraphernalia, and we waved them off with relief.
Oliver and I were not far behind her.
It took us most of the day.
It was a nice journey. We practised interview questions all the way, until we had entirely convinced ourselves that we could both easily become Mary Poppins with no difficulty at all, and reminded ourselves again and again that Emily Ward founded Norland in Eighteen Ninety Two, until finally we were there, and admiring Bath’s lovely yellow stone houses, which still looked lovely even though it is raining here as well.
We went to an Indian restaurant highly recommended by the concierge, which was very splendid, and ate enormous quantities of everything, before sighing with happiness and staggering back to the hotel.
We had our showers and have retired to bed already, although I have just looked at the clock and discovered that it is only half past seven, but I don’t care. I am so tired I could go to sleep now.
Interview in the morning.
Fingers still crossed.
