A Touch of Homesickness

There is a beautiful Vimeo video of Bath in Lockdown.  Empty streets and alleyways, shorn of tourists.  The bare bones of its architecture laid bare by drone camera.  Thank John Wood for that. Is there a trace of a Masonic key as we look down on The Circus, walk down Gay Street and then arrive in Queens Square? There are masonic little attributes elsewhere but you have to look first.  History covers many periods, here we had in John Wood an 18th century character who developed his vision of Bath on the superstitions of past history

The Circus

28 years I lived here, children brought up in its schools, taken to its hospital when needed.  One reason neither of them drive is because this small city does not do cars. Train station, buses and mum for taking and collecting were always there.  And to be honest to walk round was a treat.  Often I would set off on  a spring morning from the house down Weston Lane, across Victoria Park, cutting through  The Royal Crescent, down past the Guildhall and then Milsom Street, taking in all the Georgian houses in their solemn parade of exactness.

Bath, like Rome, has seven hills surrounding it, so impossible to grow outwards, it sits in its bubble of tourism, restaurants and shops.  Expensive houses of course and the famous and well known flock to grace its large houses, in the countryside around.

This is an old hawthorn in the churchyard in full glory, grown to the size of a tree, its branches of white mayflower hang heavily.  One reason I am trimming our hawthorns that grow on the verge outside the garden, though I must admit with the over-exuberant honeysuckle rambling through it does give my heart pleasure, is the thought that they grow into such a size.

https://vimeo.com/415141939