Roman Baths of Bath!

After our group tour at the American Museum in Bath, we had free time on our own to wander and discover and see what we wanted to see.

One of the great things to do is purchase tour tickets ONLINE (avoiding the line outside of the baths) for the Roman baths, which also give you additional tickets to the Fashion Museum, and the Victoria Gallery which was featuring an exhibit by Kaffe Fassett and Candace Bahouth.  BONUS!

Being a complete history nut – I was so intrigued by the story of discovery and restoration of this historical site.

There is a legend that Bath was founded in 860 BC when Prince Bladud, father of King Lear, caught leprosy. He was banned from the court and was forced to look after pigs. The pigs also had a skin disease but after they wallowed in hot mud they were cured. Prince Bladud followed their example and was also cured. Later he became king and founded the city of Bath.

King Lear! And we’d just the day previous  left Stratford upon Avon, recognizable lines from Shakespeare still dancing in our heads.

Viewing the green waters of the bath from the second level, the Abbey just beyond.

I think the biggest help while touring the baths and museum areas were the headsets available in a multitude of languages.  

Items were numbered and all you had to do was punch in the number for the item you were viewing and listen.  

Play it again if you want to listen to it more than once.

Move at your own pace – and we did!

The museum also has holograms of folks dressed in Roman period garb doing things in a very Roman way as you find your way through the winding paths of the tour.

It was very well done, and I would love to see it again and listen to the OTHER versions of the tour through my headset.

Audio guides are available in twelve languages, with one especially for kids, one for people of all ages and another by Bill Bryson commenting on the Roman site.

Some of Bill Bryson’s comments on the baths complimented the “official” story. Others were totally Bryson. 

The temple was dedicated to the Roman goddess Minerva and a sculpture of her head is on display. 

Bryson said he likes the male heads but the females scare him and Minerva isn’t someone he would like to meet. 

He wonders how a civilization that could develop aquaducts, fountains, architecture, and war machines could have religious beliefs that were so “stupid.”  (LOL!)

When visitors to the bath wanted special favors from Minerva they would write their requests on a sheet of lead, fold it up and throw it into the pool. 

Several have been recovered and translated. Bryson was amazed by the petty vindictiveness of the requests. One asked that the person who stole his gloves have his eyes poked out at the temple.

These comments kept me chuckling, while bringing a real "human" aspect to the mystery of the Romans of that time.

I also really enjoyed the kids versions - plain and simple, and recorded to keep their interest while learning.

Trying to imagine ancient Romans here -

And you can drink the “healing waters” here!

But be prepared – it tastes like old copper pennies mixed with rust!

It was a great tour!

Back in time for our hexie session!

This trip was very much go go go go with not a lot of time for a stitching class, but we met in the bar area for an hour or so of hexie instruction thanks to the kind folks at paperpieces.com! They had sent me 40 little hexie rosette kits, enough to get our fingers wet. 

Many new English Paper Piecing fans were born this evening!

And in the morning we would leave the fine streets of Bath for London!

Yesterday was a quiet day of spending time with my dad.  I’m glad we made it a day early.

From what our son Jeff tells us, the storm is getting heavier as he, Sadie and the cats wait it out at home.  We live in north-central North Carolina, about 4 1/2 hours drive inland from the coast.  Our main threat is wind and rain that knock down trees, and when trees go down they take out the power, and it can be several days before power is restored should that happen.

I’m grate4ful that he was willing to stay behind so we didn’t have to kennel the animals to come to Mark’s funeral.

Today is a day of family arrival.  Some are driving, some are flying – My first job today is to swing by the airport and pick up my sister Mary and her hubby Kelly when they arrive at 1pm.

Evening visitation is tonight, funeral tomorrow.

It feels so unreal.

I will be taking the weekend off from posting. 

Quiltville Quote of the Day.

Grateful for friends who lift me up when I can't stand on my own.

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Throwback Thursday - Bath, UK!

Hello from Gilbert, Arizona.

We left Greensboro yesterday afternoon – a day ahead of schedule due to the uncertainty of the behavior of Hurricane Florence.

If we waited until TODAY to fly out, we could have been hammered by rain and wind, not knowing how it would affect flying times.

This weekend is one thing I just can NOT miss.  It was better to come early.

It amazes me that it was just a month ago we were in England.  And how quickly the following weeks have flown by.

My sharing of photos from that trip stopped as other things took precedence in the “NOW.”

And going into a few hard days ahead, I think it’s a good time to get these other happier times off of the back burner.

Bath, UK!

This is the second time I’ve been in this lovely city, and I was able to notice things I had not payed nearly as much attention to as before.

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Evening Quilting–Signature String Star!

 
I quilted up the Signature String Star quilt last night.

It took less time than it could have – but more than it should have.

I don’t know where my brain is these days – (Well yes I do.) but I set the length and width of the quilt mistakenly 20.5’’ square instead of 30.5’’ square.

And that is a problem when digitally scaling a quilting pattern.  The machine goes into “end of row” editing, thinking it has reached the end of the top, when it hasn’t.

And I didn't want to pick out the whole top row and start over.

I figured it out – I would watch until repeat number 5, a bit more than half-way across the quilt.  Mark that ending as my new starting, and then run the pattern as if it was starting from the beginning again.

It might not be the easy way to do it, but if I changed the length, the scale size would also be changed slightly and I’d be running over previous rows of stitching, or not get a pattern that nested like it should.

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Of Dishes and Cabinets, Sittin’ a Spell and Cows!

I have a friend I met through Facebook – who lives up here in Mouth of Wilson, and I haven’t met her in person yet!

i am hoping to, very soon.

From what I understand there is a group of ladies that meet once a week at a local diner for coffee and chat, and I want to join in so badly.  I believe it’s Thursdays – and I’m usually not here on Thursdays.

This week I came up on Friday (Dentist appointment) and leave on Wednesday to fly out to Arizona.  Once again – I am missing Thursday morning with the Mouth of Wilson Girls.

Soon.  Hopefully soon.

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Kitchens & Baby Steps

It’s all in the little things.

Shelf and drawer liner is a heinous job, but it put things RIGHT in the kitchen at Quiltville Inn yesterday.

If I can get the kitchen cupboards, cabinets and drawers lined, then I can begin the washing up and placing in of all of the kitchen gadgets that will make this kitchen a happy place for all those who come to stay here.

Heck, if I get the kitchen set up so it is fully operational, I just may move in myself and give it a trial run. Coffee makers, crock pots, pots and pans, baking pans, casserole dishes, and everything anyone could want have been gathered over the past 6 months or so – all new.

The orange handled cooking utensils I purchased with Mona on our trip to Asheville in the spring.  I always wanted some like this – they have a bend in the handle that will rest on the edge of the pot without the ladle or spoon sliding into the stew so you have to go swimming for it.

The gifted towel reads: “Here in the SOUTH we don’t hide CRAZY – we parade it on the front porch and give it a cocktail!”  LOL!  Oh, I love this!

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Weekend Stuff.

Yesterday was a day filled with one phone call after another.  Double checking flight times with siblings all descending on Arizona next Friday.  Who has rental cars?  Can someone pick Rick up at the airport?  No, he’s not flying Allegiant into Mesa, he’s flying Delta into Phoenix.

Why?  Because Allegiant only flies on THURSDAY from Ogden, UT and that will cost him an extra night of hotel -This reminds me of all of the chaos of a family getting ready with all of the details during the beginning scenes of "Home Alone."

Mom, my step-dad Gary, Scott, Alicia, Mike and Nicole are all flying in on Allegiant from Boise on Friday evening getting in close to midnight.  Of course, Allegiant being what it is, it flies from Boise on Fridays, but not on Thursdays.  Should you WANT to fly out of Boise on a Thursday on that airline, you can't.

"Will SOMEONE be around to pick up Rick in Phoenix?"  “Maybe he can take an Uber?” is the reply – and likely a good choice as there will be a plethora of rental cars on the scene as soon as the remainder of the family arrives near midnight Friday night 2 hours after Rick lands. But they are arriving in Mesa, not Phoenix. 

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Two Steps Forward, Three Steps Back.

I sewed last night.

Into the very late hours.

It was a night of “Can’t go to sleep.”

Jeff, who works his lawn maintenance job starting very early in the morning, was off to his own bed by 8pm – leaving me in a house that was too quiet, yet with too many voices echoing through my head.

I had received this very cute signature quilt from the quilters in my class with the Heritage Quilt Guild in Lockport, IL.  Was that only March of this year?  It already feels like so long ago.

I adore the vintage string block center, and decided to carry the theme to the outside edge of the quilt by adding a string pieced border for more color, using strings from recycled shirts. Many of these strings are the remnants of the fabrics used in the quilt I made for Mark when he was diagnosed with glioblastoma nearly 5 years ago.  The fabric remembers.

I was piecing these during our last “impromptu” Quilt-Cam – July 30th.

That also seems like a whole world-away-ago.

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Unfathomable Gifts….

With the Summer Series in Pennsylvania over – and finally being back on my own “turf”, in my own bed – familiar sounds of washing machine, dish washer, icemaker in the fridge clunking away as it drops ice into the hopper every once in a while, all of the stress of the past month-plus (that I thought I was handling rather well) is hitting me.

In the chaos of the past several weeks, there are many things that were forgotten, overlooked, in one ear and out the other, should have written this down, assumed there would be a note, pieces falling through the cracks–

I was doing my best to hold it all together, shooting for some semblance of normalcy when the winds of far away family and the grief of Mark’s passing-to-come were shoved back and compartmentalized. 

I received several remarkable gifts in Pennsylvania – but this one thing, this one thing…I didn’t discover until I unpacked the box on Tuesday morning, after waking to the news that Mark had indeed slipped away.

A HUGE box – full of linens, blue mason jars, Hoosier jars, pottery vases – and in the bottom of the box, folded and protected inside a vintage embroidered pillow case was this quilt.

Where is the name on the box?  How can I contact the giver to thank her once again?

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Painting & Memories

This kitchen may look slightly messy, but it is greatly improved from just a few hours before!

I needed something mindless to do.

Something that required enough concentration to do a good job, but nothing that would require a great amount of creativity.

Something that could be interrupted by wanders out to the front porch, or taking a break to arrange and rearrange some area of the house, every addition getting it closer to being habitable. 

The kitchen is a big job – and one that really needs to be DONE so that I can get the boxes of kitchen “stuff” out of the den and start getting that room ready for quilters, too.

Everything needs to SHIFT – because the kitchen stuff is in the den, which means den stuff is in the dining room, etc.  Bags, boxes, totes and piles.

I love this kitchen, commercial range and all.

On a whim I brought a take & bake pizza over for my lunch and actually USED the oven for the first time.  Of course, it involved finding the manual and actually READING how to turn it on and heat it up.

(Will have to have this manual blown up and laminated for guests!)

My kitchen objective?

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