Weekend Bath

Spent a jolly weekend visiting Tabflower and Hubby and Bean. A city with hills and views is rather a novelty to me at the moment, even more so a kitchen with a view of hills - so I gladly volunteered to do the washing-up!

Off down the Kennet and Avon canal on a borrowed bike (made me realise that my brakes are not exactly state of the art...) to dodge all the other Sunday cyclists, strollers, joggers, etc. It's rather different from the canal towpaths which I normally frequent.

This surreal sculpture may be connected with the nearby narrow-boat - a narrow-boat you can imagine Tolkien describing (if you can imagine Tolkien imagining narrowboats) - with round windows, doors, and a roof made of coppice poles. Just one of many lovingly-adapted boats, stretching along much of the ten miles to Bradford-on-Avon. Lots of arty recycled windows, gardens in containers on roofs, even a 'green' roofed boat. I liked the slogan in one window: "We're all here 'cos we're not all here". I wonder if this is where some of the people who were called New Age Travellers by the media 15-odd years ago have ended up. It seems an idyllic lifestyle, living on a narrowboat, but it could just as easily be pretty tough. It was obvious that some boat dwellers were not able to spend much money on upkeep. I didn't take any photos, as I feel it is rather cheeky.