Bath sharing with friends - a dream of a day

Today's tale is a story half told. A day that had been planned and looked forward to for months. A day full of anticipation, weather watching, sightseeing, cake eating, tea drinking, chatting and, most of all, friendship.



I visited Bath twenty years ago whilst I was still a student, I remember its beauty, the grandeur of its buildings and very little else. This week I visited Bath with my family, saw once again its beauty and experienced its great charm, this time however, I was lucky enough to share it with lovely new friends. Yes the Ragged Roses got to meet The Custard Clan on their home turf.



Way back in the spring when the sun still shone and summer was a sunny dream on the horizon, Mrs Custard managed to squeeze a few hours with us on a whistlestop trip to the south coast and we had been hoping to reciprocate ever since. This blogging business is a funny thing isn't it, we strike up friendships, we share our daily news and hopes and sometimes, if we're really lucky we get to meet the people who have become part of our lives. I don't know what I'd do without my daily banter with Mrs Custard, how strange to have struck such a deep friendship at the other side of the country with somebody who I have only met once before.



So there we were on a very wet Monday morning being greeted by the very lovely Mr C at Bath station. Five minutes later we're all sitting around the kitchen table, drinking tea, eating the most scrummy cakes and acting as if we'd known each other a life time, conversations continued that started in the ether and ended next to an Aga, how surreal is that?



As we walked around Bath with our wonderful hosts I have to say that whilst I noticed the beautiful golden stone of the buildings, the seemingly endless beauty of the Georgian buildings and my daughters floated around the magnificent Assembly Rooms with imaginary fans and parasols in their hands, it all felt very surreal.



We had been transported into another world, a world that we had had glimpses of through blog posts, a world that strangely resembled the Jane Austen novels that we love.



At the end of the very long day when we returned home, it felt a bit as if it were a dream, hazy beautiful memories, time slipping through our fingers, conversations peppering the day and most of all the warmth and kindness of our hosts and friends.