the lack of

With my mental capacity shot to being able to plan only one week in advance, it was left to my flatmate, Frances to book our long weekend holiday to Bath. Gone were Taffy's usual months of planning, of reading guide books, of cross-referencing review sites and making lists of lists. Instead, I found myself packing my bags on the night before departure without silent introspective protest, without any maps, and my life in my daypack.

But as unprepared as I ever was on a holiday, it was onwards to the World Heritage city of Bath. Bath is an amazingly beautiful city. Not in the romantically beautiful sense as I have experienced in Barcelona or Florence, not in the striking and glaring beauty of Hong Kong's harbour or New York's chutzpah, not in the determined sophistication of Melbourne's little laneways. Bath's beauty was mature. Statesmanlike. A city that you would want to be your Prime Minister if the city was a political candidate.

It must have been the sunlight that dazzled my senses. Green green gardens (with free deckchairs for its residents), cobbled steps, reasonably good buskers in city squares and old stately buildings.

Pity about our accommodation. With the students gone, the University of Bath had rented out its student accommodation to the general public and we were to make full use of it. Driving through the pretty campus, we were hopeful of a cosy little student dorm, until we got lost. So lost in fact that we had to ask a (probably) postgraduate student who thought that I was a student checking out the University before classes started in late September. He put us straight - in the direction of the most ugliest building that required nothing more than dynamite. With pale blue doors and rusty lime green bathrooms, circa 1960, we were amazed that students would pay money to live in the prison-like quarters. What was worse was the bedding - the springs were so tough that at night I would fit my shoulder blades in between the springs so that the springs wouldn't dig into my spine.

The aqua-coloured car we hired was much more comfortable, the new-car-smell meking me feel dozy. The first day we headed up north into the Cotswolds which the English rave about. We drove through some lush hills, but became progressively disappointed as we passed through some boring and even more boring English towns. Our idealised notions of quaint little places serving tea was displaced with towns bearing nothing but a few cars parked on the side of the road and some closed pubs. Hours past as we drove north, bypassing towns and then finally screeching to a halt in a traffic jam in some English town which I can't remember the name of. Turns out we were in the waiting line for people packing up their stalls at the local market.

I must commend my own driving. For those that know me, I can be one of those drivers easily panicked - but I impressed myself with handling the lack of speed limit signs, the lack of road signs, the lack of patience on the side of English drivers, and the lack of knowing where the hell I was going. At one stage while my map-reader was asleep, I turned onto the M4 instead of the A4 and almost took us a quarter of the way back to London. Funnily enough I didn't panic (again, despite the lack of turn-offs for miles on end) and merely continued on merrily away until I was able to reverse back to Bath.

The next day was going to be a special one for me. Stonehenge was one of the must-see destinations on my imaginary list, and we headed towards there first thing in the morning. We stopped by a small diner to pick up some breakfast, but then beat a hasty exit when we realised that the 2 ladies working the diner had yet to even take the order of a family of 15 people sitting next to us. Snacking on chips in the car for breakfast, Stonehenge lazily appeared on the horizon - in between 2 major highways. Parking was expensive as was entry, but I was truly excited to see the mysterious stones. Unfortunately you can't walk in between the stones, but I was content to take too many pictures and play tourist for a while.

It was on to Salisbury where we had a Sunday roast pub lunch which the English seem to do very well, and a wander around Salisbury Cathedral which has Britain's tallest spire. We also visited the very bizarre Old Sarum which is an abandoned castle with only the base remaining in the middle of a huge empty moat. It was then a long drive back to Bath through more English towns with nothing more to offer us than somewhere to fill up our petrol.

The last day in Bath (congratulations for getting this far in this post) saw us checking off the rest of our to-do list. We visited the famous Roman Baths which were surprisingly situated right in the heart of Bath (I always thought the Baths were out in the countryside). After a quiet lunch watching a xylophone-playing busker in the town square (while eating a Sally Lunn bun which was meant to be famous but another anti-climax), it was off back to London.

I was glad to get back to London - and not only to get away from the University of Bath's dorms (and its surrounding nondescript towns), but more because there's always special about returning home when you've been travelling, even if it's just to not have springs sticking into your back while you sleep.