"Didn't we have a lovely time...?"

The Travellers' Club were going to Bath, rather than Bangor (for those that remember the song), and the weather was glorious.
I've been to Bath once before, on a coach holiday about 25 years ago. We stayed at Pratt's Hotel, which had specially widened staircases up to the first floor so that sedan chairs could be carried up to a resident's room. I went to find the hotel again yesterday, and I have to say I hadn't realised that it was so posh!

It was originally five town houses, one of which was lived in for a while by Sir Walter Scott.

When I last visited, I went to the Roman Baths, but had missed out on the Fashion Museum, so this time I climbed the hill to the Assembly Rooms first. It was worth the £7.75 entrance fee - there are some fascinating dresses there (and a few items of male attire). The oldest dress there was the Silver Tissue dress, a Court dress from 1660, and the most recent was from last year. I also now know what a mantua is - I'd always vaguely imagined it was a sort of veil, but it is actually an eighteenth century Court dress which is fairly flat front and back, but sticks out about three feet on each side! If a lady turned round too quickly, she could knock people over!

At lunch time, I found the most wonderful tea room, underneath this shop:

They had a menu of different teas and coffees, and the most glorious cakes. I had the Russian Caravan Tea, originally carried on camel-back from China to Russia, and picking up a slightly smoky taste from the nightly campfires on the way, with the lemon drizzle cake. I got four cups of tea from the pot, which came with a timer. When the tea was ready to drink, it made a beeping noise so you could take out the infuser (and put it in a little bowl) for perfect tasting tea. I bought a bag of tea to take away with me, too.

In the afternoon, I went off the beaten track a bit to the William Herschel Museum of Astronomy. This is in the house where William and his sister Caroline lived - and I have now stood in the little back garden where the planet Uranus was discovered with a telescope Herschel had built himself, including hand polishing the mirrors.

Later I found the market hall, and picked up some beers from the local Bath Brewery from a wonderful wine, cheese and beer stall run by a Frenchman. Their symbol is a leaping hare, so I got Golden Hare, Wild Hare and Dark Side.

And to round it all off, I found a Hobgoblin pub near the coach park, (Hobgoblin beer is made by the Wychwood Brewery) where they had more Bath ales on hand pump, so I was able to try Barnsey and Gem, both of which were very nice.

Another lady on the coach was looking forward to visiting the American Museum, and she came back with a lovely little posy of flowers from them.

On the coach on the way home Sandra Havard, who runs the Community Support office, had some serious news. Funding has been cut over the last few years, while the need for the work they do has increased, and at the moment they are struggling to keep going month by month. It can't go on for much longer. There's a lot of bureaucracy behind the scenes that has to be done, with seemingly arbitrary targets that they have to meet (which wastes time when they could be doing what they were set up to do). So it may be that, at the end of September, the whole thing will have to close down. No more Travellers' Club, or Luncheon Club, or the One to One service they provide, or any of the other things that they have been doing to help the community over the past twenty years.

For the moment, they are still fund-raising. They are holding a Midsummer Concert with the Monday Choir at 7pm on Friday 19th July, at the Church of the Holy Trinity, Bettws, Clyro. The price of tickets is £7, including a drink and nibbles. And, of course, there was the raffle on the bus.