Our First Week in Bath

Our first week in Bath has flown by and been filled with sight seeing and admin - mostly admin. On the admin front we visited our new house in Hilperton and were lucky enough to get a look inside as it was in the process of being cleaned. First opinions are it is smaller than we are used to but has a great flat backyard and quiet location. It is also within walking distance to a great park and small set of shops with bike paths leading into the main centre of Trowbridge. We visited the local shops at Trowbridge and made our first Argos catalogue purchase of a booster chair for Abbey. Diane (wife of Shane who Nathan is replacing) excelled herself as tour guide and we had our first 'home lunch' 'in country' at her place.

Nathan has put a down payment on a suitably European (and decidedly masculine) Fiat Punto at a local farm - I mean car yard. The whole farm setting was quite an experience but the car looks great so far and the kids are just pleased it is 'spotto' yellow. I will be driving a silver citroen sedan already nicknamed 'silver surfer' by Zac. We have decided that a second GPS is in order as the roads here are rabbit warrens and at the moment everything, while quaint and beautiful, all looks the same.

We now have a provisional phone number. This was not an easy task as we were told our house did not exist on their system. Turns out DHE had given us an incorrect post code. The post codes here only cover quite small specific areas. Houses around the corner, for example, have a different code. Once our code was established it was smooth sailing.

We made our first visit to the school and all came away feeling very welcome and impressed. Heywood is situated in an old wool merchants house built in around 1776. The grounds are all walled and gated giving the whole place a story book look. Abbey will join the Wigwam nursery for 3 days a week under Mrs Jones and Zac will join the 12 other year threes with Mrs Napier. Zac's class room is on the third floor of the main house, the door of which would hit Nathan in the head if he didn't duck. The children were all very friendly and Abbey already started making friends and being looked after in the playground. Zac is a little concerned that the boys wear shorts in winter and truth be told they did look rather cold outside. We hope to have both kids spend a day at school next week to help their transition in the new year. We had lunch at Chippenham which is located near the school and found our way to the outlet shops at Swindon for more christmas shopping and the much needed purchase of new hats and gloves.

On the sight seeing front we have wandered up and down the streets of Bath and spent time browsing the Christmas markets. Our most impressive purchase has been a carved statue of Joseph, Mary and little baby Jesus which has been carved from olive wood from Bethlehem. We toured Bath Abbey which pictures just don't do justice to. Zac has commented that it is much more impressive than St Raphael's (the church at his old school).

We spent one morning walking up past the Circus then on to the Royal Crescent. It was very impressive though Abbey was more impressed by seeing grass again. The highlight of the morning for the kids was the discovery of a fantastic children's park just to the side of Victoria Gardens. They had a ball finally being able to run and play and it makes you realise how hard it must be for kids living in towns like this with so little open space.

After dragging the kids away from the park with bribes of lunch we had our first Cornish pasties (yum!) then went to tour the Roman Baths. This was amazing with excellent commentary for us and a separate one for the kids. It is simply mind blowing that this all existed so long ago - who knew they had underfloor heating in the first century AD.