The bloggers daughter wanted to go to Bath today and shop. Not always the best idea on a weekend Saturday but she also had the wish to eat at the Scallop Shell a renowned fish and chip shop there. As fathers do I relented and agreed to go. The journey west was uneventful but as I turned off the Motorway the heavens opened in biblical flood mode. For 7 hours there was non stop rain. The City with its narrow streets and parking restrictions would deter anyone to drive there. I eventually found a parking space only to find the pay machine was out of order. The car behind me had been clamped and chained like a slave. Fear gripped me and only my daughter recognised that I could download a parking app. We did this only to find maximum stay was one hour. The rain continued and Bath darkened with its de minimis street lighting.
My daughter and wife shopped as I remained with the car. I thought and wondered why the Romans had ever come here to this awful place. Ok they found a hot spring and built a temple with baths but why did they bother ? Worse they stayed for 350 years until their Empire folded and they returned to Italy in 410 AD. Supposedly a beautiful City let me tell you it’s not. You can’t get around easily the streets are hilly and the Portland Stone darkens the streets. The local Government has created a one way system that is dreadful and the bikes lanes and bus lanes torment.
Time came to visit the Scallop Shell highly favoured by my old chef friend Marco Pierre White . Yes it was battered cod, doorstep chips , mushy peas , tartare sauce , ketchup on the side but not fabulous and there are a few chip shops on the coasts of Britain that could match the deal at a quarter of the price. Yet we were in the centre of Bath where the overheads undoubtedly go over everyone’s head.
I realised then clearly why the Romans left Bath as the rain lashed against the windows of the restaurant and the buses rolled waves of water over us. The Romans left Bath because they didn’t like fish and chips preferring pasta and a bolognaise sauce. The Romans didn’t like paying the ULEZ charge recently introduced as a rue for clean air charge when the place is filthy anyway. As for the baths I didn’t need one as I got sufficiently soaked in the rain as I trod in the steps of Julius Caesar. They brought us roads , narrow ones and central heating. We gave them fish and chips. They left, they came , they saw , they left. Marco Pierre White was Italian surely ? No he was from Leeds and the Romans never went there.
qbitblogger 