The weekend just gone was our 2nd EXEAT (boarder's leave and no work for us) so we decided to head to Bath on Friday.

We got up early for breakfast and had a minor freak out about train ticket prices - Caitlin thought a return ticket had gone up £20 overnight - but it turned out fine. We took the train to Marylebone, then one to Paddington, and another to Bath Spa, the station at Bath. All up a 3 hour trip from High Wycombe. Coming into Bath on the train, we got fantastic views of the hillsides covered in old houses. We walked to our hostel although we couldn't find it at first as the sign was very small and there weren't many street numbers. We arrived a couple of hours before check-in so we left our bags in a locker and had a walk around. We got pasties for lunch (spinach/feta and Moroccan veg), sat down on a bench in the middle of the main street to eat (and it wasn't too cold!) and then got McFlurries. We found a little indoor market, where Janet and I bought little mother of pearl rings for £1 and saw lots of yummy cakes. Then we headed to Bath Abbey to meet for a free walking tour. Our guide Colin took us from the Abbey, Roman baths and Pump Room (cafe) down Bath Street, past the Cross Baths (formerly only for the rich), the Theatre Royal, Queen's Square, the 'Circus', a half-ellipse of Georgian houses, past the Fashion Museum and Assembly Rooms and Jolly's, the oldest department store (in Britain?). After the 2 hour tour we rushed back to the hostel to get our bags out of the locker and check in. We found our way to Sally Lunn's Eating House, where the Sally Lunn Bun is a must-eat, according to Bath's tourist website. You get half a bun - they are massive - with whatever topping you want; between us we got raspberry, cinnamon and lemon curd, all really nice and the big hot chocolate was delicious too. We sat in the Jane Austen room, and then we had a look at the museum downstairs which was nothing special. Nearby we saw a sweets shop, a fudge shop and an ice-cream shop but by that time they were all shut.

I'd read on the Bath website that the theatre has 40 standby tickets for their show each night for £6 so we went and asked about that. History Boys was showing but at 8pm, and Rose was to arrive at 8:30pm so we decided to save that for Saturday night. We headed back to the hostel and up to the 'chill out room' where we didn't do much. We went to meet Rose at the station and then tried to find somewhere to eat. We ended up at Wagamama, bad I know seeing as they're in Melbourne and High Wycombe, but my gyozas were really yummy. After dinner we went down to the bar/inn which is right next to the dorms and is where reception for the accommodation is. We got cheap drinks because we were staying there but there wasn't really that much going on - bad bands - so we headed up to bed about 11:30 I think.

Saturday morning at 2am, we were woken by these bitch bogan Aussies who came in and turned the lights on and kicked Rose out of her ('their') bed. Not very impressed. We got up at 8am and went down for free breakfast, not exactly like Wombat's though - just cereal, toast and drinks. We walked to the Jane Austen centre, realised it wasn't open for another 15 minutes, and went inside Queen's Square nearby, which is a pretty little square with a tall monument, blossoms, and weirdly-shaped trees. We went back and bought tickets for JA and got a little introduction about her family life and time in Bath. Then we walked through the exhibition, and watched a short video, and ended in the gift shop. There were a few pieces of clothing in the exhibition too. We went back to the theatre to find out about standby tickets for that night and had 25 minutes till the tickets went on sale so we went down to the bead, sweets and fudge shops. The fudge was seriously amazing; wish I could say the same about the jazzles/jazzies (freckles) I bought at the sweets shop which were just gross. We went back and bought our tickets and then had not very long till our tour to Stonehenge was supposed to start. We chose, ordered and scoffed 2 pizzas between us really quickly and then rushed to the tourist info shop to find out where to meet, before rushing there. Only to find that we were booked in for the earlier tour that day, and that they were now full, and could we come tomorrow morning? So then we were sad that we couldn't savour our pizza, but we went and got joint tickets for the Baths and Fashion Museum for £13.30.

The baths were pretty amazing, lots of statues around the top of Roman governors of Britain and Emperors with connections to Britain. It had an audio guide although you couldn't listen to everything if you wanted to see it all. We ended up at the Pump Room where we got a free taste of the hot spring water. Quite weird, apparently it has like 40 minerals in it, but we drank it all. It's probably good for you. We headed off for the fashion museum, where we also had portable audio guides. There were 3 exhibitions - wedding dresses over the 20th century (perhaps earlier), 'behind the scenes' which was just their archives split up into decades with a little about each decade and the main trends, and the last one was changes to day and evening wear over the 20th century, including the dress of the year and fashion in music. We also tried on corsets and very shapely skirts.

After this we were all pretty tired so we looked for a cafe. The first one we went into didn't have bath buns so we just got drinks and then went to the patisserie nearby for sweets. We ate them in the chillout room: the bun was really nice, a bit subtle but then with a nice sweet sticky bit in the middle. We got ready for the theatre and ate dinner at the inn. Woo discounts! My qauesadilla was yummy although the meals took a little while. Our seats at the theatre were limited to the 2 very back rows; we sat in the second last for the first half then moved back to see better for the second half. It was a bit of a weird show, but very amusing. When we came out it was raining and our half-plan to go out afterwards wasn't really on our minds anymore. We went to bed pretty much straightaway when we got back.

On Sunday we got up at 7:30am so we could have a nice breakfast and pack up and get to the Stonehenge tour at 9:30am. We decided we would buy breakfast, seeing as we got such good discounts. Greer and I shared pancakes for £1.50 and an omelette with mozzarella and tomato for £2. They were both really tasty but they took a lot longer than the others'!

We found our purple tour bus and put some of our bags in the bus as we had to take everything with us (we would get back after check-out). The bus was really bouncy but the countryside was gorgeous and our driver pointed out lots of things on the way including cottages with thatched rooves and the white chalk horse on the side of a hill a couple of miles away. We arrived at 10:20am and had an hour to have a look. The stones were actually a lot smaller than any of us thought they would be and pretty much right on the road! The barriers took us all the way around the outside so my photos show lots of different angles. We had another audio guide for this too, but I'm not sure how much I actually took in. The voice would say 'move onto the next spot, but keep listening' and then it would keep talking. The giftshop was really crowded so we didn't spend long in there and we headed back to the bus. We got back at 12:30pm and headed straight to the station. Buses were replacing trains till 4pm so we found out how to get back (they print out a really helpful slip which tells you exactly where/when/what to do - bus, train, train, train, bus) and Rose and I left while Caitlin, Greer and Janet waited for the bus to go straight back as they all had to work. I worked the Sunday evening of last EXEAT, so that's another good thing about having 2 gaps in the house.

Rose and I got ice-cream, reeally good, and then went inside the Bath Abbey. There were no tours happening as it was Sunday, but it was so gorgeous. I was running out of space on my camera but I managed to get some nice shots. We went and bought more fudge seeing as it was so so so good and then had a look in some shops, which just made us a bit depressed. We went and got a late lunch at a cute place where we sat upstairs in a bright, way too hot room with an orange feature wall and shared a panini and soup. We stopped in the souvenir shop on the way to the station and then began our 4 hour trip home of bus to Swindon, train to Paddington, train to Marylebone, train to Amersham, bus to High Wycombe, walk up the hill. Fun fun. We got home just after 7pm.