"I'm wondering... Do you have any rubbers?"
Question is met by a quizzical look by ASDA (British WalMart) employee.
The Dad continues: "Something protective..." here he made a weird hand motion of something being inserted into something else.
His fatal move was not remembering that the Brits haven't called wellies "rubbers" for decades. I guess in his mind he was specifically asking for those weird over-shoes that morticians slip over their dress shoes when they head out to the cemetery, as there were no rain boots for big kids (toddlers, yes; adults, yes; kids, no), and he was grasping...
To back it up... We let the kids sleep in on Tuesday because Monday had been such a weird night, what with the trip to the ER and all. By the time we were all up and ready to go it was raining in sheets. Our list of potential activities for the day were almost all outdoors. I suggested that we suck it up, head to ASDA and just buy rain boots and umbrellas. Being as I was quite behind on the blog, I sent the group ahead. What was supposed to take an hour took two and they all burst through the door in varying states of pissed-off-ness.
The kids: they were infuriated that there were no boots their size. They felt confident that they could have worn the adult boots, but instead The Dad was being "rude," The Sister was being "bossy," and the "problem solving idea" (this said in totally sarcastic voice) was unsafe and ridiculous (they were right -- it was to put plastic bags over their shoes, which would have been very slippery). The Boy could barely sputter and The Girl was almost in tears.
The Dad: furious because he got lost and it was a lot further away than we thought; furious that there were no boots their size and everything was going to cost more than he wanted; furious that the kids were not staying focused -- apparently The Boy was trying on a million silly shoes every chance he got; furious that we were being pansies about the rain; furious that when he tried to run his card the computer didn't like that it was an American VISA, so the employees asked him to wait for confirmation (could take 20 minutes). He could barely open his tight lips to share any of this information.
The Sister: totally embarrassed to have been with them. Apparently The Dad was frowning and saying obscure things to alert all around that he was furious, asking for "rubbers" (and she said, not even finding it funny at the time at all... for the record, when he told me about it he did start cracking up... especially when he showed me the hand motion that he did to try to show the foot going into a protective outer shoe...), and making it clear to the employees that he thought they were incompetent. The kids were being totally naughty. Pretty sure this isn't how she envisioned her European vacation.
So where did that leave us? We were checking out of the hotel, so they had to come all the way back to get me. They left the stuff there, came and got me and our stuff, and then we had to go back to customer service to make sure that their computers were able to properly process the transaction and then get the goods. And what did they decide to get? Inspired by The Boy's recent fascination with shower caps (more on that later) they came up with the brilliant idea to get shower caps to cover their feet, and then put them in not-waterproof, but at $4 -- disposable -- shoes. After walking through ASDA I had to agree that their problem solving was as good as they were going to get (my idea was to go somewhere else, but The Dad shot me daggers through his glasses, so we abandoned that).
Three things that came from the trip to ASDA: 1. We found a best of David Bowie CD that we've been listening to in the car -- very enjoyable. 2. I read the paper while waiting in line and was saddened to discover that these enormous swaths of green that we've been enjoying are in danger. There is a housing crunch, so the government is leaning on communities to give up their surrounding fields and green spaces to build houses. The threat is that if they don't do it their hospitals will be closed. It's obviously much more complicated than that, but that's the gist. It made me feel sick. 3. I kept making The Dad replay the rubbers scene because it made me giggle so. We summed it up: He was Clark Griswold without the funny (of course now it's funny, but apparently at the time it was rather grim).
And so we began our day -- around 2pm. The Sister and I put on our matching WalMarty wellies -- that smell like kerosene, and The Girl put on her bright blue shower caps -- that blossom out of the top of her little black throw-away shoes that look like something a mime would wear. The Boy's shoes weren't so wet at this point, and The Dad was determined to wear his wet shoes to demonstrate that all the fuss was totally not necessary.
Castle Combe was our entry into the Cotswold villages. It's the village that the original Dr. Doolittle was filmed in, and it has been called: "The Prettiest Village in England." The Dad and I had tea at the Manor House once, so we started there. There was a bit of a wait, so we wandered the village and ended up forgoing tea and instead buying some random cakes from an unattended table in front of a person's front door (the sign said to just put the money through the mail slot). Of course this could have been a way to get revenge on the annoying tourists, but we didn't think of that at the time.
Ah, yes. The shower cap. The Boy found one in our hotel room and kept saying, "This is brilliant!" I failed to fully mention that he was wearing the shower cap during the ASDA experience ("It looked like he was trying to protect his hairdo or something -- I finally made him take it off," reported The Sister). He can't understand why the rest of us don't realize how it's the brilliant answer to our rain problem. When we went into the Manor House to inquire about the tea I made him take it off. "Why?" he asked. I don't know why. Part of me thinks it's awesome, and the other part is sympathetic to The Sister. What teenager wants to be seen walking around with a ten-year old boy wearing a shower cap? Even if it is doing a bang-up job of keeping his head dry in the rain...
The Manor House.
One of the earliest working clocks in England can be found inside the church. It doesn't have a face -- at the time it was installed (before 1500) the need was just to ring the bell on the hour so the men working the fields knew the time.
The day really was getting away from us... By the time we got to Bath we couldn't do both things that we wanted to do before the 5pm "last entry." Choosing between the Fashion Museum and the Roman Baths, The Sister went with the academic decision and chose the Roman Baths. I went through the tour once before with my chums that I was "studying-abroad" with. It was fun to get whiffs of that summer, as we would turn a corner and a specific artifact would be like a window showing me that then-me. The tour is done via individual audio players -- you key in the number posted to hear the history. After the first explanation of the animal sacrifices The Girl turned hers off.
The Gorgon found is considered one of the best artifacts of the ancient world. It exemplifies the coming together of two cultures as Celtic stone masons created a classical Roman representation.
Though it was a very small outpost of the Roman Empire, many traveled far to come to the sacred springs that honored Minerva. The locals had already been serving a goddess of healing -- Sulis -- and as she was so similar to Minerva again the two cultures melded and the deity worshipped was called Sulis Minerva.
The curses were what I found most interesting from this tour, and I didn't remember learning about them the last time I toured the Roman Baths. It seems that people would write out curses that they wanted Sulis Minerva to perform, and they would throw those specific instructions into the pools. Most of them were because of things stolen, but as the historian chanting directly into my ear pointed out, most of the things stolen were rather insignificant. In other words, those that were asking for somebody to die, or lose sight, or whatever were most likely people who didn't have much. In a strange way it reminded me of how statistics show that those less financially well-off are the frequent lotto players.
Healing as a spiritual experience. I do think that the two are almost always linked. Nobody ever wants to be ill, but when people talk about huge turn-around events, moments of absolute clarity, times of transcendence -- usually it stems from an illness or accident. It is our mortality that makes us connect with the eternal.
Having skipped lunch, we were happy to finally find refreshment in the pump room. The last time I came to Bath was on a trip with a friend a few years ago. We were in it more for the architecture and Jane Austen-y element. And the pump room is all that. I explained to the kids that the upper class folks would come to Bath on the pretense of health reasons, but really for the social scene, and the pump room is where they would come to partake of the water. If somebody with Austen's keen observation skills could have a few minutes assessing us from across the room -- what with my humidity hair that looks like a bad wig and The Girl's shower caps overflowing her mime shoes -- I'm sure that we would have come off well. Stylish or not, we enjoyed the food and the live piano playing (though why "Someday My Prince Will Come" was chosen I do not know).
We took the tour of the town -- The Circus, and the Crescent not forgotten.
It made me miss that friend who I last wandered with, as she has since moved away. She is somebody whose quick wit and observation skills would have made for a worthy Austen character. On this trip I'm simultaneously wondering what the children and The Sister will retain, while feeling the presence of memories from past trips. Susan Sontag said that everything remembered is dear... because it's in the past, and while we didn't know it at the time, the past is safe. We know that now, because we are on the other side of it -- we survived it. Perhaps during this time of violence and earth quakes and new weather and green belts being eaten up and diseased ears, memories are indeed dear because of the sense of safety that they bring with them. So we must stockpile. Have in each day something to remember.
Even if that's a brutal trip to WalMart, or a banana dolphin that was tossed up to me from the backseat of the car.
We got to the hotel with enough time for the kids to go swimming. Something they were craving after seeing what those Roman's had. I think I'll think of pools differently now -- they can represent the two ways to handle life's set-backs: rush to the edge and throw out curses, or hope to be healed.
